Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
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 implement the commitment in the integration communities action plan to support the anti-muslim hatred working group to work with IPSO to develop guidance for (a) editors and (b) journalists to tackle the negative portrayal of muslims in the media.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
Members of the Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group (AMHWG) continue to engage with the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) on the development of guidance for editors and journalists on the reporting of Muslims in the media. Members are currently working with IPSO to develop and refine the guidance.
This work is an important contribution towards commitments set out in the Integrated Communities Action Plan and Government’s Hate Crime Action Plan refresh.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policy on right to buy of the large-scale regional pilot in the Midlands of extending the right to buy to housing association tenants.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government will undertake a full evaluation of the pilot after its completion.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
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 meet the demand for longer tenancies for private tenants.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Government is committed to protecting the rights of tenants and giving them more security.
We have published a model tenancy agreement which landlords and tenants can use as the basis for longer, family friendly tenancies, available for free at www.gov.uk/government/publications/model-agreement-for-a-shorthold-assured-tenancy. And the measures announced in the Housing White Paper resulted in many of the largest build to rent operators offering their tenants the option of longer tenancies.
We recently consulted on ways to overcome the barriers to landlords offering longer tenancies in the wider private rented sector and proposed a new longer tenancy model with a minimum of three years. We are currently analysing responses.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the timescale is for the publication of the outcome of the large-scale regional pilot scheme in the Midlands of extending the right to buy to housing association tenants.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Midlands pilot will enable thousands of housing association tenants to buy their homes, and will be fully evaluated after completion. The evaluation will be published in due course after the pilot concludes.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the timescale is for extending the right to buy housing scheme to tenants of housing association properties.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
I refer the Hon Member to the answer given to Question UIN 157707 on 4 July 2018.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
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 extend the right to buy scheme to tenants of housing association properties.
Answered by Dominic Raab
We remain committed to ensuring that housing association tenants have the opportunity to own their homes, and are using pilots to make sure we get the policy right. The forthcoming large-scale regional pilot in the Midlands, which will launch in the summer, will test key aspects of the voluntary agreement with housing associations not tested in the initial small-scale pilot, including the portable discount and one for one replacement.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how much funding his Department has allocated to tackle (a) Islamophobia, (b) sexual orientation discrimination and (c) antisemitism in each year since 2010.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
We treat all hate crime with equal seriousness; there is no place for treating victims differently regardless of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or gender identity. Our funding of projects reflects this approach and that is why we fund a number of initiatives that combat hate crime across all five strands and do not allocate specific funding to target specific areas. Our work to combat religiously motivated hatred tackles anti-Muslim hatred and anti-Semitism, alongside hatred directed at any person or group based on their religion.
Since 2010 the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has provided £3.7 million to local projects to challenge hate crime. We expect to spend a further £1.5 million by March 2018. This includes support for programmes such as the Anne Frank Trust's Switch
Off Prejudice programme which encourages young people to consider the consequences of prejudice, persecution and discrimination, support for community organisations such as Tell MAMA and the Community Security Trust, and establishing the Hate Crime Support Group which networks organisations tackling hatred across all five protected categories to share best practice and offer the best support for victims.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps the Government is taking to prevent the growth of extreme anti-Muslim views in (a) print, (b) broadcast and (c) social media.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Government recognises the harm caused by anti-Muslim views across all forms of media including print, broadcast and social media and our Hate Crime Action Plan makes clear our commitment to reducing this harm. We are working with The Society of Editors and the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) to improve journalists' understanding of minority groups and to devise training to help journalists gain a better understanding of Islam. We have also been instrumental in ensuring that four of the main internet service providers, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Microsoft, remove illegal hate speech including Islamophobic content from their platforms within 24 hours.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many local authorities require private day care nurseries to pay full business rates.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
Billing authorities may apply discretionary relief to certain rate payers. This is entirely a matter for billing authorities. This information is not held centrally.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, with reference to written statement WS154 of 15 September 2016, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the 1 per cent reduction for supported housing on providers of that housing.
Answered by Lord Barwell
The Government is committed to protecting the most vulnerable through our welfare reforms. That is why we have exempted supported housing from the Local Housing Allowance cap until 2019/20, from which point we will bring in a new funding model which will ensure that the sector continues to be funded at current levels, taking into account the effect of Government policy on social sector rents. We will apply the rent reduction to supported housing, with the exception of domestic violence refuges, with rents in these properties decreasing by 1% a year for 3 years, up to and including 2019/20.
Our social rent reduction policy was based on the need to put welfare spending on a sustainable footing whilst protecting the most vulnerable. It is right that supported housing providers make the efficiency savings we are asking of the whole social housing sector, and that’s why the 1% rent reduction will apply to the majority of them. In exceptional circumstances, supported housing providers (as for general needs social sector providers affected by the policy) who feel that compliance with the social rent reduction policy would result in serious financial difficulty or jeopardise their financial viability, can apply for an exemption from the requirement.