Asked by: Simon Danczuk (Independent - Rochdale)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the removal of permitted development rights for the conversion or demolition of pubs on trends in pub closures.
Answered by Lord Barwell
Briefing provided by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) suggests that only 10 per cent of the pubs that change use do so under permitted development rights. Planning permission is required where permitted development rights for the change of use or demolition are removed. Planning applications are determined in accordance with the Local Plan, any neighbourhood plan, and other material considerations.
It is not possible to estimate what proportion of these pubs that have changed use via permitted development rights would in any case have received planning permission to do so or, if refused planning permission, would have closed.
Asked by: Simon Danczuk (Independent - Rochdale)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much funding his Department has allocated as part of the settlement for contaminated land activities to each local authority in England in 2016-17.
Answered by Marcus Jones
Funding for local authorities to meet their statutory duty around contaminated land under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 is provided through the Local Government Finance Settlement. The relevant funding streams are unringfenced and this is to allow councils to manage their budgets independently and in line with local priorities.
Asked by: Simon Danczuk (Independent - Rochdale)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the potential effect of the removal of Part 2A contaminated land funding on the budgets of local councils.
Answered by Marcus Jones
As Minister for Local Government I engage with colleagues in government on a range of issues which affect councils across England.
Although DEFRA’s Contaminated Land Capital Grant has ended, funding for local authorities to meet their duty under Part 2a of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 continues to be provided through the local government finance settlement.
Asked by: Simon Danczuk (Independent - Rochdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the proportion of the existing 15 hours of free childcare that is provided by nurseries that are (a) private, (b) voluntary and (c) independent.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The information requested is presented within the Main tables: SFR20/2015 at the following link:
Provision for children under 5 years of age: January 2015 - Publications - GOV.UK
Figures for 2-year-olds can be found within Table 1a and for 3- and 4-year-olds, within Table 2a.
Asked by: Simon Danczuk (Independent - Rochdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the proportion of (a) private, (b) voluntary and (c) independent nurseries which will provide the additional 15 hours of childcare under the provisions of the Childcare Act 2016.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The Department for Education publishes data on the number of children benefitting from funded early education places by type of provider and local authority. The latest information can be found in the Statistical First Release Provision for children under five years of age in England: January 2015 (SFR20/2015).
As part of our ongoing development of our 30 hours implementation plans we are consulting extensively with key stakeholders, including representative organisations and other individual providers.
The government will continue to support the growth and creation of new places to deliver the 30 hours funded entitlement through investing at least £50 million of capital investment to support the creation of additional early years places. This is in addition to our commitment to capital funding to create nursery provision as part of new Free Schools which we estimate will create at least 4,000 places.
Asked by: Simon Danczuk (Independent - Rochdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the average hourly cost per child is to the public purse of the additional 15 hours free childcare provided for under the Childcare Act 2016 in (a) the UK, (b) the North West and (c) Rochdale.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Currently the national average hourly rate paid by the Department for Education to local authorities in England is £4.56. From April 2017, the national average funding rate paid by the Department will increase to £4.88 per hour for three- and four-year-olds. This includes the average spend on the early years pupil premium which, at current rates, is approximately 5p per child per hour. More government investment and support than ever before is going towards high-quality early education: funding for the early years entitlements will increase from £2.7 billion per year to £3.9 billion per year during the course of this Parliament, and this includes an uplift of £300 million per year.
We recognise that the current funding system for funded early education creates unfair and unjustifiable differences between areas and providers. That is why we have announced that we will introduce a national funding formula for early years. The Government will be consulting on detailed proposals later this year.
These figures refer to England as the early years entitlements are a devolved matter.
Asked by: Simon Danczuk (Independent - Rochdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the (a) likely level of uptake for the extra 15 hour a week childcare provided for under the Childcare Act 2016 and (b) number of people eligible for that extra childcare under the provisions of that Act.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The Government estimates that around 390,000 three- and four-year-olds will be eligible for the additional 15 hours of free childcare, and we expect that the majority of parents with eligible children will want to take up this generous offer. During our 2015 consultation, we conducted an online survey and of nearly 20,000 respondents, around 89% said they would take up the additional hours if they were available now.
Asked by: Simon Danczuk (Independent - Rochdale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of his Department's arrangements with local authorities for the settlement of asylum seekers.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Home Office maintains an active partnership with local governments across the UK and funds Strategic Migration Partnerships to plan for the most appropriate voluntary agreements for the dispersal of asylum seekers, and the integration of Syrian refugees.
We continue to work closely with a wide range of local authorities to increase the number of areas that accommodate and support people seeking asylum and protection – every local authority is encouraged to contribute to ensure a reasonable spread across the whole of the UK.
Asked by: Simon Danczuk (Independent - Rochdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many people have been charged under the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 for selling private vehicles on public roads; and how many such cases were successfully appealed.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The most recent published statistics on fixed penalty notices issued by Local Authorities for nuisance parking cover 2006 to 2009 and are available at:
https://data.gov.uk/dataset/fixed-penalty-notice-nuisance-parking
According to this data:
| 2006/07 | 2007/08 | 2008/09 |
Number of Fixed Penalties Issued | 1657 | 74 | 150 |
The data does not specify how many cases were successfully appealed. The data includes the number of fixed penalty notices which were:
“Nuisance parking” includes the two offences of (i) exposing or advertising for sale as part of a business two or more vehicles parked on a road; and (ii) repairing a vehicle parked on the road, either as part of business or in a way that gives reasonable cause for annoyance to people nearby.
Asked by: Simon Danczuk (Independent - Rochdale)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the average time taken is by the Valuation Office Agency to assess new properties to give them a council tax band; and how many such cases have taken longer than three months in the last three years.
Answered by David Gauke
Most recent information from operational systems shows that between 01 March 2013 and 29 February 2016, the Valuation Office Agency took an average (mean) of 17.5 working days to update the Council Tax Valuation Lists for England and Wales with entries for new properties. Out of these, 23,599 cases (representing 5% of the total) took longer than 3 months (defined as 60 working days). Over 99% of all cases are resolved within the first 4 months.