Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, pursuant to the Answer of 21 June 2022 to Question 17152 on Energy: Costs, how much and what proportion of the additional £3.7 billion made available in the Local Government Finance Settlement 2022-23 was allocated to Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
The Local Government Finance Settlement for 2022/23 makes available an additional £3.7 billion to councils, including funding for adult social care reform.
Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council's Core Spending Power grew from £240.0 million in 2021/22 to £260.3 million in 2022/23, a change of up to £20.3 million.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what additional support his Department has made available to (a) Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council and (b) local authorities in Greater Manchester to help with the increased cost of energy.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
The Local Government Finance Settlement 2022/23 makes available an additional £3.7 billion to councils in England
Full details of all local authorities’ settlement allocations are published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/final-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2022-to-2023 .
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if his Department will take steps to ensure that there are more available affordable rental properties in response to the recently published survey by Propertymark which found that the number of available rentals had halved.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Private Rented Sector remains an important part of the housing market, with 4.4 million households currently in the Private Rented Sector.
We are investing £11.5 billion in the 2021-26 Affordable Homes Programme, which will build up to 180,000 affordable homes, should economic conditions allow. Around half of these will be for sub-market rent, and half for affordable home ownership. We also strongly support expansion of the Build to Rent (BtR) market. BtR boosts housing supply, diversifies the private rental sector and increases quality and choice for renters in cities and towns across England. We have revised the National Planning Policy Framework and issued a new chapter of planning guidance to support the delivery of more BtR homes, including affordable rental homes.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether a single person household will retain the single occupancy charge in respect of council tax in the event that they provide accommodation to a Ukrainian family.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
I refer the Honourable Member to my answer to Question UIN 999 on 16 May 2022.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what additional steps he plans to take to support local authorities in reducing the number of families living in temporary accommodation.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
This Government is committed to reducing the need for temporary accommodation by preventing homelessness before it occurs. That is why we are spending £2 billion over the next three years to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.
For 2022/2023, local authorities have been allocated £316 million through the Homelessness Prevention Grant. This funding was provided to local authorities in April and will allow local authorities to offer financial support for people and families to find a new home, to work with landlords to prevent evictions, or to provide temporary accommodation to ensure families have a roof over their head. It includes £5.8 million funding to cover the cost of extending priority need to those who are made homeless as a result of being a victim of domestic abuse, following the landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021. The funding continues to support local authorities to fully enforce the Homelessness Reduction Act so that more people get help sooner to prevent homelessness.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether single person households will retain the single occupancy charge in respect of council tax in the event that they provide accommodation to a Ukrainian family under the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
Entitlement to the single person discount will remain unchanged. The Council Tax (Discount Disregards and Exempt Dwellings) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2022 were laid before Parliament on 11 April 2022.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department will reassess the limit on the Help to Buy scheme to reflect current property valuations.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
In 2021 the new Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme introduced regional property price caps which set the maximum purchase price in each region. They are all set at 1.5 times the forecast regional average first-time buyer price, in line with the Office of Budget Responsibility’s house price inflation forecast for 2021/22, up to a maximum of £600,000 in London.
The caps were designed to support the purchase of properties that are more consistent with the wider first-time buyer market. This in turn helps optimise the resources available to enable purchasers to achieve the dream of home ownership. The Government has reviewed the caps and continue to be satisfied they allow good availability of first-time buyer type properties in each region. For customers who are not able to utilise the Help to Buy scheme, the Government has a range of other housing products. For more information see: https://www.ownyourhome.gov.uk/
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether the Private Parking Code of Practice makes provision for freezing Penalty Charge Notices at the discounted rate throughout the duration of an appeal.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Section 8.3 of the Code of Practice sets out the process for appealing private parking charges. Parking operators must provide a process to appeal against a notice of parking charge and, where the parking operator rejects an appeal, they must provide the option to either pay the parking charge or appeal the decision to the Appeals Service.
The Code was laid before Parliament on 7 February 2022 and is available online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/private-parking-code-of-practice.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what estimate he has made of the number of children living in temporary accommodation in (a) Stockport constituency, (b) the North West and (c) England.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
As part of the Homelessness Case Level Collection data (H-CLIC), local authorities are required to collect details of the number of children living in temporary accommodation, this data is published here https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/homelessness-statistics.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
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 has taken to help (a) local authorities and (b) housing associations to respond to demand for social housing following the issue of section 21 notices to private tenants.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Local councils are best placed to determine how best to manage the demand for social housing - they are responsible for allocating housing through local schemes. These are governed by a framework of rules set by central government which ensure social housing is prioritised for those in housing need.
We are committed to investing in social housing. Our new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme will provide up to 180,000 new homes across the country, should economic conditions allow. This builds upon the success of our £9 billion Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme, running to 2023, which will deliver approximately 250,000 new affordable homes.