Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much was raised by business rates in the Newcastle upon Tyne local authority area in the last year for which figures are available.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
In 2013-14, the total business rates income raised in Newcastle upon Tyne was £128.5 million. Based on their own estimates, the total business rates income in 2015-16 is expected to be £154.1 million
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Deposit Protection Service; and what plans he has to strengthen protections for tenants' damage deposits.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Department has a governance role in ensuring that all Tenancy Deposit Protection schemes perform to high standards.
The Deposit Protection Service is required to submit monthly key performance indicators and provide annual updates of their management and financial plans to the Department, in accordance with the Service Concession Agreement we have with them.In addition, the Department holds quarterly monitoring meetings with the scheme operators at which any performance issues can be discussed. Since the schemes began in 2007, the Deposit Protection Service's performance against the benchmarks set by our key performance indicators has been consistently high.
Safeguards are already in place to ensure that tenants' deposits are protected. All landlords and agents are required to protect a deposit and provide the tenant with certain prescribed information within 30 days of taking the deposit. At the end of the tenancy, the deposit should be returned to the tenant if they have honoured the terms of the tenancy agreement. If the landlord and tenant do not agree how the deposit should be apportioned, they can use the free Alternative Dispute Resolution service offered by the schemes.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether his Department issues guidance to local planning authorities on the weight to place on (a) individual public responses and (b) overall local public opinion when processing planning applications.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Where a material consideration is raised through public consultation, the weight to be given to that consideration is a question for the decision maker and will depend on the circumstances of the specfic case (subject to the test of legal reasonableness).
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether any mechanism is in place for communities to prevent previously refused planning applications being repeatedly re-submitted in a slightly different form.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Local planning authorities have powers to decline applications if they have previously refused permission for two or more substantially similar applications on the same site, or if a substantially similar application has been rejected by the Secretary of State on appeal or following call-in, within the past two years. These powers are set out in Sections 70A and 70B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (as amended).
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what statutory frameworks for democratic accountability his Department plans will apply to Metro Mayors.
Answered by Mark Francois
As provided for in the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill, metro mayors, who are directly accountable to the people through the ballot box, will be a clear and effective single point of democratic accountability, which will be further strengthened by being statutorily held to account throughout their term of office by strong and independent overview and scrutiny committees.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what his policy is on the structure of the relationship between metro mayors and local authorities.
Answered by Mark Francois
I refer the rt. hon. Member to the speech given by my rt. hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Manchester on 14 May, where he explained that when we transfer major powers to cities these must come with new city wide elected mayors who work with local councils.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the (a) policy objectives and (b) measurable outcomes are the Northern Powerhouse initiative.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
The objective of the Northern Powerhouse and the Government's long term economic plan is to rebalance growth across the regions and nations of the UK. Creating a Northern Powerhouse will enable the Northern Region to reach its potential as a driving force in the UK economy – adding a potential £44 billion to the Northern economy, or £1,600 per person living there (in real terms).
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what guidance his Department has issued on interaction between concurrent local government boundary reviews and ongoing parliamentary boundary reviews.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The Department has not issued any such guidance.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what progress the North East Local Enterprise Partnership has made on each of its principal functions since its formation.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
Reporting on the progress made by the North East Local Enterprise Partnership on delivering their Strategic Economic Plan is a matter for the Local Enterprise Partnership and they published a review in March 2015 which is available at: http://nelep.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/North-East-LEP-Annual-Review-2014-to-2015lr.pdf
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what geographic area is covered by the Government's Northern Powerhouse initiative.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
The exact extent of the North in the context of the Northern Powerhouse is not prescribed by the Government.