Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the answer of 5 February 2026, to Question 108681, on Chinese Embassy: Planning Permission, if he will list each developer or applicant that has been given clarification meetings or pre-application engagement since July 2024.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Since July 2024, officials have undertaken pre-application engagement with:
Engagement in these instances related to prospective Crown or Urgent Crown applications, and carried out in accordance with planning propriety guidance.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the oral statement of 27 January 2026, Official Report, Col. 770, on business rates, what the evidential basis is that around three quarters of pubs will see their bills either fall or stay the same next year; what number of bills will remain the same; and what number of pubs were at the £110k cap for RHL relief in 2025-26.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The statistic is based on analysis conducted by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) using property-level data on rateable values from the Valuation Office Agency, and local authority returns on the value of reliefs and the number of properties receiving reliefs, published in MHCLG’s National Non-Domestic Rates statistics.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
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 paragraph 88 of the UK Government Resilience Action Plan, how many meetings Ministers in their Department have attended related to the Home Defence Programme.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Ministers have regular discussions with officials, external experts and ministerial colleagues on a range of issues, including national security, defence and resilience.
The Home Defence Programme was established in August 2024 to build the UK’s resilience to any potential escalation to conflict. It is an evolving and enduring programme of work which provides defence, security and resilience planning, focused on aligning military and civil effort in the event of a period of crisis and international hostilities affecting the UK, informed by and reflecting the recommendations from government strategies, including the Strategic Defence Review, National Security Strategy and Resilience Action Plan.
MHCLG is actively supporting this work, including liaising with Local Resilience Forums.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Mid Buckinghamshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to encourage farmers to develop detailed fire plans, as recommended by the NFU Mutual's Farm Fires Report 2025.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) are the lead Department for wildfire. Defra work closely with MHCLG and support Natural England (NE) in delivering their responsibilities. This includes the recently published EIP commitment that by 2030 NE will conduct research on increasing the natural resilience of habitats to wildfires. This will develop our understanding of actions that can be taken to naturally reduce the risk of wildfires.
Asked by: Sonia Kumar (Labour - Dudley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing mandatory, specialist domestic abuse training for all housing officers in England.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government has not undertaken an assessment of mandating specialist domestic abuse training for all housing officers in England.
Local authorities, under their statutory duties in Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, are required to assess the need for and provide support for all victims of domestic abuse and their children while in safe accommodation. To support delivery of this duty, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government provided local authorities in England £160 million in 2025/26, a £30 million uplift from the previous year, and £499 million funding will be allocated to local authorities over the next three years.
Statutory guidance to local authorities is available (Delivery of support to victims of domestic abuse in domestic abuse safe accommodation services - GOV.UK) providing further details on how the duty should be delivered, including the expectation for local authorities to strengthen their understanding of domestic abuse locally, which may include through training.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on the adequacy of funding for domestic abuse services.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Freedom from Violence and Abuse: a cross-government strategy committed to invest more than £1 billion over the next three years to support victims, including:
This sits alongside wider investments, across government, to support victims.
Asked by: Alex McIntyre (Labour - Gloucester)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent steps he has taken to help tackle homelessness among veterans in Gloucester constituency.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
This Government is fully committed to ensuring that veterans in Gloucester and across the UK have access to the support they need on housing. That is why we have committed an additional £12 million to ensure the continuation of the Reducing Veteran Homelessness programme. Op FORTITUDE has also been extended, putting the service that has already supported over 1,000 veterans on a sustainable footing. These programmes will deliver three years of support services across the UK for veterans at risk of or experiencing homelessness.
In December last year, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published A National Plan to End Homelessness. The Ministry of Defence contributed to this strategy including committing to ensuring that all councils are aware of service provision in their area to support veterans at risk of homelessness.
Asked by: Claire Coutinho (Conservative - East Surrey)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether (a) his Department and (b) the arms length bodies sponsored by his Department are compliant with the Supreme Court ruling in the case of For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2025].
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
We have set out our expectation that all duty bearers, including Departments and arm’s-length bodies, follow the law as clarified by the Supreme Court ruling and seek specialist legal advice where necessary. The Prime Minister has underlined this recently.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has submitted a draft Code of Practice on services, public functions and associations to Ministers, and we are reviewing it with the care it deserves. This will provide further guidance to duty bearers.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the written statement of 9 February 2026 on Local Government Finance Settlement 2026-27 to 2028-29, whether he has allocated additional funding to MHCLG.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The final 2026-27 to 2028-29 Local Government Finance Settlement confirmed £740 million in new grant funding additional to the provisional Settlement, taking the total new grant funding delivered through the multi-year Settlement to over £4 billion. Local authority funding allocations across the three years can be found here: Core Spending Power table: final local government finance settlement 2026-27 to 2028-29 - GOV.UK.
The £740 million of additional funding is comprised of unallocated budgets for the Spending Review period and additional Exchequer funding. The Barnett formula applies to all increases or decreases to UK Government Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL).
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he plans to pause (a) Parliamentary constituency and (b) local election boundary reviews until every area covered by the respective authority has concluded its automatic registration process.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Everyone who is eligible to register to vote should be able, supported and encouraged to do so. The sole aim of moving towards automated registration is to increase the completeness and accuracy of the electoral register.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will test automated registration in a range of different locations and settings, with different characteristics and challenges, to ensure anything we implement permanently works for everyone. We will be guided throughout by principles of fairness and open engagement. We are consulting a range of stakeholders to develop this programme, including the Electoral Commission, the Association of Electoral Administrators, local authorities and civil society organisations. We will also continue to offer engagement with political parties.
The Parliamentary and Local Government Boundary Commission for England are independent of Government. The timings of Parliamentary Boundary Reviews are set by legislation, and the Government
has no plans to bring forward legislation to amend these. The timings of local electoral reviews in England are decided by the Local Boundary Commission for England, who will continue to make these decisions independently of Government.