Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of (a) limiting rent increases, (b) enhancing requirements for landlord entry on the Private Rented Sector Database, (c) restricting advance rent demands, (d) tightening conditions for requesting guarantors and (e) other measures to better protect renters while ensuring a balanced approach to landlord responsibilities.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Renters’ Rights Bill will transform the experience of private renting in England. It will modernise the regulation of the private rented sector, levelling decisively the playing field between landlord and tenant.
It will empower renters by providing them with greater security, rights and protections so that they can stay in their homes for longer, build lives in their communities and avoid the risk of homelessness. It will ensure that we can drive up the quality of privately rented housing so that renters have access to good-quality and safe homes as a matter of course. It will also allow us to crack down on the minority of unscrupulous landlords who exploit, mistreat or discriminate against renters.
The Bill will also provide tangible benefits for responsible landlords who provide high-quality homes and a good service to their tenants, ensuring they enjoy simpler regulation and clear and expanded possession grounds, so that they can regain their properties quickly when necessary.
The Bill will empower private rented sector tenants to challenge unreasonable rent increases. This will prevent unscrupulous landlords using rent increases as a backdoor means of eviction, while ensuring landlords can increase rents to reflect market rates.
Measures in the Bill mean a landlord will only be able to require up to one month's rent between a tenancy agreement being signed and that tenancy beginning. This will end an unfair practice which can place considerable financial strain on tenants and excludes some from renting altogether.
It will also require all private landlords letting residential property in England to register with the Private Rented Sector Database. We expect these landlords will include data about the ownership and standard of their properties as part of their entries, and we are exploring the feasibility of collecting a wider range of more tenancy-focused information. We will stipulate the specific requirements in regulations.
The Bill does not limit the ability of landlords to request a guarantor. The use of guarantors can support people renting for the first time to access the private rented sector. We will continue to engage with a range of stakeholders about any barriers to entering the private rented sector.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) phasing out and (b) banning cages for laying hens; and what steps he plans to take to ensure farmers are provided with support to transition to higher animal welfare systems.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are firmly committed to maintaining and improving animal welfare and want to work closely with the farming sector to deliver high standards.
The use of cages for laying hens is an issue we are currently considering very carefully. The Laying Hen Housing for Health and Welfare Grant was recently offered to commercial laying hen and pullet keepers in England. It supports these farmers to improve the health, welfare, and productivity of their flocks through access to grants toward the cost of upgrading their housing. Applications closed on the 18 September 2024 and we will be writing to all applicants shortly to notify them of next steps.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if he will take steps with his international counterparts to negotiate a treaty on ending the (a) use and (b) production of fossil fuels.
Answered by Kerry McCarthy - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We are committed to working with all international counterparts to transition away from fossil fuels, in line with the UK’s domestic and international commitments including from the COP28 Global Stocktake.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of announcing a national inquiry into grooming gangs; and what steps she is taking to (a) support investigations into alleged crimes and (b) help prevent similar crimes in the future.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
This Government is prioritising work to ensure victims and survivors of Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse are protected and supported, while pursuing offenders and bringing them to justice. We are continuing to work across government and with policing and law enforcement partners to strengthen the prevention of and response to these despicable crimes.
I refer the Rt Hon Member to the Home Secretary’ statement made on 16 January, which sets out some of the actions the Government is taking forward to tackle child sexual exploitation and abuse, including on grooming gangs offending. This includes making grooming an aggravated factor in sentencing, and new help to assist victims in getting prosecutions underway by expanding the remit of the Independent Child Sexual Abuse Review Panel.
The Home Secretary has also written to the National Police Chiefs’ Council to ask all chief constables to look again at historical gang exploitation cases where No Further Action was taken, and to work with the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce to pursue new lines of inquiry and to reopen investigations where appropriate. These measures are being backed with £2 million of additional funding.
The Home Secretary is also appointing Baroness Louise Casey to lead an audit to improve our understanding of the scale, nature and drivers of group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse at a national and local level, and to make recommendations on what additional action is needed to improve our response.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether she plans to take steps to improve the equitable distribution of practical driving test slots in (a) England and (b) Leicester East constituency.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) main priority is upholding road safety standards while it works hard to reduce car practical driving test waiting times.
On the 18 December, DVSA set out further plans to reduce driving test waiting times across the country. These steps include recruiting 450 Driving Examiners (DEs) and improving rules for booking driving tests. Full details of these steps can be found on GOV.UK.
As part of recent recruitment at Driving Test Centres (DTC) that serve the Leicester East constituency, DVSA has just concluded a campaign at Leicester Cannock Street DTC and has made employment offers to successful candidates.
In addition to the recruitment plans at Cannock Street DTC, DVSA has been growing the teams at surrounding sites which will help to balance the demand across the Leicestershire area.
At Leicester Wigston DTC, two new DEs were recruited last year, with an additional new entrant due to start later this month. At Loughborough DTC, two new DEs also joined last year, and the DVSA is making offers to two more potential new entrants from the most recent recruitment campaign.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support communities affected by recent flooding in Leicester; and whether he plans to make a flood recovery grant available to local authorities.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Protecting communities around the country from flooding is one of the Secretary of State’s five core priorities. This Government will invest £2.4 billion in 2024/25 and 2025/26 to improve flood resilience by maintaining, repairing and building flood defences.
During recent flooding, the Environment Agency has been operating flood assets and working with local partners across England to prevent and reduce the severity of the flooding.
In Leicester, the Environment Agency will continue to deploy officers to affected communities to assess the impacts of flooding to properties and businesses. It will also continue to work with the local resilience forum to identify further opportunities to reduce flood risk in Leicestershire and support the resilience of communities to flooding.
There are no plans to activate Defra's Property Flood Resilience grant scheme as the current scale of flooding has not met the threshold for its activation. Local Authorities should have contingencies in place for flooding and be able to provide support through their normal mechanisms.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of proposed changes to disability benefits on vulnerable individuals in Leicester; and what steps she will be taking to ensure those most in need are adequately supported during this period of fiscal adjustment.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We want to change the system of health and disability benefits across Great Britain to enable people better to enter and remain in work, and to respond to the complex and fluctuating nature of the health conditions many people live with today.
We will bring forward a Green Paper in the spring. We will listen to and engage with disabled people as we develop proposals for reform in this area and across the employment support system. No decisions have yet been made.
To support those most in need, the Government has provided funding of £742 million to extend the Household Support Fund in England by a further year, from 1 April 2025 until 31 March 2026. This will ensure low-income households can continue to access support towards the cost of essentials, such as food, energy and water.
Local Authorities also have the discretion to design their own local schemes within the parameters of the guidance and grant determination for the fund. We encourage Authorities to consider how they may support a wide range of low-income households in need, including households with disabled people.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps his Department is taking to (a) prioritise a roofs first approach to solar panel installation to ensure efficient use of urban spaces and (b) incentivize homeowners and businesses to adopt rooftop solar technology.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Changes have been introduced to permitted development rights, enabling more solar installations to benefit from the flexibilities and planning freedoms permitted development rights offer. This includes a new permitted development right that allows for the installation of solar canopies in non-domestic, off-street, car parks.
For non-domestic rooftop solar, the 1MW cap was removed so that there is no limit on the electricity generated by solar installations.
Our Warm Homes Plan will transform homes across the country by making them cleaner and cheaper to run, from installing new insulation to rolling out low carbon heating like solar and heat pumps.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to support low-income families by (a) improving access to opportunities for children to play and learn, and (b) enhancing financial independence and living standards.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Through our Opportunity Mission, this Government will break the link between a child’s background and their future success. We will deliver across four areas including helping every child to achieve and thrive through excellent teaching and high standards, with a focus on disadvantaged children and those with special educational needs and disabilities.
Worth over £2.9 billion in 2024/25, the pupil premium grant continues to support the educational outcomes of disadvantaged pupils. Furthermore, all local authorities in England continue to deliver the Holiday and Activities Food programme, providing heathy meals, enriching activities and free childcare places to children from low-income families throughout the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays.
Poverty limits children’s opportunities and holds them back. The number of children living in poverty has gone up by 700,000 since 2010, with over four million children now growing up in a low-income family. This is why tackling child poverty is an urgent priority for this Government, and the Ministerial Taskforce is working to publish our child poverty strategy in Spring 2025.
As set out in the Taskforce’s publication of 23 October ‘Tackling Child Poverty: Developing our Strategy’ s our ambition is to deliver an enduring reduction in child poverty this parliament, as part of a 10-year strategy for lasting change. To deliver this, we will look at all available levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments.
The vital work of the Taskforce comes alongside our commitments to triple investment in breakfast clubs to over £30 million, roll out free breakfast clubs at all primary schools, create 3,000 additional nurseries, and increase the National Living Wage to £12.21 an hour from April 2025 to boost the pay of 3 million workers.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to (a) ensure that current prison expansion plans are sufficient to meet projected demand and (b) prevent potential overcrowding in prisons serving Leicester and the surrounding areas.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Our 10-year Prison Capacity strategy published on 11 December sets out plans to deliver 14,000 prison places the previous Government promised but failed to deliver. It also sets out our plans to maintain the places in our estate to ensure we have sufficient accommodation and explore the acquisition of land should we need to build more prison places. This will include a new 1,700-place prison in Leicestershire (next to HMP Gartree), in addition to HMP Fosse Way in Leicester which opened in 2023.
We have also launched an Independent Sentencing Review, chaired by former Lord Chancellor, David Gauke. The Review’s aim is to ensure we are never again left in a position that this Government was, where we have more prisoners than places available.