Asked by: John Pugh (Liberal Democrat - Southport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, approximately how many (a) British and (b) non-British nationals are employed cleaning the Westminster estate of his Department.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The Department for Communities and Local Government shares its Westminster office space with the Home Office. I refer the hon Member to the answer to PQ number 47565.
Asked by: John Pugh (Liberal Democrat - Southport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what proportion of staff on the payroll of his Department who work in Westminster are (a) British nationals and (b) nationals of another country.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
All government departments are bound by legal requirements concerning the right to work in the UK and, in addition, the Civil Service Nationality Rules.
Evidence of nationality is checked at the point of recruitment into the Civil Service as part of wider pre-employment checks, but there is no requirement on departments to retain this information beyond the point at which it has served its purpose.
Asked by: John Pugh (Liberal Democrat - Southport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what information his Department holds on the proportion of new build properties excluding flats that has been sold as leasehold in each of the last here years.
Answered by Lord Barwell
The department does not hold this information. The department published an estimate of the number of leasehold dwellings in 2014. As Table 1 (see link below) shows, in 2012-13 there were approximately 1.3 million leasehold properties that were not flats. The remaining 2.8 million leasehold dwellings were flats.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/342628/Residential_Leasehold_dwellings_in_England.pdf
Asked by: John Pugh (Liberal Democrat - Southport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, which local authorities have received how many Syrian refugees.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
My rt. hon. Friend, the Prime Minister announced on 16 December that we have delivered on the promise to resettle 1,000 vulnerable Syrian refugees before Christmas. We can also confirm that as of the beginning of December 2015, 55 local authorities across the UK had signed up to participate in the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme and made confirmed offers of places.
In order to help protect the privacy of those arriving, we will not be giving a running commentary on location or numbers of persons resettled. Notwithstanding, the Home Office is committed to publishing data in an orderly way as part of the regular quarterly Immigration Statistics. The next set of figures will be in the quarterly release in February 2016 and will cover the period October-December 2015. This adheres to the standard practice for the release of information about the work of the Department, ensuring statistics are published properly in a way which is open and accessible to all.
Asked by: John Pugh (Liberal Democrat - Southport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the number of children who will be homeless between 1 December 2015 and 1 January 2016.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
We have maintained homelessness prevention funding for local authorities, through the provisional local government finance settlement totalling £315 million by 2019/20.
We have increased central government funding for homelessness programmes to £139 million over the Spending Review period.
There were 103,430 children and expected children in temporary accommodation arranged by local authorities in England as at 30 September 2015. The Department does not produce forecasts of homelessness.
Asked by: John Pugh (Liberal Democrat - Southport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what revenue contribution the Government has made to Sefton Council for the support of services in each of the last five years.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
This information for the years 2011-12 to 2014-15 is already publicly available as part of Sefton Council’s annual Statement of Accounts, published on their website: https://www.sefton.gov.uk/your-council/open-data,-transparency-and-foi/council-budget-and-spending.aspx
For 2015-16, the Local Government Finance Settlement for England was agreed by Parliament on 10 February 2015. Further details can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/final-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2015-to-2016
My Department does not hold a list of all grant allocations to local authorities over the current financial year, many of which are provided by other Departments. Sefton Council will release this information as part of their Statement of Accounts for 2015/16.
Asked by: John Pugh (Liberal Democrat - Southport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, on what date the £75 million Mayoral Investment Fund pledged as part of the Liverpool City Region Deal was paid to Liverpool City Council.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
The Department for Communities and Local Government contributed £75 million in economic development funds as part of the Liverpool City Deal, with payments to Liverpool City Council on 30 April 2013 (£60 million) and 1 May 2014 (£15 million).
Asked by: John Pugh (Liberal Democrat - Southport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to devolve powers to people resident in (a) West Lancashire and (b) Lancashire.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
The Government has introduced the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill that will enable the devolution of powers to local areas to drive economic growth. The Government welcomes proposals for increased powers and greater freedoms to maximise economic growth from all parts of the country and I met with the Lancashire Local Enterprise Partnership on Friday 3 July to hear how this opportunity can build on the Preston, South Ribble and Lancashire City Deal and Lancashire Growth Deal.
Asked by: John Pugh (Liberal Democrat - Southport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether the Local Government Boundary Commission can initiate a boundary review of a local authority in response to public representations without direct instruction from the Secretary of State or a request from the local authority in question.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The independent Local Government Boundary Commission for England may undertake a principal area boundary review at the request of a local council or the Secretary of State, or on their own initiative.
Asked by: John Pugh (Liberal Democrat - Southport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether as part of a city region devolution existing local authority boundaries can be varied where a case is made for doing so.
Answered by Mark Francois
We are ready to have conversations with any area about their proposals for devolving powers and for the strong and accountable governance to support such powers, including governance proposals involving changes to local authority boundaries.