Asked by: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what advice they have given to local authorities in counties which have both a county council and county districts on (1) the desirability, (2) the criteria, and (3) the preferred timescale, for reorganisation of local government in those areas.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Government has set out a clear commitment to level up all areas of the country by empowering our regions through devolving money, resources and control away from Westminster, and will set out its detailed plans in the Devolution and Local Recovery White Paper that will be published this Autumn.
The Government believes that areas moving to unitary status with more sustainable and efficient councils can have significant benefits for local people and businesses; and a number of councils have requested from the Secretary of State a formal invitation to submit proposals for unitary local government.
Asked by: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the extent to which principal councils are making up the funding shortfalls of town and parish councils resulting from the loss of income from leisure facilities and community centres since the COVID-19 pandemic began; and what guidance they are giving to principal councils on this matter.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Government is very grateful to all parish and town councils and to their members and clerks for the vital work they are doing to support communities.
The Department is working to understand the financial pressures that Covid-19 is placing on all local authorities, including parish and town councils. The Department will also continue to work with DCMS and local government, including with representative bodies for parish and town councils such as the National Association of Local Councils over the coming weeks to ensure the sector as a whole is managing as the pandemic progresses.
The Government does not have powers to offer direct financial support to parish and town councils, which are largely funded through a precept collected from within the overall council tax paid by the residents of the parish or town. We have strongly encouraged all parish and town councils to speak to their principal authority (district or unitary council) and have encouraged those authorities to facilitate those discussions where parish and towns are performing Covid-19 related services.
Asked by: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support people who are (1) destitute, or (2) without accommodation, as a result of having no recourse to public funds (a) during the COVID-19 lockdown, and (b) after the lockdown has been lifted.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
Thanks to the hard work of local authorities, agencies and the homelessness sector around the country, nearly 15,000 vulnerable people have been housed in emergency accommodation, including hotels, since the start of the COVID-19 lockdown period. This includes people coming in directly from the streets, people previously housed in shared night shelters and people who have become vulnerable to rough sleeping during the pandemic.
We are ensuring local authorities are supported, with £3.2 million in targeted funding to help support individuals who are sleeping rough off the streets, and an additional £3.2 billion provided to local authorities as part of the wider government response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This funding has been provided to help local authorities reduce risks to public health and to support individuals on the basis of need.
The legal position on those with no recourse to public funds has not been amended.
The Government recognises that these are unprecedented times, and expects local authorities to support people who are sleeping rough, and also to minimise unnecessary risks to public health, acting within the law.
On 24 June we announced that we are providing local authorities with a further £105 million to enable them to best support the nearly 15,000 people placed into emergency accommodation during the COVID-19 pandemic. This commitment will help to ensure that as few of these people as possible return to the streets.
Asked by: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many homeless people in England who were previously sleeping on the streets have been housed in (1) hotels, (2) hostels, or (3) other accommodation during the COVID-19 lockdown; how many of these people are still in such housing; and what will happen to them as the lockdown eases and the hospitablity industry returns to normal.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
Almost 15,000 vulnerable people, including those who were street homeless, have been housed in emergency accommodation, including hotels, since the start of the COVID-19, according to returns from local authorities.
We are continuing to work with local authorities?to understand the work they are doing to help the most vulnerable in our society. We announced on 24 May plans to provide thousands of long-term, safe homes for vulnerable rough sleepers taken off the streets during this pandemic. This ambitious commitment will be backed by £160 million this year through accelerating plans for the £381 million announced for rough sleeping services at Budget, bringing the total to £433 million over the lifetime of this Parliament. The Government is increasing the revenue support of the total programme by 37% to make sure that the rough sleepers have the support they need to stay off the streets for good.
This funding with 3,300 units of this accommodation becoming available in the next 12 months. Homes England, in partnership with my Department, have pledged to work hand-in-hand with leading Housing Associations and local authorities to deliver this.
Asked by: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the ability of district councils to withstand significant losses of income from business rates, council tax, and fees and charges for services including planning charges, parking charges and those for leisure services; and (1) how many, and (2) which, district councils they have assessed as being in danger of being unable to continue to discharge their statutory functions.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
We announced, on 18 April, an additional £1.6 billion of funding to support councils delivering essential frontline services, taking the total to over £3.2 billion of additional funding. This funding means that almost 70% of district councils will have received £1 million or more in support to manage Covid-19 income pressures.
We are now focused on gathering the best possible information and data from councils on income and expenditure figures. We are doing this through our ongoing local authority Covid-19 financial monitoring survey.
The returns collected will refine our assessment of income losses across the sector. We are also engaging with councils and their representatives, local Leaders and Chief Executives, and organisations including the District Councils Network.
We will continue to work with local government, including district councils, over the coming weeks to ensure they are managing as the pandemic progresses.
Asked by: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of any shortfall in the collection of the adult social care precept in two-tier areas, for which county councils can calculate the extra two per cent on their proportion of the overall council tax, compared with unitary authorities, which can calculate the extra two per cent on their total tax level; and what is their assessment of the amount of any such shortfall in two-tier areas per person and per authority compared with unitary authorities.
Answered by Earl of Courtown - Captain of the Queen's Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard (HM Household) (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Government recognises the pressures on councils in providing social care. The Secretary of State recently confirmed that the adult social care precept would continue in 2020-21, giving councils access to an additional £500 million. The recent local government finance settlement also provided local government with an additional £1 billion of grant funding for both adult and children’s social care.
Asked by: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the total amount of assistance, excluding any assistance for disability access improvements, provided to the owners of homes in the form of (1) standard grants, (2) improvement grants, (3) intermediate grants, (4) renovation grants, and (5) similar grants, to renovate and improve older private sector housing; and what was the cost to the national exchequer for each year of the operation of those grants.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
The Department does not provide funding to the owners of older, private housing stock for renovation and improvement work. However this Government has been clear that the Housing Market should be fair for everyone, which is why in January last year, the Government announced plans for a new Housing Complaints Resolution Service to help consumers more easily access help when things go wrong with their home.
Asked by: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government for each government department, (1) what was the target for the amount of land to be released for housing in the past ten years; (2) how much land has been disposed of for this purpose and what are the estimated numbers of housing units to be provided; (3) how many of those houses were for (a) affordable housing, and (b) social housing; and (4) what are the targets for this (a) year, and (b) the forthcoming five year period starting with this year.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
The Public Land for Housing programme (2015-2020) supports the government’s Estate Strategy aim to identify and release surplus central government land. The aim of the programme is to release land with capacity for at least 160,000 homes in England from the central government estate by 31 March 2020. This followed delivery of the 2011-15 Public Land for Housing programme through which surplus land with capacity for 109,000 homes against a target of 100,000 homes was released.
The new performance data released on the Public Land for Housing Programme was published on Thursday 6 th February 2020, (data release attached) and shows that since the start of the current programme to the end of June 2019, departments had sold 508 sites with capacity for c48,000 homes. We confirmed to the Public Accounts Committee in 2019 that land release for 160,000 homes will be achieved to a longer timeframe due to the complexities of disposal and the evolving demands placed on departments’ estates.
Full details of the data requested are set out in the data tables document attached. To note in regards to data on affordable housing, once a site has been sold by the department, the allocation of affordable housing is agreed between local authorities and developers on a site by site basis.
We are currently considering options for a future programme that supports the government’s emerging priorities, reflecting on lessons learnt from both programmes. Decisions on a future programme, including targets for departments, will be made at Spending Review
Asked by: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what criteria were used to choose the towns which may receive funding of up to £25 million each under the Stronger Towns Fund; whether there was a long list of towns from which they were chosen; and if so, which towns were on that long list but not chosen; whether a ranking system was used in the choice of those towns selected to receive funding; and which bodies and persons were consulted on the final choice.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
As part of the process of identifying the initial 100 places, officials have defined a town based on built up areas with a population of between 5,000 – 225,000.This is the definition of a town from the Office of National Statistics (ONS).
The 100 towns have been chosen on the basis of a robust selection methodology. This took into account various qualitative and quantitative indicators.
Asked by: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take in response to their statistics and reports on the English Indices of Deprivation 2019, published on 26 September.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is committed to levelling up every part of the UK - unemployment is down 1.2 million since 2010 while wages continue to rise at their fastest in over a decade. We’re supporting families with their cost of living and providing more support to the most deprived authorities, which now have a spending power 16% higher per home than the least deprived. For those who need extra support, the UK Government spends over £95 billion a year, including for those who are on a low income.
Following our departure from the EU, we will create the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), a programme of investment designed to tackle inequalities between communities by raising productivity.
The Government recently announced 100 places which will be invited to develop proposals for our £3.6 billion Towns Fund - 45 of these places are in the Northern Powerhouse and 30 in the Midlands Engine, demonstrating our commitment to the whole country. The fund will deliver transformative investment in transport, digital, skills and culture in order to boost productivity and sustainably raise living standards in towns across the country.
The Chancellor confirmed in August that the National Infrastructure Strategy will be published in Autumn 2019. The Strategy will set out the Government’s plans to deliver a step change in infrastructure investment to support the UK economy, as well as providing a formal response to the NIC’s National Infrastructure Assessment. As part of his Spending Round speech, the Chancellor set out his ambitions to deliver an infrastructure revolution, which included a commitment to use increased infrastructure investment to support growth and productivity across the whole of the UK.