Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to Clarion Housing Group’s decision to urgently decant tenants and leaseholders from Clare House, if he will ask that organisation to specify how many additional homes it has bought to provide permanent alternative housing for people who have lost their home since receiving Arup’s report on 17 September 2021 on the fire safety and structural problems.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
All registered providers of social housing are expected to make sure that their properties are well managed and of appropriate quality, and they must comply with the regulatory standards set by the independent Regulator of Social Housing. Landlords are required to engage with their tenants and put things right as soon as possible. The regulator considers all relevant referrals and complaints it receives to ascertain whether there has been a breach of the consumer standards that risks or caused serious harm to tenants that might warrant further regulatory action. The Regulator does not have a role in proactively seeking tenants’ views on the performance of their landlord. Following the commitments made in the Charter for Social Housing Residents, we will give the Regulator stronger powers to proactively monitor and drive compliance with consumer standards, including new tenant satisfaction measures to help assess landlord performance on issues like repairs and complaints handling.
The Department has been in regular contact with Clarion Housing Group and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets regarding the situation at Clare House. Clarion Housing Group has responsibility for the safety of residents at Clare House and for providing residents with appropriate alternative accommodation following the decision to decant residents from the building. Clarion Housing Group has confirmed that they have made residents a comprehensive offer of support which will include permanent alternative accommodation. The Department and the Local Authority expects Clarion Housing Group to move quickly to provide alternative permanent accommodation and provide support to evacuated residents for as long as it is required.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what the maximum permissible period tenants and leaseholders decanted from Clare House for fire safety reasons by Clarion Housing Group can be expected to reside in hotel accommodation before being moved into suitable self-contained temporary accommodation.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Department has been in regular contact with Clarion Housing Group and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets regarding the situation at Clare House. Clarion Housing Group has responsibility for the safety of residents at Clare House and for providing residents with appropriate alternative accommodation in the event of an evacuation of the building. Clarion Housing Group has confirmed that they have made residents a comprehensive offer of support which will include permanent alternative accommodation. The Department and the Local Authority expects Clarion Housing Group to move quickly to provide alternative permanent accommodation and provide support to evacuated residents for as long as it is required.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make a statement on the steps taken by his Department following notification by Clarion Housing Group of its decision to urgently decant 122 tenants and leaseholders from Clare House from 29 September 2021.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Department has been in regular contact with Clarion Housing Group and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets regarding the situation at Clare House. Clarion Housing Group has responsibility for the safety of residents at Clare House and for providing residents with appropriate alternative accommodation in the event of an evacuation of the building. Clarion Housing Group has confirmed that they have made residents a comprehensive offer of support which will include permanent alternative accommodation. The Department and the Local Authority expects Clarion Housing Group to move quickly to provide alternative permanent accommodation and provide support to evacuated residents for as long as it is required.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will request a report from Clarion Housing Group on (a) the reasons for its decision to institute a waking watch at a 21 story tower block from September 2020 and (b) the timeline for its decision to urgently decant Clare House from 29 September 2021, including the date on which the original report was received by the Clarion Housing Group senior management team and Board of Directors.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Department has been in regular contact with Clarion Housing Group and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets regarding the situation at Clare House. Clarion Housing Group are the owners of Clare House and have responsibility for the safety of residents in the building. Clarion has provided the Department and the local authority with information provided by their technical experts on structural and fire safety at Clare House.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department has received an application from Clarion Housing Group to the Building Safety Fund for fire safety measures at Clare House.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Department has not received an application to the Building Safety Fund in respect of Clare House.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, in the context of Clarion Housing Group’s decision to decant Clare House, if he will urgently commission independent research into the progress of steps taken by social landlords to (a) undertake works to make safe Large Panel System Bison-design tower blocks and (b) move tenants and leaseholders out of those blocks since 2017.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government is actively raising awareness and facilitating the dissemination of best practice for large panel system buildings with those responsible for their maintenance. In addition, the government has established a new Building Safety Regulator, empowered under the Building Safety Bill. This regulator will have additional powers as well as duties to help ensure that all blocks of flats – including large panel system building – above 18m in height are safe.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the announcement by his Department on 4 March 2021 of funding for accessible toilets under the Changing Places scheme, when his Department plans to provide further information on the application process for that funding.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
District and Unitary Authorities in England will receive full details of how they can access this funding soon. Local authorities will be invited to 'opt in' to receive a proportion of this £30 million funding to install facilities in their communities and boost the number of Changing Place toilets in existing buildings.
This programme will be delivered in partnership with the charity Muscular Dystrophy UK who will be supporting local authorities in their delivery and are undertaking the largest consultation to date with users of Changing Places toilets in England to help develop our understanding of user needs and priorities.
In the meantime, local authorities are encouraged to consider where Changing Places toilets are most needed in their communities and are encouraged to begin identifying and working in partnership with other organisations who may help to deliver these facilities.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to ensure that funding allocations for local authority children’s services account for (a) geographical differences in deprivation and (b) levels of need.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The 2021-22 Local Government Finance Settlement provided £1.7 billion in Social Care Grant, which will support local authorities to provide care to vulnerable children, children in care, looked after children, and children with disabilities. Councils are also free to use any un-ringfenced funding, including their annual core settlement allocation, to support local priorities, such as Children's Social Care
This Government is committed to putting funding where there is relative need. Both Social Care Grant and the core settlement are distributed through relative needs formulas, and these formulas take into account local levels of need and deprivation
We are also in the process of updating both the Adult and Children's needs formulas, and will work with councils on how best to use these new formulas in the future.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the report by children's charities, entitled Children and young people’s services: Funding and spending 2010-11 to 2018-19, published in May 2020, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the £2.2 billion reduction in funding available for local authority children’s services since 2010-11 identified in that report.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The last three local government finance settlement announcements have all included real terms increases to local authorities. For 2021-22, Government is making £2.3 billion extra available to local government in 2021-22. This means that next year, Core Spending Power in England will rise by up to 4.6% in cash terms.
Supporting councils to maintain critical mainstream services, such as Children’s Services continues to be our key priority. This year’s local government finance settlement rolled forward £1.4 billion of Social Care Grant funding from 2020-21, and added a further £300 million funding, taking the total Social Care Grant to £1.7 billion for 2021/22.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he plans to bring forward legislative proposals to mandate developers to take full responsibility for covering the costs of unsafe cladding.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government has been clear that it is the building owner or responsible person that is responsible for removing unsafe cladding from their buildings and it is the building owner or responsible person that faces enforcement action if they do not do so.
Depending on the terms of individual leases, building owners may be entitled to pass on costs to leaseholders. However, the Government expects building owners to meet remediation costs without passing them on to leaseholders wherever possible, through their own resources or by recovering costs from applicable warranty schemes or from the developers or contractors who were responsible for the installation of unsafe cladding, as is happening with more than half of the private sector buildings with unsafe ACM cladding.
Where this may not be possible the Government is providing over £5 billion of funding to protect leaseholders living in residential buildings over 18m with unsafe cladding from the costs of remediation.
However, it is fundamental that the industry that caused this legacy of unsafe buildings is made to contribute for compromising public safety. We will be setting out details of a forthcoming industry/developer levy.