Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he is taking steps to ensure that local authorities can place statutory notices with digital-only news outlets, particularly in communities that do not have printed news outlets.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government is mindful of the potential effect that any changes to the existing publicity requirements for statutory notices might have on transparency and local democracy, as well as the potential effect on the sustainability of the local news sector as a whole. We recognise the continued importance of print local newspapers to the communities they serve and that there will continue to be a need to reach out to people who cannot digitally access information. We currently have no plans to change the statutory duty to publish statutory notices.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what financial support is available for local authorities to build new homes for social rent.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government is committed to increasing the supply of affordable housing and are investing over £12 billion in affordable housing over 5 years, the largest investment in affordable housing in a decade. This includes the new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme which will provide around 32,000 homes for social rent – more than double the homes for social rent in the previous Affordable Homes Programme. Local authorities are eligible for this Programme and we want to see them playing a key role in its delivery.
To further support local authority delivery, the Government has taken a number of steps to support them to deliver new homes. In March 2021 we announced a package of reforms to give councils more freedom in how they can spend the money from Right to Buy sales on replacement homes, including homes for social rent. In May 2021, Homes England launched its Local Government Capacity Centre to provide councils with practical support to build their development skills and capacity. This is on top of the removal of Housing Revenue Account borrowing cap in 2018, providing local authorities greater flexibility to borrow for house building.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how much the Government has invested into the Harlow Enterprise Zones and Science Park since that project was announced.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
A total of £27.5 million has been invested into the Harlow Enterprise Zones. This has come from various central government funding streams including £3.53 million from the Getting Building Fund, £5 million from the Department for Transport Local Pinchpoint funding and £1.245 million of revenue funding granted to Harlow Enterprise Zone to cover set up and early operational costs.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how much funding the Government has provided to the Harlow and Gilston Garden Town project since it was announced.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
£3.6 million of a total allocation of £171.2 million in infrastructure funding, and £2.9 million in Garden Communities funding, has been provided to date to the appropriate local authorities for the Harlow and Gilston Garden Town project.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how much funding the Government has provided to help tackle homelessness and rough sleeping in Harlow since 2018-19.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
Over £1.065 million funding has been allocated to Harlow district council to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping in 21/22.
Overall, the Government has committed over £750 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping this year further demonstrating the Government's commitment to end rough sleeping this Parliament and fully enforce the Homelessness Reduction Act.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the Government's review of the Planning for the Future White Paper, if he will make it his policy to allow local authorities to place statutory planning notices with digital-only news outlets to cover their statutory duty.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Secretary of State is taking time to review departmental programmes and engage with key stakeholders, and will be considering the best way forward in relation to proposals to reform the system. Community engagement in planning should be transparent and more accessible for communities across England, and the Secretary of State's considerations include how engagement can be improved, including through statutory notices. An announcement on our proposed way forward for the planning system will be made in shortly.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what plans he has to enable local authorities to place statutory notices with digital-only local news outlets.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
Local authorities have to publish statutory notices that relate to a wide variety of topics in local newspapers. We currently have no plans to change the statutory duty.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the uplift in core funding is for Harlow Council in 2020-21 and 2021-22.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
Under the annual local government finance settlement, Harlow Council saw their Core Spending Power rise from £11.3 million in 2019/20 to £11.9 million in 2020/21, an increase of £0.6 million. Depending on local decisions, Harlow Council may see their Core Spending Power rise from £11.9 million in 2020/21 to £12.5 million in 2021/22, an increase of £0.5 million.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how much additional financial support the Government has provided to Harlow Council to support its response to the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The Government has allocated over £8 billion directly to councils since the start of the pandemic, and at the Spending Review the Chancellor announced that councils are expected to receive an estimated £3 billion of additional support for COVID-19 in 2021-22. This takes the total support committed to councils in England to tackle the impacts of COVID-19 to over £11 billion.
For Harlow Council, this means over £500k of additional unringfenced grant funding next year, on top of over £2 million of additional funding already allocated, of which over £1.5 million is unringfenced.
For Essex County Council, this means over £28.8 million of additional unringfenced grant funding next year on top of over £153 million of additional funding already allocated, of which over £84.5 million is unringfenced.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how much funding has been allocated to support rough sleeping programmes in Harlow in the last 12 months.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
In 2020/21, we are providing over £700 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping across England.
Harlow has so far been allocated £411,718 through rough sleeping programmes in 2020/21:
Harlow has also been allocated £460,902 in homelessness funding in 2020/21: