Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to end rough sleeping.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Last year we published our cross-government strategy 'Ending Rough Sleeping for Good', setting out how we are investing £2 billion over three years to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.
This includes up to £500 million in funding through the Rough Sleeping Initiative 2022-25 to local authorities across England which includes a range of support, including outreach, accommodation, mental health and substance misuse support, immigration advice and help to find employment or training.
Rough sleeping levels are 35% lower in 2022 compared to the peak in 2017 and 28% lower than they were in 2019 before the pandemic. We remain steadfastly committed to our goal to end rough sleeping and we will continue to work with local authorities and partners, the voluntary and community sector and private sector to end it for good.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what plans his Department has for leasehold reform.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
I refer the Hon Member to my answer to Question UIN 191122 on 4 July 2023.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to protect and enhance green spaces.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
The Government is committed to protecting and enhancing the Green Belt.
The Levelling Up Parks Fund also made available £9 million for local authorities in areas which rate highly on the Index of Multiple Deprivation, to create or significantly refurbish green spaces.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent steps his Department has taken to help ensure that local authorities have sufficient resources to deliver local services.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Local Government Finance Settlement for 2023/24 makes available up to an additional £5 billion to councils. This is an increase in local authority funding for 2023/24 of 9% in cash terms compared to 2022/23.
We will continue to work with local authorities to understand both the challenges and opportunities they have, along with the level of taxpayer subsidy which can be provided, in the future.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to strengthen the Union.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The UK Government is committed to delivering for citizens across the UK. The Autumn Budget was a budget for the whole of the United Kingdom, including first allocations of levelling up funds UK-wide. This spending review also provided the largest annual block grants for Devolved Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, in real terms, of any spending review settlement since 1998.
We are committed to working collaboratively with the Devolved Governments to deliver in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Our response to Covid-19 has shown we are at our strongest when we work and come together as one United Kingdom. We will continue to work together across the UK as we recover from the pandemic.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that new homes in England are energy efficient.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Government remains committed to meeting its target of net zero emissions by 2050 and recognises the important contribution that the energy efficiency of buildings has to make in meeting it.
From 2025, the Future Homes Standard will ensure that new homes produce at least 75% fewer CO2 emissions compared to those built to the 2013 standards. No further energy efficiency retrofit work will be necessary to enable them to become zero-carbon over time as the electricity grid continues to decarbonise.
In December 2021 we introduced an uplift in energy efficiency standards that delivers a meaningful reduction in carbon emissions and provides a stepping-stone to the Future Homes Standard. Once the uplift comes into force, in June 2022, new homes will be expected to produce around 30% fewer CO2 emissions compared to the previous 2013 standards.
The uplift marks an important step on our journey towards a cleaner, greener built environment and it supports us in our target to reduce the UK's carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to help councils deliver on local priorities.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
Councils know their own areas best and have a wide discretion to determine their own local priorities.
The provisional Local Government Finance Settlement for 2022-23 makes available an additional £3.5 billion to councils, including funding for adult social care reform. This is an increase in local authority funding for 2022-23 of over 4% in real terms, which will ensure councils across the country have the resources they need to deliver key services. In total, we expect Core Spending Power to rise from £50.4 billion in 2021-22 to up to £53.9 billion in 2022-23.
The Government is providing around £1.6 billion additional grant in 2022-23. This includes additional funding for Supporting Families and Cyber Resilience, which will be distributed outside of this Settlement. We are allocating most of that funding through the provisional Settlement, including through a one-off 2022-23 Services Grant, which gives local authorities an additional £822 million of funding for all services. Local authorities can also make use of over £1 billion of additional resource specifically for social care in 2022-23.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to support town centres and high streets.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
This Government is fully committed to supporting the businesses and communities that make our high streets and town centres successful as the nation responds to the impacts of COVID-19. Our comprehensive package of around £400 billion of support has helped to safeguard jobs, businesses and public services in every region and nation of the UK. This package includes business grants, the coronavirus loan schemes, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, as well as deferral of income tax payments. In addition, on 21 December 2021 the Chancellor announced further support of over £700 million in grant support for businesses most impacted by the Omicron variant, as part of an overall package of £1 billion to support businesses across the UK
This business support builds upon a major package of investment to level up opportunity and prosperity across all areas of the country. This includes the £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund, the £220 million UK-wide Community Renewal Fund and the £3.6 billion Towns Fund, which includes support for 101 Town Deals and 72 Future High Streets Fund projects
Beyond this, we are providing support to local leadership with the High Streets Task Force. Over five years this is providing hands-on support to local areas to develop data-driven innovative strategies and to connect local areas to relevant experts. We will be announcing a further tranche of local authorities to receive in-person expert support from the Task Force in due course
We need a modernised and agile planning system - one which benefits communities and creates places in which people can take real pride. That is why we have introduced reforms to the use class system to enable more flexible use of existing buildings. Additionally, Government recently introduced a new permitted development right which will allow more premises to change from a commercial, business or service use to residential use, so that much needed new homes can be created
Reviving our high streets and town centres is essential to this Government's commitments to level up the country. Levelling up is a transformative agenda and the Department's priority is to produce a Levelling Up White Paper which matches our ambition, building on existing action we are already taking across Government and setting out a new policy regime that will drive change for years to come. The White Paper will be published shortly.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
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 support coastal communities.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
We have continued to make significant progress in supporting coastal communities in a number of areas, demonstrated by the Coastal Communities Fund now having supported 359 projects, totalling over £229 million since 2012, spreading jobs, investment and opportunity to towns and cities across the country including in coastal areas.
Further to this, our coastal areas have already benefited from over £600 million through successful bids into Town Deals and the Future High Streets Fund. Of the 101 towns receiving a Town Deal, 22 of them are coastal towns.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
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 potential merits of social outcomes contracts in supporting people who are homeless.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
MHCLG has supported and delivered three social outcome contracts for people who are homeless and assessed the effectiveness of these.
The first was the London Homelessness Social Impact Bond (SIB) (2012-15) which encouraged innovative approaches to support entrenched to 830 rough sleepers in London. The impact evaluation of the programme compared results for the intervention group with those of a well-matched comparison group. One of the key findings was that the programme had significantly reduced rough sleeping over a two-year period. After two years, the mean number of rough sleeping contacts was 9.2 for the intervention group, compared to 13.9 for the comparison group. It is estimated that this resulted in around 3,900 rough sleeping episodes being avoided over two years as a result of the intervention. The evaluation also found that the individuals supported by the intervention were significantly more likely than the comparison group to completely desist from sleeping rough, enter long-term accommodation and, among non-UK nationals, have a confirmed reconnection.
The second was the 3-year Fair Chance Fund (Jan 2015 - Dec 2017) SIB which supported 1,910 homeless young people (18-24 years old) to improve accommodation, education, and employment outcomes.
From October 2017 to March 2021, the department also funded a £11.2 million rough sleeping SIB, targeting the most entrenched rough sleepers with multiple complex needs. Our data shows that around 1,700 deeply entrenched rough sleepers have been supported through this programme. MHCLG has worked with local authorities to produce reports to illustrate learning and key lessons.
MHCLG have assessed the learning from these programmes which has developed our understanding of interventions and support services that work for the most vulnerable people who sleep rough. This will continue to be considered in future delivery programmes, and any SIB programmes which the department undertakes.