Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he plans to take to ensure that people are not placed in temporary accommodation for more than the legal six weeks limit.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
Time spent in temporary accommodation means people are getting help and it ensures no family is without a roof over their head. The six week limit applies to Bed and Breakfast accommodation. The law is clear that households with dependent children should only be accommodated in B&Bs in an emergency, and then no longer than six weeks.
The Government is assisting areas to ensure that families spend no longer than 6 weeks in B&Bs, which includes protecting and maintaining homelessness prevention funding at £315 million as well as providing providing extra funding to 25 areas most in need.
We are also implementing the most ambitious legislative reform in decades, the Homelessness Reduction Act, in April 2018, which will ensure that more people get help earlier to prevent them from becoming homeless in the first place.
Our new Homelessness Advice and Support Team, drawn from local authorities and the homelessness sector, will provide support leading up to and following the commencement of the Act.
In addition, we have replaced DWP’s Temporary Accommodation Management Fee with a Flexible Homelessness Support Grant which local authorities can use more strategically to prevent and tackle homelessness. This amounts to £402 million over the two years from 2017/18.
Devolving the funding to local authorities will improve incentives to move families out of temporary accommodation and into settled accommodation more quickly. With more certain upfront funding local authorities will be able to tackle homelessness more pro-actively, pushing the balance of the investment away from crisis intervention and towards prevention.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, with reference to Centrepoint's statement to The Independent newspaper of 9 January 2017, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of zero-hour contracts on the ability of young homeless people aged between 16 and 25 to escape homelessness in the long term.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The Government is committed to tackling youth homelessness and ensuring that young vulnerable people get the help they need to secure accommodation and find employment.
That is why the Government has taken a range of steps, including investing £15 million in the Fair Chance Fund programme, which is currently supporting around 1,900 homeless 18-25 year olds with complex needs into accommodation, education, training and employment. We have also invested in other initiatives designed specifically to support young homeless people into accommodation so they have a stable platform for work. A great example of this is the £40 million Platform for Life programme, which provides affordable shared accommodation for homeless young people.
We have also taken steps to ensure that zero hours contracts are used appropriately and not abused. Measures in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 prohibit the use of exclusivity clauses or terms in any zero hours contract, which means employers cannot stop an individual looking for work or accepting work from another employer. On average, people on zero hour contracts work 25 hours a week and nearly 70 per cent of people on zero hours contracts do not want more hours, according to ONS figures.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
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 raise awareness of the risks of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
Building upon the success of the Fire Kills campaign, the Department for Communities and Local Government is running a campaign to raise awareness of the risks of carbon monoxide poisoning in the home. The Department has developed new Public Safety Radio Broadcasts that give advice on how best to avoid the risks and how to spot the danger signs of carbon monoxide poisoning. These are available for broadcasters to download free of charge.
The Department has also published guidance to be given to tenants at the start of new tenancies which includes references to new requirements on private landlords to install and check carbon monoxide alarms in rooms where there are solid fuel burning appliances.
The guidance is available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-to-rent.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many complaints about (a) natural gas or (b) inadequate safeguards to detect natural gas have been lodged with councils in the last year.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
The Department does not hold this information. The Health and Safety Executive collects data on gas related incidents which are reportable under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
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 proportion of people who are at high risk from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
The Department does not make a direct estimate of the proportion of people at high risk from carbon monoxide poisoning. The Department has however published analysis that shows solid fuel combustion appliances have the highest risk of accidental carbon monoxide poisonings when compared to other fuels.
Since 2010, Building Regulations in England have required carbon monoxide alarms when new or replacement solid fuel burning appliances are installed.
From 1 October 2015, the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015 require private rented sector landlords to have at least one smoke alarm installed on every storey of their rental property which is used as living accommodation, and a carbon monoxide alarm in any room used as living accommodation where solid fuel is used.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will take steps to ensure that reviews decisions by local authorities to rule that a person is intentionally homeless are conducted by people independent of that authority.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The homelessness legislation gives households rights to request a review of local authority homelessness decisions. A review may be carried out by the housing authority itself or by someone acting as an agent of the housing authority. Where the review is to be carried out by an officer of the housing authority, the officer must not have been involved in the original decision, and must be senior to the officer who took the original decision.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what provisions are in place to safeguard vulnerable adults who are declared intentionally homeless and who do not want to be separated from family members also declared intentionally homeless in order to be rehoused.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
Local authorities are under a duty to provide accommodation to vulnerable households who have made themselves intentionally homeless, for such time as will give the household a reasonable opportunity of securing their own accommodation. They must also provide them with advice and assistance to help them secure their own accommodation. There is no time limit on this duty and authorities should consider each case in light of its particular facts.
Local housing authorities are also under a duty to make arrangements to ensure that social services are aware of cases where households with children may be intentionally homeless.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many people have been categorised as intentionally homeless in each year since 2010.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The numbers of households categorised by local authorities as being eligible, homeless and in priority need but intentionally so, in each of the financial years since 2004/05, are shown in the first column of the attached table. The numbers of households for whom the immediate outcome of being accepted by their local authority (due to being eligible, unintentionally homeless and in priority need) was to be placed in temporary accommodation, in each of the financial years since 2004/05, are shown in the second column of the table.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
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 likely level of government investment in right to buy schemes in the next five years.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Government wants to help hard working families achieve their dream of home ownership. The agreement with the National Housing Federation will give 1.3 million housing association tenants the opportunity to purchase their home with Right to Buy discounts.
The Government will be working closely with the sector on the implementation of the agreement.
The Right to Buy will be funded through local authorities payments to the Government based on the estimated value of their high value vacant housing, to encourage efficient management of housing assets.
We will announce more details of the costs of the Right to Buy extension 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 Communities and Local Government, how many households have been placed in emergency temporary accommodation each year since 2010.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The numbers of households categorised by local authorities as being eligible, homeless and in priority need but intentionally so, in each of the financial years since 2004/05, are shown in the first column of the attached table. The numbers of households for whom the immediate outcome of being accepted by their local authority (due to being eligible, unintentionally homeless and in priority need) was to be placed in temporary accommodation, in each of the financial years since 2004/05, are shown in the second column of the table.