Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether HM Land Registry has a duty to report if property in the UK is purchased by other nation states.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
HM Land Registry records show that The People’s Republic of China is the registered proprietor of 58 registered titles in England and Wales.
Two further titles are registered in the name of The Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China, and four titles are registered in the name of The National Tourism Administration of the People's Republic of China.
Although HM Land Registry does not have a formal duty to report new acquisitions of UK land registered in the name of foreign states, this information is held by HM Land Registry and can be accessed where required by government and others subject to the general law relating to data protection and freedom of information.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many properties registered with HM Land Registry are owned by the People's Republic of China.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
HM Land Registry records show that The People’s Republic of China is the registered proprietor of 58 registered titles in England and Wales.
Two further titles are registered in the name of The Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China, and four titles are registered in the name of The National Tourism Administration of the People's Republic of China.
Although HM Land Registry does not have a formal duty to report new acquisitions of UK land registered in the name of foreign states, this information is held by HM Land Registry and can be accessed where required by government and others subject to the general law relating to data protection and freedom of information.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many full-time equivalent staff in his Department have been employed for the purpose of making social media content in each of the past three years.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Due to the difficulty of disaggregating the number of staff who are employed to produce social media content from staff who are employed to work on broader digital communications, it is not possible to report exact figures in response to this question.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many and what proportion of civil servants in his Department are (a) on temporary contract and (b) consultants.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Department engages temporary workers and consultants where there is a business requirement that means it will be more beneficial to do so in order to provide the necessary expertise or a short-term resourcing solution where permanent capability is not required.
As of 30 November 2025, (a) 143 civil servants in the Department were employed on temporary contracts - approximately 4% of the Department’s full-time equivalent (FTE) workforce.
Information on the number of off-payroll engagements, including (b) consultants engaged by the Department, is published as part of the Department’s Workforce Management Information, which is available here.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many residential buildings have registered with the Building Safety Fund in (a) South Holland and the Deepings constituency and (b) Lincolnshire.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
No buildings in South Holland and the Deepings constituency registered with the Building Safety Fund. Between 1 and 5 buildings in Lincolnshire registered and have since been transferred to the Cladding Safety Scheme to streamline delivery. To note the department does not hold complete addresses for buildings that did not proceed to a full application.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how much HM Land Registry has spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
HM Land Registry (HMLR) has spent £52,336 on translation and interpretation services, including sign-language interpretation, in the previous 5 years as below.
The significant majority of the expenditure relates to translating HMLR official documents into Welsh under the statutory requirements set out in the Welsh Language Act 1993.
2020-21 14,718
2021-22 10,357
2022-23 8,917
2023-24 6,955
2024-25 11,389
Grand Total 52,336
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will list the titles of all the events organised by Civil Service networks in his Department since 2017.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at a disproportionate cost to the Department.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many (a) single sex and (b) gender neutral bathroom facilities his Department provides in its main Whitehall building.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
MHCLG’S main Whitehall building, in (Fry) 2 Marsham Street has 60 single sex toilets with 3 cubicles in each, and 0 urinals. We do not have non-gendered universal toilets (individual self-contained lockable toilet rooms which contain a toilet, washbasin and hand-drying facilities). However, we do have 10 accessible toilets for our wheelchair users.
(Fry) 2 Marsham Street does not have any gender-neutral toilets (i.e. toilets where users, of any gender, share a single space containing toilet cubicles, urinal facilities and shared hand washing facilities).
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent steps has he taken to help tackle council tax fraud.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Council tax is administered by local authorities. It is therefore for them to manage and address any potential cases of fraud in the council tax system. Councils have powers to impose penalties on households which knowingly provide false information as well as a range of powers to recover and enforce unpaid council tax. Our plain English guide to council tax highlights councils’ powers to address fraud. The government will continue to keep these powers under review.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what data his Department holds on the number of fire service call outs in response to fires involving solar panels in England for each of the last five years.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
MHCLG collects data on incidents attended by Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs) in England through the Incident Recording System (IRS), which includes the cause of fire and source of ignition. These statistics are published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fire-statistics.
However, the IRS does not record whether an incident involved solar panels. As a result, the Department does not hold data on the number of fire service call outs specifically involving solar panels for the last five years.
Additional information is available here: Number of fires in England with “solar panel” or “photovoltaic panel” mentioned in the additional information free text - GOV.UK. This dataset is based on free-text searches for “solar panel” and “photovoltaic panel” in IRS records, by calendar year. As these results are not systematically categorised, accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. Mentions of solar panels may not be closely linked to the fire, as the phrase “solar panel” may have been included in the free-text as part of a wider context, and some FRSs provide no free-text data. The dataset was last analysed and published in 2023, covering the calendar year to December 2022.