Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department plans to put in place a mechanism for developers and local authorities to agree the number of social homes which will be required as part of a development in an investment zone.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The policy of Investment Zones is at an early stage of development, with councils having been asked to express their interest in the concept at this stage only. Published guidance can be found herehttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investment-zones-in-england-expression-of-interest#:~:text=You%20must%20complete%20the%20EOI,support%20for%20the%20local%20economy. Further details will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of investment zones on affordable homes.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The policy of Investment Zones is at an early stage of development, with councils having been asked to express their interest in the concept at this stage only. Published guidance can be found herehttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investment-zones-in-england-expression-of-interest#:~:text=You%20must%20complete%20the%20EOI,support%20for%20the%20local%20economy. Further details will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what plans he has to increase the threshold at which developers must build affordable housing within investment zone.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The policy of Investment Zones is at an early stage of development, with councils having been asked to express their interest in the concept at this stage only. Published guidance can be found herehttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investment-zones-in-england-expression-of-interest#:~:text=You%20must%20complete%20the%20EOI,support%20for%20the%20local%20economy. Further details will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what estimate he has made of the number of homes that will be built across all Investment Zones by 2025.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The underlying purpose of Investment Zones is to work with local partners to deliver quicker. To do that, we first need to understand what proposals local authorities have for this hence the expression of interest process which recently closed.
Responses are now being analysed and such analysis needs to be completed before any announcements can be made.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of the proposal by the Mayor of London to seize properties owned by Russian oligarchs.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Government is already taking action against the billions of pounds worth of UK property accumulated by the Russian state-linked individuals and companies. We have frozen the assets of those individuals on the sanctions list and are taking further steps on land ownership transparency through the Economic Crime Bill. We will set out details in due course. If the Mayor of London wants to make further suggestions via his office, he is welcome to get in touch with my officials.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to increase the supply of affordable housing.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
We are committed to increasing the supply of affordable homes and are investing over £12 billion in affordable housing. This is the largest investment in affordable housing since 2010.
This includes our new Affordable Homes Programme which will provide up to 180,000 affordable homes, should economic conditions allow.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
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 potential merits of using the Indices of Multiple Deprivation to prioritise investments through the UK Community Renewal Fund.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
To ensure the UK Community Renewal Fund funding reaches the most in need, we have identified 100 priority places based on an index of economic resilience across Great Britain which measures productivity, household income, unemployment, skills and population density. We are committed to transparency and a methodological note explaining how the 100 priority places were determined has been published: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-community-renewal-fund-prospectus/uk-community-renewal-fund-prioritisation-of-places-methodology-note.
The Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) does not represent a ‘one size fits all’ solution to measuring economic need - not all of the variables it considers are relevant to the particular interventions we want to support through the UK Community Renewal Fund, and some of the variables it does not consider, such as productivity, are central to the policy goals of the Fund.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how the measure of household income used for the index of economic resilience for the UK Community Renewal Fund differs from the Income Deprivation Domain used in the Indices of Multiple Deprivation.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
To ensure the UK Community Renewal Fund funding reaches the most in need, we have identified 100 priority places based on an index of economic resilience across Great Britain which measures productivity, household income, unemployment, skills and population density. We are committed to transparency and a methodological note explaining how the 100 priority places were determined has been published: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-community-renewal-fund-prospectus/uk-community-renewal-fund-prioritisation-of-places-methodology-note.
The Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) does not represent a ‘one size fits all’ solution to measuring economic need - not all of the variables it considers are relevant to the particular interventions we want to support through the UK Community Renewal Fund, and some of the variables it does not consider, such as productivity, are central to the policy goals of the Fund.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, for what reasons the Government does not plan to publish immediately the methodology used to calculate the index employed to categorise places for the Levelling Up Fund and UK Community Renewal Fund.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
To ensure the UK Community Renewal Fund funding reaches the most in need, we have identified 100 priority places based on an index of economic resilience across Great Britain which measures productivity, household income, unemployment, skills and population density.
We are committed to transparency and a methodological note explaining how the 100 priority places were determined has been published: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-community-renewal-fund-prospectus/uk-community-renewal-fund-prioritisation-of-places-methodology-note.
As set out in the prospectus published at Budget, the index used for the Levelling Up Fund places areas into category one, two or three based on the local area’s need for economic recovery and growth, improved transport connectivity, and regeneration.
We have published the index and further details of the methodology used to calculate the index of places set out in the prospectus: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/levelling-up-fund-additional-documents.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
What recent estimate his Department has made of the number of buildings in England that have combustible non-ACM cladding.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Local authorities and housing associations are conducting a data collection exercise as part of a programme to build a more complete picture of high-rise residential buildings and the variety of external wall systems in use. We will publish appropriate summary information from the data collection in our monthly Building Safety Programme data release when ready, which we expect to be in spring this year.
For buildings with unsafe ACM cladding, more buildings have come on site with remediation work within the last year than at any other time previously. Final figures for 2020 will be published on 21 January and we expect this to show that around 95 per cent of the buildings identified at the start of last year will have safety work completed or underway.