Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many and what proportion of new homes built in the last 12 months were classified as being under permitted development of pre-existing office blocks.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Estimates of new homes delivered in England, in each year, classified as under permitted development of pre-existing office blocks and overall housing supply, from which proportions can be calculated, are shown in Live Table 120, here.
Figures for UK are not centrally collated.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many council homes were built in (a) the last 12 months and (b) 2021.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The number of new social rent homes delivered in England, broken down by new build and acquisitions, can be found in Live Table 1009 from this link. The number of new affordable housing delivered in England, including acquisitions, by local authorities can be found through the affordable housing supply open data, available through the same link.
Data are collected and published by financial year, with the latest available data covering 2021-22.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many social rent homes were built (a) in the last 12 months and (b) in 2021.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The number of new social rent homes delivered in England, broken down by new build and acquisitions, can be found in Live Table 1009 from this link. The number of new affordable housing delivered in England, including acquisitions, by local authorities can be found through the affordable housing supply open data, available through the same link.
Data are collected and published by financial year, with the latest available data covering 2021-22.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
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 measuring progress in reducing inequalities in relation to job quality metrics.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
Levelling Up means giving everyone the opportunity to flourish.
Job quality is a central element of this vision and is why we asked the ONS to develop new estimates of job quality, which will be published later this week.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent estimate his Department has made of the average demand for additional social rent homes per year; and what steps his Department is taking to support councils and housing associations meet that demand.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is for local authorities to identify the size, type and tenure of housing needed for different groups in the community, including those who require affordable housing, and reflect this in planning and other policies.
Building more social and affordable homes is a priority for this Government, and we want to see local authorities playing a key role in the delivery of new housing. Our £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme, which councils can bid for, will deliver up to 180,000 affordable homes should economic conditions allow. This is on top of our £9 billion Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme, running to 2023, which will deliver approximately 250,000 new affordable homes.
The Government wants to see local authorities delivering the next generation of council housing and we have given them a comprehensive range of tools to do so. In March 2021, we announced a package of reforms to give councils more freedom in how they can spend the money they receive from Right to Buy sales on replacement homes. In addition to this, the Government abolished the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) borrowing cap in 2018, allowing councils to borrow to build more council homes.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of capping increases to social housing rents at 5 percent in the 2023-24 financial year on poverty rates among occupants of social housing.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 31 August, the Government launched a consultation on whether to implement a lower ceiling cap on social housing rent increases. Alongside that, the Government published an impact assessment. The consultation closed on 12 October. The Government is carefully considering the responses and will publish a response later this year.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
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 ensure councils distribute council tax rebates to student households.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
Despite being exempt from council tax, student households living in eligible properties should receive the council tax rebate in the same way as other households that do not pay council tax by direct debit. My department has issued guidance and FAQs on the delivery of the rebate and has discussed the particular issues related to student households with councils that have large student populations.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what legislative steps he is taking to progress leasehold reform.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
This Government is committed to creating a fair and just housing system that works for everyone.
We have already made great strides with the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022, which will come into force from 30 June. The leasehold measures in our Building Safety Act will come into force tomorrow meaning that for the first time, qualifying leaseholders in buildings above 11 metres or with at least five storeys will be legally protected from extortionate building safety costs.
In the next Parliamentary Session, we will legislate to reform the leasehold and commonhold systems, helping millions of households genuinely to own their own home.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how much and what proportion of the £144 million discretionary fund provided to local authorities to tackle the rise in energy bills has been disbursed to students as of 25 May 2022.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
Students that were living in a property in council tax bands A – D on 1 April 2022 are eligible for the main council tax rebate, aside from those living in student halls. Any student that is impacted by rising energy costs can apply to their local council for discretionary support. My Department does not hold data on the characteristics of households benefiting from discretionary support.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how much has been spent from the public purse on advertisements in the Guardian newspaper related to levelling up.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
There has been no spend in these publications in relation to levelling up. The full campaign expenditure will be published in due course, as part of the departments routine transparency commitments.