Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether it is her policy to bring forward legislative proposals to convert existing leasehold properties to commonhold.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government will act quickly to provide homeowners with greater rights. This includes driving up the transparency of service charges and reducing barriers for leaseholders to challenge their landlord. Over the course of this Parliament the Government will go further by enacting remaining Law Commission recommendations and tackling unregulated and unaffordable ground rent charges.
The Government will take steps to bring the feudal leasehold system to an end and reinvigorate commonhold by modernising the legal framework. We will also ban the sale of new leasehold flats. The Government will consult on the best way to achieve this, so that generations to come will benefit from absolute homeownership.
Our planned reforms to empower leaseholders and provide new and existing homeowners with greater security will help ensure landlords and managing agents are better held to account for management failures. It will also make it easier for leaseholders to take on management of their buildings themselves so they can directly appoint or replace agents.
The Government intends to bring forward draft legislation so that it may be subject to broad consultation and additional scrutiny by Parliament. It is only right that the Government takes its time when dealing with such a complex subject to make sure that any future legislation gets it right.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will consult on issues facing leaseholders prior to bringing forward legislation.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government will act quickly to provide homeowners with greater rights. This includes driving up the transparency of service charges and reducing barriers for leaseholders to challenge their landlord. Over the course of this Parliament the Government will go further by enacting remaining Law Commission recommendations and tackling unregulated and unaffordable ground rent charges.
The Government will take steps to bring the feudal leasehold system to an end and reinvigorate commonhold by modernising the legal framework. We will also ban the sale of new leasehold flats. The Government will consult on the best way to achieve this, so that generations to come will benefit from absolute homeownership.
Our planned reforms to empower leaseholders and provide new and existing homeowners with greater security will help ensure landlords and managing agents are better held to account for management failures. It will also make it easier for leaseholders to take on management of their buildings themselves so they can directly appoint or replace agents.
The Government intends to bring forward draft legislation so that it may be subject to broad consultation and additional scrutiny by Parliament. It is only right that the Government takes its time when dealing with such a complex subject to make sure that any future legislation gets it right.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether she plans to end ground rent.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government will act quickly to provide homeowners with greater rights. This includes driving up the transparency of service charges and reducing barriers for leaseholders to challenge their landlord. Over the course of this Parliament the Government will go further by enacting remaining Law Commission recommendations and tackling unregulated and unaffordable ground rent charges.
The Government will take steps to bring the feudal leasehold system to an end and reinvigorate commonhold by modernising the legal framework. We will also ban the sale of new leasehold flats. The Government will consult on the best way to achieve this, so that generations to come will benefit from absolute homeownership.
Our planned reforms to empower leaseholders and provide new and existing homeowners with greater security will help ensure landlords and managing agents are better held to account for management failures. It will also make it easier for leaseholders to take on management of their buildings themselves so they can directly appoint or replace agents.
The Government intends to bring forward draft legislation so that it may be subject to broad consultation and additional scrutiny by Parliament. It is only right that the Government takes its time when dealing with such a complex subject to make sure that any future legislation gets it right.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to create statutory standards for management agencies of leasehold properties.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government will act quickly to provide homeowners with greater rights. This includes driving up the transparency of service charges and reducing barriers for leaseholders to challenge their landlord. Over the course of this Parliament the Government will go further by enacting remaining Law Commission recommendations and tackling unregulated and unaffordable ground rent charges.
The Government will take steps to bring the feudal leasehold system to an end and reinvigorate commonhold by modernising the legal framework. We will also ban the sale of new leasehold flats. The Government will consult on the best way to achieve this, so that generations to come will benefit from absolute homeownership.
Our planned reforms to empower leaseholders and provide new and existing homeowners with greater security will help ensure landlords and managing agents are better held to account for management failures. It will also make it easier for leaseholders to take on management of their buildings themselves so they can directly appoint or replace agents.
The Government intends to bring forward draft legislation so that it may be subject to broad consultation and additional scrutiny by Parliament. It is only right that the Government takes its time when dealing with such a complex subject to make sure that any future legislation gets it right.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will take steps to cap (a) management and (b) service costs to leaseholders.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government will act quickly to provide homeowners with greater rights. This includes driving up the transparency of service charges and reducing barriers for leaseholders to challenge their landlord. Over the course of this Parliament the Government will go further by enacting remaining Law Commission recommendations and tackling unregulated and unaffordable ground rent charges.
The Government will take steps to bring the feudal leasehold system to an end and reinvigorate commonhold by modernising the legal framework. We will also ban the sale of new leasehold flats. The Government will consult on the best way to achieve this, so that generations to come will benefit from absolute homeownership.
Our planned reforms to empower leaseholders and provide new and existing homeowners with greater security will help ensure landlords and managing agents are better held to account for management failures. It will also make it easier for leaseholders to take on management of their buildings themselves so they can directly appoint or replace agents.
The Government intends to bring forward draft legislation so that it may be subject to broad consultation and additional scrutiny by Parliament. It is only right that the Government takes its time when dealing with such a complex subject to make sure that any future legislation gets it right.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
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 support local authorities to find additional accommodation for refugees that have been granted leave to remain.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The department is committed to working in partnership with local authorities to understand the impact of recently granted refugees and their housing needs.
We also continue to work with the Home Office to see how we can improve working co-operation with local authorities to make sure that they receive enough notice and the right information to support people following an asylum decision.
All individuals who have received a positive decision on their asylum claim can remain in the accommodation provided by the Home Office for at least 28 days from when their decision is served to allow them to make onward arrangements.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what her planned timetable is for assessing the effectiveness of the Housing First pilot schemes.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The previous Government commissioned an evaluation of the Housing First pilots, which is currently ongoing. Reports are made available here.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will make an assessment of the effectiveness of local government expenditure on tackling (a) child poverty and (b) poverty.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
On 17 July, a new Ministerial Taskforce was set up to drive cross-government action on child poverty, starting with overseeing the development of our ambitious new strategy in line with the Opportunity Mission.
This Government is under no illusions about the scale of the pressure that local authorities are facing and the impact of this pressure on the services councils provide. Future local authority funding decisions will be a matter for the next Spending Review and Local Government Finance Settlement. The department will work with local government leaders to ensure they are better able to fulfil their statutory duties.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will take steps to help ensure that families are able to access emergency accommodation in areas where capacity for accommodation has been exceeded by demand during the summer of 2024.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Homelessness levels are far too high and too many families are living in temporary accommodation. We will take the action needed to tackle this issue and develop a long-term, cross-government strategy, through working with mayors, councils and other key stakeholders, to end homelessness for good. Critical to tackling homelessness is building more affordable homes. We will deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation and deliver 1.5 million new homes over the next Parliament.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
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 to review the (a) distribution and (b) quantum of local government funding.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Future local authority funding decisions will be a matter for the next Spending Review and Local Government Finance Settlement.
We understand that improving how local government is funded is crucial to enabling councils to deliver for local residents and ensuring we can deliver our missions. We will provide councils with more stability and certainty through multi-year funding settlements and by ending wasteful competitive bidding. This will ensure councils can plan their finances for the future properly, delivering better value for money for taxpayers.
We want to hear from councils about the financial challenges they are facing and we are committed to improving the local government finance landscape in this Parliament.