Oral Answers to Questions

Karen Lee Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

9. What assessment he has made of the effect of the local government finance settlement on the ability of local authorities to meet their statutory responsibilities.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

19. What assessment he has made of the effect of the local government finance settlement on the ability of local authorities to meet their statutory responsibilities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)]

Our fair and sustainable financial settlement gives local authorities the ability to protect important local services. It marks the third of a four-year deal, providing funding certainty to local government and a real-terms increase in available resources to the sector.

[Karen Lee]

How does the Minister intend to ensure that, under the fairer funding review, individual local authorities receive an adequate level of funding that is not only fair, but sustainable, given that the Government’s intention to reset the business rates baseline from 2020-21 may result in all the individual growth that has been built up since the start of the business retention scheme being taken away? Can the Minister provide any assurances that this growth will be protected?

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Housing (Dominic Raab)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We delivered 217,000 new homes last year, which is 50% more than the last year of the last Labour Government. We want to get that level up to 300,000. We have planning reform, release of public sector land and targeted funding to achieve that, which is crucial for key workers, the next generation and those on low and middle incomes.

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

T5. City of Lincoln Council is aiming to build 500 homes in the next five years to help to tackle its waiting list of more than 1,000 house- holds. If the Government will not consider raising the borrowing cap on local housing revenue accounts, how do they plan to tackle the shortage of truly affordable rented housing?

[Dominic Raab]

We have, of course, raised the cap by £1 billion. It needs to be done in a responsible way, because we have to consider the amount of debt that has been taken on, but we will keep it under review. That is one aspect of the huge drive towards building the extra homes we need. I have talked about some of those issues, including targeted funding and release of public sector land. We want to make sure that we get up to the annual target of 300,000 as soon as possible.