Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Governement, whether he is consulting on permitting a further two per cent increase to local authority precepts in order to fund social care.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
My Department has now published the Local Government Finance Settlement technical consultation, which includes a proposal for an adult social care precept for local authorities with responsibility for adult social care of 2 per cent on top of the core council tax referendum principle. The consultation can be found on Gov.uk website.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many jobs linked directly to the Coastal Communities Fund have been created in North East Lincolnshire.
Answered by Jake Berry
North East Lincolnshire has received one Coastal Communities Fund (CCF) grant award to date. CoastNEL, the Coastal Community Team for North East Lincolnshire, was awarded a £3.8 million grant in 2017 to support the regeneration of Cleethorpes for the benefit of visitors, businesses and local residents.
The project is still ongoing and actual job creation figures will not be reported on until autumn 2019. It is, however, currently forecast to create up to 56 jobs directly, 379 jobs indirectly and to safeguard a further 10 jobs in the local economy.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to increase sustainable employment opportunities in coastal communities.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Government is working in partnership with places to develop Local Industrial Strategies by Spring 2020 to ensure that all places, including coastal communities, can contribute to and benefit from growth and sustainable job creation through employment and skills policies.
Local Growth Deals are also providing coastal Local Enterprise Partnerships with funding to promote economic growth and job creation in their coastal communities.
Under the Coastal Communities Fund we have invested over £218 million in 354 projects across the UK since 2012. This is helping to create or safeguard over 18,000 UK jobs and generate £363 million in new visitor spend. We are undertaking an evaluation of the projects funded to date to review their effectiveness in delivering sustainable economic growth and jobs to inform any future funding rounds.
The Town Deal for Greater Grimsby, announced in July 2018, is helping to drive economic growth and employment creation in the area. This includes investment in the regeneration of Grimsby town centre and Cleethorpes, infrastructure to unlock strategic employment sites, and investment in training facilities to improve specialist skills and employment opportunities.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to ensure the coastal communities fund creates sustainable employment opportunities in coastal towns.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Government is working in partnership with places to develop Local Industrial Strategies by Spring 2020 to ensure that all places, including coastal communities, can contribute to and benefit from growth and sustainable job creation through employment and skills policies.
Local Growth Deals are also providing coastal Local Enterprise Partnerships with funding to promote economic growth and job creation in their coastal communities.
Under the Coastal Communities Fund we have invested over £218 million in 354 projects across the UK since 2012. This is helping to create or safeguard over 18,000 UK jobs and generate £363 million in new visitor spend. We are undertaking an evaluation of the projects funded to date to review their effectiveness in delivering sustainable economic growth and jobs to inform any future funding rounds.
The Town Deal for Greater Grimsby, announced in July 2018, is helping to drive economic growth and employment creation in the area. This includes investment in the regeneration of Grimsby town centre and Cleethorpes, infrastructure to unlock strategic employment sites, and investment in training facilities to improve specialist skills and employment opportunities.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the timetable is for the publication of the independent review of disabled facilities grants.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The independent review of the Disabled Facilities Grant was published on 10 December 2018 and can be found at the following link: www.gov.uk/government/publications/disabled-facilities-grant-and-other-adaptations-external-review.
I welcome the review and the Government will be responding to its findings in due course.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 4 June 2018 to Question 146924 on ABLE Humber Port, what steps he is taking to monitor the effect of the Government’s investment in the Able Marine Energy Park.
Answered by Jake Berry
The Government awarded £14.9 million in the 2014-15 financial year as part of its Building Foundations for Growth Fund. The release of this funding was dependant on the Accountable Body, North Lincolnshire Council, verifying that the site had reached agreed milestones. The Accountable Body confirmed that all conditions for the grant had been met. Further development of ABLE is a commercial matter for the company.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he plans to provide support to owners of new-build leasehold homes who are charged fees other than ground rent by the freeholder.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Government is committed to promoting fairness and transparency for leaseholders and freeholders. We want to ensure that consumers only pay for the services that they receive, that costs should be transparent, communicated effectively and that there should be a clear route to challenge or redress if things go wrong.
As announced on 21 December 2017, the Government will introduce legislation so that, in future, ground rents on newly established leases of houses or flats are set at a peppercorn (zero financial value).
In addition, on 1 April, the Department published its response to the recent call for evidence on Protecting consumers in the letting and managing agent market. Proposals include establishing a working group to take forward work on regulating letting and managing agents as well as to consider under what circumstances fees such as service charges, administration charges and other charges placed on properties are justified, how they should be presented to consumers and to explore the best means to challenge fees which are unjustified.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many rough sleepers have died as a result of their homeless status between November 2017 and March 2018.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The death of any rough sleeper is a tragedy. That is why this Government has committed to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminate it altogether by 2027. Establishing the causes of death for any person in the UK is a matter for medical professionals or coroners.
Local areas and homelessness services often hold detailed information about the people who sleep rough in their area, including about rough sleepers who have died where this information is available them.
We are overhauling the statutory homelessness data collection alongside the introduction of the Homelessness Reduction Act. This will give us better insights into the causes of homelessness and the support people need. The new statutory homelessness data collection will be called H-CLIC.
The first meeting of the Rough Sleeping and Homelessness Reduction Taskforce took place on the 7 March. The Taskforce will drive forward the implementation of a cross-Government strategy to reduce rough sleeping.
We have allocated over £1 billion through to 2020 to prevent and reduce all forms of homelessness including piloting a Housing First approach for some of the most entrenched rough sleepers.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department took to ensure local authorities had adequate resources to meet their Severe Weather Emergency Protocol duties between November 2017 and March 2018.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
Homeless Link publishes annual guidance on the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) and it is our expectation that local authorities work together with partners to provide basic emergency accommodation to minimise the risk of harm to individuals when the temperature drops. I recently wrote to local authorities about the guidance on SWEP which can help them protect rough sleepers in their areas at this time.
No one should ever have to sleep rough and that is why the Government has committed to halving rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminating it altogether by 2027. The Rough Sleeping and Homelessness Reduction Taskforce will drive forward the implementation of a cross-Government strategy to achieve this. The Taskforce met for the first time on 7 March 2018 and have committed to publishing the strategy by July this year. We have allocated over £1 billion through to 2020, following the 2015 Spending Review, to prevent and reduce all forms of homelessness, including rough sleeping.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government of 18 January 2018, Official Report, column 450WH, on supported housing, if he will publish the evidential basis for the timeframe reflecting the nature of support provided and an individual's journey and outcomes.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
In defining the timeframe we sought the advice and views of a wide range of providers and stakeholders. We also took the sector Task and Finish groups views into account.
We are continuing to listen to the sector and are considering feedback through the current consultation which closed on 23 January.