Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether he plans to strengthen provisions in building regulations on ensuring that materials and methods used in housing construction are more resilient to the risk of flooding and damage caused by water leaks.
Answered by Lord Barwell
The statutory guidance in Approved Document C (Site preparation and resistance to contaminants and moisture) which supports the Building Regulations promotes the use of flood resilience and resistance measures in flood prone areas. The document references guidance produced jointly by the Department for Communities and Local Government, Defra and the Environment Agency – Improving the flood performance of new buildings – Flood resilient construction. Much of the information is applicable to resilient repair as well as new build.
The Building Regulations also require that floors, roof and walls of buildings should be adequately protected from harmful effects caused by spillage of water from or associated with sanitary fittings or fixed appliance. Guidance on how to meet this requirement is set out in Approved Document C.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what use is made of Clerks of Works in evaluating building projects.
Answered by Lord Barwell
It is for those commissioning building work to decide whether to employ a clerk of works to evaluate or supervise the building work they wish to carry out. In many cases architects, structural and civil engineers and other professionals are used as an alternative to a clerk of works.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if his Department will publish a definition of the term social lettings agencies as used in the white paper, Fixing our broken housing market, published in February 2017.
Answered by Lord Barwell
Social letting agencies can support vulnerable people and people on low incomes to access and sustain tenancies in the private rented sector. We want to prevent people reaching crisis point, and for those who are already homeless to be able to move out of temporary accommodation or hostels to a settled home as quickly as possible. There are a number of different models of social letting agencies and in the Housing White Paper we set out our interest in exploring the relative effectiveness of these different models with the aim of securing more housing for households who would otherwise struggle – providing security for landlords and support for tenants.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to build and develop more homes.
Answered by Sajid Javid
The Government is committed to building the homes our country needs.
Measures in the recent White Paper will ensure more homes are planned for where they are needed most, that homes are built more quickly once they have planning permission, and will diversify the housing market so it works for everyone.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what progress has been made on ensuring that all registered social housing association tenants have the right to buy their own homes since the conclusion of the pilot scheme.
Answered by Lord Barwell
We remain committed to the Voluntary Right to Buy for housing association tenants and the pilot scheme is informing the design of the main scheme. The Government is continuing to work closely with the National Housing Federation and the housing association sector on the implementation of the main scheme and will announce more details in due course.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what information his Department holds on which local authorities hold information on the tenure of a property from completed council tax registration forms.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Department does hold information on which local authorities hold information on the tenure of a property from completed council tax registration forms.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many affordable rent-to-buy houses are being constructed.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Through the Autumn Statement 2015, the Government has committed to investing £8 billion to deliver over 400,000 affordable housing starts by 2020/21. This includes £1.7 billion to deliver around 100,000 homes for affordable or intermediate rent, of which 10,000 are to be affordable rent to buy homes that enable tenants to have the opportunity to save for a deposit while renting.
Bids into the Rent to Buy 2015-2017 programme are currently being considered. The prospectus for the new Affordable Homes Programme 2016-21 will be launched shortly.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to promote tenant management.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
We have allocated funding of £1million in 2015/16 (through the Tenant Empowerment Programme) to support social housing tenants' involvement in their local communities. This includes support to those who wish to manage delivery of services to their homes and estates by taking up their Statutory Right To Manage.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to better enforce building regulation inspections to ensure quality housing builds.
Answered by Stephen Williams
The duty to comply with the requirements of the Building Regulations lies on the person carrying out the building work. The duty of the building control bodies, local authorities and approved inspectors, is to take all reasonable steps to satisfy themselves that the requirements have been satisfied. Where they have not been complied with a compliance certificate should not be given. It is also possible for building control bodies to take formal enforcement action in the courts against builders for non-compliance where they consider this would be justified. Issues relating to warranties which may be provided for new homes are matters for the relevant warranty body.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assistance his Department provides to local authorities on replacing trees in pavements.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Government has funded the “Big Tree Plant” scheme, giving up to £4 million in grants from 2011 to 2015 to help pay for the planting of at least once million new trees in urban areas. The scheme is now closed to new applicants, but nearly 820,000 new trees have already been planted.
Councils also receive general funding from central government and locally-raised sources which can be used to support tree planting, if they wish.
The “Manual for Streets”, while out of date in certain areas (e.g. on parking and density), contains some guidance on street trees and tree planting. It can be found at:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/manual-for-streets