Asked by: Scott Mann (Conservative - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to support the building of new social housing in the South West.
Answered by Dominic Raab
There are a number of innovative social housing projects in the South West, with social housing providers actively working with SMEs, leveraging small sites to increase delivery and offering custom build affordable housing.
The Government is continuing to support the delivery of social housing in the South West and across the country. We are providing over £9 billion funding for the Affordable Homes Programme, this includes an additional £2 billion available for social rent.
We have confirmed long-term rent certainty for social landlords in England and announced that we will be providing councils with £1 billion of additional borrowing to deliver homes where demand is greatest. In March we announced plans to consult on options for allowing local authorities more flexibility in the use of their Right to Buy receipts.
These measures will support housing associations and local authorities to build more genuinely affordable homes where they are needed most, including areas of high affordability pressure such as the South West.
Since 2010, we have delivered over 378,000 new affordable homes including over 273,000 affordable homes for rent. The Department does not publish delivery information on a regional basis.
The Nelson Project in Plymouth, for example, is a custom build partnership which supported returning veterans by training them to build their own homes. 24 affordable apartments were delivered, housing twelve veterans, six persons from the housing waiting list, and six people with mild learning disabilities. The returning veterans gained skills, qualifications and experience of the construction industry, making them more employable and helping them to assimilate into normal civilian life. The Government supported this project with £880,000 of funding.
Another innovative approach that received government funding is a development of low energy affordable homes in Somerset. Built in partnership between Southwestern Housing Society and Man Green Homes, the homes are extremely energy efficient and help to future proof again fuel poverty.
Asked by: Scott Mann (Conservative - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will extend the Right to Acquire scheme to properties built before March 1997.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The Government has a commitment to extend the Right to Buy to housing association tenants. This will include tenants who qualify for the Right to Acquire but whose homes are exempt as they were built or acquired by their housing association landlord before 1997.
The Midlands pilot of the voluntary extension of the Right to Buy will give thousands more housing association tenants the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of home ownership. The Government is currently engaging with the National Housing Federation and housing associations in the Midlands, and more details on the pilot will be announced in due course.
There are no plans to amend the Right to Acquire.
Asked by: Scott Mann (Conservative - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to deliver more new homes to rural areas.
Answered by Dominic Raab
Our draft revised National Planning Policy Framework makes it clear that in rural areas, planning policies and decisions should be supportive of housing development that reflect local needs. The Framework retains the rural exception sites policy that promotes affordable housing led development in rural areas.
The revised draft Framework also acknowledges that in rural areas, sites may need to be found outside existing settlements, to meet community needs. We are currently analysing responses to the consultation and intend to publish the final version of the Framework this summer.
Asked by: Scott Mann (Conservative - North Cornwall)
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 assistance and accommodation is in place for homeless people in Cornwall.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The Government remains committed to combating homelessness and rough sleeping. No one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why we are aiming to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminate it altogether by 2027.
We have implemented the most ambitious reforms in homelessness legislation in decades, the Homelessness Reduction Act which commenced in April 2018. The Act significantly reforms England’s homelessness legislation, ensuring that more people get the help they need earlier to prevent them from becoming homeless in the first place. To achieve this, we have set up a Rough Sleeping and Homelessness Reduction Taskforce that will focus on prevention and affordable housing.
We are supporting 48 projects through our £20 million Rough Sleeping Grant, with £470,000 awarded to the Nos Da project in Cornwall for services to work in partnership and prevent people from sleeping rough through identifying those at risk as well as assisting people into emergency accommodation.
Asked by: Scott Mann (Conservative - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will introduce new protections for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the revised National Planning Policy Framework.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) makes clear that the Government attaches great importance to the protection of Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs). There are no new protections for AONBs in the revised NPPF as great weight should already be given to conserving their landscape and scenic beauty within the existing framework.
Asked by: Scott Mann (Conservative - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will introduce discretionary business rate relief for public toilets.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
The Government recognises the importance of public toilets as a valuable community amenity and has encouraged local authorities to keep them open to the public. We will keep under review the need for any further action to support local authorities in doing so.
Asked by: Scott Mann (Conservative - North Cornwall)
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 encourage local authorities to avoid raising council tax.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
Council tax decisions are a matter for local authorities. However, we continue to ensure that council tax-payers can veto excessive increases via a local referendum. We expect council tax to remain lower in real terms in 2018-19 than it was in 2010-11.
Asked by: Scott Mann (Conservative - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many affordable housing units have been completed in North Cornwall in each year since 2010.
Answered by Dominic Raab
Figures for additional affordable housing units supplied are published in live table 1008C https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-affordable-housing-supply
Figures are published at local authority level, since 2009-10 figures are only available at Cornwall unitary authority level.
Asked by: Scott Mann (Conservative - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many new build planning approvals there were in North Cornwall constituency in each year since 2010.
Answered by Dominic Raab
Numbers of major and minor residential planning applications decided by each local authority district, in the year to 30 September 2017, are shown in Live Table P136 at the following link.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-planning-application-statistics
Earlier versions of table P136 are also available from the same link:
These statistics are not available by parliamentary constituency.
Asked by: Scott Mann (Conservative - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many homes were built in North Cornwall constituency in each year since 2010, and how many of those homes were affordable homes.
Answered by Dominic Raab
Estimates of house building for new build dwellings completions for England and in each local authority district, to September quarter 2017, are shown in Live Table 253a at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-house-building
These cover new build dwellings only and should be regarded as a leading indicator of overall housing supply. The Department also publishes an annual release entitled ‘Housing supply: net additional dwellings, England’, which is the primary and most comprehensive measure of housing supply.
More comprehensive statistics on additional affordable housing provided by local authority and private registered providers (housing association) are published in the Department’s live tables at:
http://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-affordable-housing-supply
Table 1008C provides all additional affordable dwellings provided (new build and acquisitions) by local authority area. Separate figures for ‘social rent’, ‘affordable rent’ and ‘intermediate (shared ownership and intermediate rent)’ housing are shown in Tables 1006c, 1006a and 1007c respectively.
These statistics are not available by parliamentary constituency.