Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to help young people to get on the housing ladder.
Answered by Jake Berry
The Government is committed to building a housing market which works for everyone. We recognise that for too many people home-ownership is affordable. Addressing this affordability challenge requires building the homes our country needs. That is why we intend to deliver 300,000 homes per year, the largest annual increase in housing supply since the 1970s.
Since 2010, over half a million households have been helped to purchase a home through government backed schemes including Help to Buy and Right to Buy. The recent Evaluation of Help to Buy: Equity Loan from 2015 to 2017 found that 63 per cent of first-time buyers benefiting from the scheme were under 35 years old.
Building on this, the 2017 Autumn Budget announced a new stamp duty land tax relief benefiting 95 per cent of first time buyers who pay it – over 18,500 have been helped so far.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans his Department has to provide for further devolution of powers in relation to political decision-making throughout England.
Answered by Jake Berry
The Government remains committed to setting out our approach to devolution and providing clarity for local areas. We will look to publish our approach as soon as practicable after our exit from the EU.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans his Department has to place restrictions on the expansion of out of town shopping centres to protect high streets.
Answered by Jake Berry
The revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) reaffirms our commitment to the town centre first approach, which has been in place for two decades, by stating that main town centre uses should, where possible, be located in town centres.
The Framework is also clear that if an application fails to satisfy the sequential test, or if an application for retail and leisure development outside of a town centre has an adverse impact on existing centres, it should be refused.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to improve social cohesion.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
In March 2018, the Government published the Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper which set out our ambitious goal to build strong integrated communities where people - whatever their background - live, work, learn and socialise together, based on shared rights, responsibilities and opportunities. On 9 February 2019, we published the Integrated Communities Action Plan alongside the government’s response to the consultation on the Green Paper. The Action Plan builds upon the proposals set out in the Green Paper and commits the government to deliver over 70 policy actions by the end of this Parliament.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to (a) support the provision of new parks and green spaces and (b) maintain existing parks and green spaces.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
In 2019, the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government has:
The Government recognises the value of parks and green spaces in providing vibrant and inclusive locations for communities to socialise, volunteer, work, and exercise. Access to green spaces fosters health, well-being, integration, and social engagement. Government will continue to work with the Parks Sector to help support the sustainability of parks and green spaces.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of (a) out of town shopping centres and (b) online shopping on the health of town centres and high streets.
Answered by Jake Berry
The revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) reaffirms our commitment to the town centre first approach, to maintain footfall and avoid undermining their vitality. This makes it clear that in the first instance main town centre uses, such as retail, leisure and office should be located in town centres.
Between February 2009 and February 2019, the share of online retailing as a percentage of all retail sales increased from 5.9 per cent to 17.6 per cent. However, 82.4 per cent of retail is still generated from physical retail.
We recognise that changing consumer behaviour presents a significant challenge for retailers in our town centres. That is why we set out ‘Our Plan for the High Street’ at Autumn budget, to support the sustainable transformation of high streets. This includes a £675 million Future High Streets Fund to support local areas in England to invest in town centre infrastructure, a High Streets Task Force to give high streets and town centres expert advice to adapt and thrive, and measures on business rates and planning.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment he has made of the quality of new build homes produced by (a) large house builders, (b) medium house builders and (c) small house builders and (d) micro house builders.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The design quality of homes and places are determined by the revised National Planning Policy Framework and Building Regulations, to which all house builders have to adhere. It is for local planning authorities to assess the design quality of schemes submitted to them, on the basis of national and local policy, and regulation.
It is also vital that, as housing supply increases, the build quality of new build homes continues to improve. We know more needs to be done to strengthen consumer redress for purchasers of new build homes delivered by all sizes of developers, which is why on 1 October, we announced our intention for there to be a New Homes Ombudsman to protect the rights of homebuyers and hold developers to account. When Parliamentary time allows, we intend to introduce legislation to require developers of new build homes to belong to a New Homes Ombudsman, which will be underpinned in statute.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans he has to support SME diversification into the off-site manufacturing sector for the construction of new build homes.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government recognises that building more homes needs a modern home building industry, with greater capacity to deliver. We are therefore keen to see all house builders, including Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs), embrace innovation and take advantage of new technologies to build good-quality homes more quickly and offer higher-energy efficiency to buyers.
We continue to improve access to finance for small and medium-sized builders, to help them deliver more homes including through diversifying and using offsite construction methods to build new homes.
We are providing financial support through the Home Building Fund which provides short term and long term loan finance to build the homes this country needs. At Autumn budget 2017, the successful Home Building Fund was increased by £1.5 billion to a total of £2.5 billion for investment in SMEs, custom builders and builders using modern methods of construction who cannot easily access finance. This funding will deliver at least 52,000 homes by 2022/23 and 94 per cent of contracted spend to date has been invested in SMEs.
In addition, Government announced up to £1 billion guarantee scheme at Autumn budget 2018. This will be available to lenders to provide new finance to SMEs. The guarantee scheme will be launched in early 2019/20.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the change in (a) speed of decision making and (b) overall performance of local authority planning departments since they were permitted to increase planning fees in January 2018.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Department is continuously monitoring the speed and quality of local planning authority decision making through our planning application statistics, which are updated on a quarterly basis. We are also working closely with the Local Government Association and the Royal Town Planning Institute to further understand local planning authority resourcing and performance following the introduction of the fee increase.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he will take to improve access to finance for small and medium-sized house builders.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government recognises that building more homes needs a modern home building industry, with greater capacity to deliver. We are therefore keen to see all house builders, including Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs), embrace innovation and take advantage of new technologies to build good-quality homes more quickly and offer higher-energy efficiency to buyers.
We continue to improve access to finance for small and medium-sized builders, to help them deliver more homes including through diversifying and using offsite construction methods to build new homes.
We are providing financial support through the Home Building Fund which provides short term and long term loan finance to build the homes this country needs. At Autumn budget 2017, the successful Home Building Fund was increased by £1.5 billion to a total of £2.5 billion for investment in SMEs, custom builders and builders using modern methods of construction who cannot easily access finance. This funding will deliver at least 52,000 homes by 2022/23 and 94 per cent of contracted spend to date has been invested in SMEs.
In addition, Government announced up to £1 billion guarantee scheme at Autumn budget 2018. This will be available to lenders to provide new finance to SMEs. The guarantee scheme will be launched in early 2019/20.