Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of requiring the installation and retrofitting of sprinklers in (a) all buildings regularly used by vulnerable people and (b) warehouses.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Building owners are required to ensure that existing care home buildings or warehouses have a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment. As part of this process, some owners may choose to retrofit sprinklers as part of their overall fire strategy, while others may opt for alternative measures. Recent changes to the Building Safety Act 2022 defined new roles and responsibilities all stakeholders involved in a construction project, including building owners. This ensures that safety is prioritized throughout the lifecycle of a building. Retrofitting sprinklers is not always the best option, and other fire safety measures might be more appropriate for specific buildings.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle barriers to (a) accommodation, (b) employment and (c) education for people on Ukraine scheme visas unable to (i) enter into contracts and (ii) start courses beyond their existing visa.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Ukrainians in the UK under the Ukraine schemes will be able to apply for permission to remain in the UK through the Ukraine Permission Extension (UPE) scheme due to open in early 2025. UPE will provide an additional 18 months’ permission, and will provide the same rights and entitlements to access work, benefits, healthcare and education as the existing schemes.
The STEP-Ukraine programme continues to provide access to English language courses and employment support for up to 12,500 Ukrainians. Ukrainians can access the Adult Education Offer through their Local Authorities (LAs) which provide ESOL classes. People on Ukraine scheme visas seeking to start educational courses which extend beyond their visas will likely be eligible for a further extension under UPE to complete the course.
Local authorities continue to receive a tariff of £5,900 per Ukrainian arrival. This is un-ringfenced, which allows councils to use the funding to support households as best suits the local area, including measures to support access to accommodation and education.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to provide funding for homelessness services following the end of the Rough Sleeping Initiative funding in April 2025.
Answered by Rushanara Ali - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Deputy Prime Minister is responsible for cross-governmental coordination of policy to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping and will update in due course.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of homes for social rent in Nottingham East constituency.
Answered by Jacob Young
Data on social housing supply is not held at constituency level.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he is taking steps to reduce private sector rents in Nottingham East constituency.
Answered by Jacob Young
The Government recognises the cost of living pressures that tenants are facing, and that paying rent is likely to be a tenant’s biggest monthly expense. The level of private sector rents is not directly a matter for Government, however, we are taking steps to increase housebuilding to help create a more sustainable and affordable housing market over the long term. The Government is on track to meet its manifesto commitment to deliver a million homes over this Parliament.
The Government also welcomes new institutional investment in the private rented sector. The Build to Rent sector has built over 100,000 new homes over the past 13 years and they continue to play a part in increasing the supply of homes in the private rented sector.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to tackle racism against Romani (Gypsy), Roma and Irish Traveller communities.
Answered by Lee Rowley
All forms of discrimination are unacceptable, and they have no place in our communities.
No one should ever be a victim of discrimination because of their race, or their religion or belief, and the Government continues to work with police and community partners to monitor and combat it.
True Vision is an online reporting portal, maintained by the police and funded by the Government. We will continue to support the police to maintain this and reinforce their relationships with communities so that they feel confident to report any instances of illegal discrimination.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to support services that support people with multiple disadvantages and implement trauma-informed approaches.
Answered by Felicity Buchan
The Department is committed to improving services for people and families experiencing multiple disadvantage. The Changing Futures programme is a £77 million programme, funded by Government and The National Lottery Community Fund, that tests innovative approaches to service provision to improve outcomes for people experiencing multiple disadvantage. The programme is led by DLUHC and directly supports people in fifteen local areas in England who experience multiple disadvantage, including combinations of three or more of homelessness; substance misuse; mental health issues; domestic abuse and contact with the criminal justice system.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding for levelling up.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
Levelling up underpins this Government’s ambitions. My department alone has allocated over £9.9 billion from levelling up funds since 2019 and over £11 billion in long-term flexible investment funds for Mayoral Combined Authorities and areas with recently-agreed devolution deals. Across government, we are investing in urban transport, spending millions on local bus services; refocusing cultural and R&D spend outside London; successfully recruiting 20,000 police; establishing over 100 Community Diagnostic Centres; and much more.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if his Department has plans to extend the Changing Futures programme beyond March 2024.
Answered by Felicity Buchan
The Changing Futures programme is a £64 million initiative between Government and The National Lottery Community Fund, running until 2024/25. Fifteen local areas are now supporting over 1,500 of the most vulnerable adults in our communities – people experiencing combinations of mental ill health, substance misuse, homelessness, domestic abuse and contact with the criminal justice system - to change their lives for the better.
Any announcements about future plans for the programme will be made in due course.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many households were entitled to the (a) Prevention and (b) Relief Duty where the lead applicant was lesbian or gay and aged 16-25 in (i) 2020-2021 (ii) 2021-2022.
Answered by Felicity Buchan
Homelessness Statistics for 2020-21 are available here and 2021-22 are available here. These include data on the sexual identity and ethnicity of the main applicant owed statutory homelessness prevention and relief duties.
The department does not publish data on domestic abuse based on sexual or gender identification.