Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
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 improve protections for homeowners facing damage to their homes from neighbouring buildings.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Party Wall Act 1996 currently provides that a building owner carrying out work must not cause unnecessary inconvenience to adjoining owners. This is taken to mean inconvenience over and above that which will inevitably occur when such works are properly undertaken. The building owner must provide temporary protection for adjacent buildings and property where necessary. The building owner is responsible for making good any damage caused by the works or must make payment in lieu of making good if the adjoining owner requests it.
His Majesty’s Government is committed to keeping the Party Wall Act under continuous review. No date or decision has been made to review the party wall act. If the act is reviewed it would require an open public consultation on any proposed legislative changes.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
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 increase participation in elections.
Answered by Rushanara Ali
The Government is committed to increasing participation in elections by improving voter registration and addressing inconsistencies in voter ID rules that have prevented legitimate voters from voting.
We are also reducing the voting age to give 16- and 17-year-olds the vote in all elections and acting to improve electoral registration.
Firm proposals to deliver on these commitments will be outlined in due course. Progress has already been made with the inclusion of the HM Armed Forces Veteran Card to the list of documents accepted at polling stations.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the English Devolution White Paper, published 16 December 2024, whether it is her policy that mayors in Mayoral Strategic Authorities will be elected through proportional representation.
Answered by Jim McMahon
The Government has no plans at this time to change the voting system for mayoral elections.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many ministerial red boxes belonging to his Department have been reported (a) lost and (b) stolen in each of the last three years.
Answered by Simon Hoare
None.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether any refurbishments have been made to ministerial offices in his Department in each of the last two years.
Answered by Simon Hoare
No significant refurbishments have been made to ministerial offices in London or Wolverhampton during the last two years, but in line with the practice of successive administrations details of departmental expenditure are set out regularly.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of building safety remediation costs on housing associations’ ability to deliver new social housing.
Answered by Lee Rowley
As set out previously, Government recognises that building safety remediation represents a significant cost for some housing associations. The Building Safety Act provided new measures to allow Registered Providers (RPs) to pursue those who were responsible for defective work.
The Government has committed £400 million to support RPs to remove and replace unsafe ACM cladding on buildings over 18 metres. RPs are also able to access the £4.5 billion Building Safety Fund (BSF) and the new Cladding Safety Scheme (CSS) for remediating unsafe cladding on buildings over 11 metres in relation to costs that would otherwise have been attributable to their leaseholders.
RPs can apply for additional BSF or CSS funding where their financial viability is jeopardised. We also expect some RPs to benefit from the remediation pledges made by housebuilders.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many settlement payments his Department issued following claims of (a) bullying, (b) harassment and (c) discrimination in the (i) 2019-20, (ii) 2020-21, (iii) 2021-22 and (iv) 2022-23 financial years.
Answered by Simon Hoare
In line with the practice of successive administrations, details will be withheld to avoid identifying individuals when numbers involved are five or fewer.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether there have been any power cuts on their Department's property in each of the last three years.
Answered by Simon Hoare
DLUHC does not maintain a central register of power cuts.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what data their Department holds on the (a) number and (b) cost of replacing (i) laptops, (ii) mobile phones, (iii) memory sticks and (iv) external hard drives that have been (A) lost and (B) stolen in the last 12 months.
Answered by Felicity Buchan
This department has over 3,500 staff and almost all have access to devices to enable them to work effectively.
Sadly, on rare occasions, some devices are lost or stolen. This is not a unique problem for Government and I note that according to the Huffington Post ‘Sheffield Lib Dems HQ [was] burgled’ in 2019 leading to local campaign organiser Kurtis Crossland appealing for ‘replacement laptops and mobile phones.’ A link to this article is available here.
In 2022, this department recorded ten lost/stolen laptops and eight lost/stolen phones – which is a very small proportion of total devices.
All departmental IT is security encrypted. The department does not provide or support memory sticks or external drives. Details of Government contracts are published online. Departmental security investigates each reported loss from the department. There has been no reported data loss or compromise as a result of these losses.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies of the recommendations of the report entitled Housing Association Service Charges Abuse published by the Social Housing Action Campaign in July 2023.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
The Government welcomes the report from the Social Housing Action Campaign on housing association service charges. We believe that any charges to leaseholders and social housing tenants should be transparent and communicated effectively, and there should be a clear route to challenge them if things go wrong.