Asked by: Christopher Pincher (Independent - Tamworth)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of local authority enforcement of (a) selective licensing designations and (b) other existing measures against landlords in the private rented sector for (i) HMOs and (ii) other private rented accommodation, since 2015.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Department continues to monitor private rent levels using the Office for National Statistics' Index of Private Rents and biannual publications on absolute rent levels by local authority and number of bedrooms. The Department also tracks the stock of private rented properties using the English Housing Survey and other market data to assess the availability of private rented accommodation and financial resilience of unwaged renters. People who need help to make their rent payments may be eligible for a range of financial support through the welfare system. The government has maintained the Local Housing Allowance at its increased rate for 2021/22 and 2022/23, and for those most in need Discretionary Housing Payments are available to help meet a shortfall in housing costs and the Household Support Fund has been extended to help with the cost of essentials.
The Government's commitment to abolish Section 21 evictions will mean tenants enjoy greater security and feel empowered to challenge poor practice and unreasonable rent rises. We want as many tenants as possible to benefit from these reforms, including students living in the private rented sector. We expect most students will continue to move in-line with the academic year. We will continue to consider the impact of our reforms as we move towards legislation and will publish an impact assessment in due course. The Government's 'A Fairer Private Rented Sector' White Paper set out our intention to bolster national oversight of local councils' enforcement, including by exploring requirements for councils to report on their housing enforcement activity and sharing of best practice.
The 2021 National Audit Office report into regulation of the private rented sector (PRS), and the subsequent Public Accounts Committee report set out several recommendations to improve the PRS, including a number concerning landlords, to which the department has responded. We are also currently assessing the recommendations from the 2019 Independent Review into the effectiveness of selective licensing and will respond in due course. We will work with local authorities to gather more information about their selective licensing schemes to ensure they are continuing to deliver the intended outcomes and to help share best practice. There are additional regulatory standards for HMOs than other privately rented accommodation. Duties for the landlords of HMOs are set out in HMO management regulations. We reformed HMO licensing in 2018, requiring that HMOs with five or more tenants must be licensed.
Asked by: Christopher Pincher (Independent - Tamworth)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of repealing Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 on the student housing market.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Department continues to monitor private rent levels using the Office for National Statistics' Index of Private Rents and biannual publications on absolute rent levels by local authority and number of bedrooms. The Department also tracks the stock of private rented properties using the English Housing Survey and other market data to assess the availability of private rented accommodation and financial resilience of unwaged renters. People who need help to make their rent payments may be eligible for a range of financial support through the welfare system. The government has maintained the Local Housing Allowance at its increased rate for 2021/22 and 2022/23, and for those most in need Discretionary Housing Payments are available to help meet a shortfall in housing costs and the Household Support Fund has been extended to help with the cost of essentials.
The Government's commitment to abolish Section 21 evictions will mean tenants enjoy greater security and feel empowered to challenge poor practice and unreasonable rent rises. We want as many tenants as possible to benefit from these reforms, including students living in the private rented sector. We expect most students will continue to move in-line with the academic year. We will continue to consider the impact of our reforms as we move towards legislation and will publish an impact assessment in due course. The Government's 'A Fairer Private Rented Sector' White Paper set out our intention to bolster national oversight of local councils' enforcement, including by exploring requirements for councils to report on their housing enforcement activity and sharing of best practice.
The 2021 National Audit Office report into regulation of the private rented sector (PRS), and the subsequent Public Accounts Committee report set out several recommendations to improve the PRS, including a number concerning landlords, to which the department has responded. We are also currently assessing the recommendations from the 2019 Independent Review into the effectiveness of selective licensing and will respond in due course. We will work with local authorities to gather more information about their selective licensing schemes to ensure they are continuing to deliver the intended outcomes and to help share best practice. There are additional regulatory standards for HMOs than other privately rented accommodation. Duties for the landlords of HMOs are set out in HMO management regulations. We reformed HMO licensing in 2018, requiring that HMOs with five or more tenants must be licensed.
Asked by: Christopher Pincher (Independent - Tamworth)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the availability of private rented accommodation to the unwaged.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Department continues to monitor private rent levels using the Office for National Statistics' Index of Private Rents and biannual publications on absolute rent levels by local authority and number of bedrooms. The Department also tracks the stock of private rented properties using the English Housing Survey and other market data to assess the availability of private rented accommodation and financial resilience of unwaged renters. People who need help to make their rent payments may be eligible for a range of financial support through the welfare system. The government has maintained the Local Housing Allowance at its increased rate for 2021/22 and 2022/23, and for those most in need Discretionary Housing Payments are available to help meet a shortfall in housing costs and the Household Support Fund has been extended to help with the cost of essentials.
The Government's commitment to abolish Section 21 evictions will mean tenants enjoy greater security and feel empowered to challenge poor practice and unreasonable rent rises. We want as many tenants as possible to benefit from these reforms, including students living in the private rented sector. We expect most students will continue to move in-line with the academic year. We will continue to consider the impact of our reforms as we move towards legislation and will publish an impact assessment in due course. The Government's 'A Fairer Private Rented Sector' White Paper set out our intention to bolster national oversight of local councils' enforcement, including by exploring requirements for councils to report on their housing enforcement activity and sharing of best practice.
The 2021 National Audit Office report into regulation of the private rented sector (PRS), and the subsequent Public Accounts Committee report set out several recommendations to improve the PRS, including a number concerning landlords, to which the department has responded. We are also currently assessing the recommendations from the 2019 Independent Review into the effectiveness of selective licensing and will respond in due course. We will work with local authorities to gather more information about their selective licensing schemes to ensure they are continuing to deliver the intended outcomes and to help share best practice. There are additional regulatory standards for HMOs than other privately rented accommodation. Duties for the landlords of HMOs are set out in HMO management regulations. We reformed HMO licensing in 2018, requiring that HMOs with five or more tenants must be licensed.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Housing First pilot programme; and whether his Department has plans to support wider roll out of that pilot.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
Housing First has an impressive international record in helping people with complex needs to recover and stay off the streets for good, which is why we awarded £28 million to pilot it in three areas (the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region).
We also commissioned a consortium, led by ICF, to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the pilot programme.
The overall evaluation programme includes a process evaluation, quantitative assessment of client outcomes, a cost-benefit analysis, and a programme of assessments, undertaken by Homeless Link, to review each Pilot's fidelity with the seven Housing First principles developed by Housing First England for the England context.
Four reports have been published. The first interim process report centred on pilot development, preparation and early delivery, and provides learning and recommendations at both the central and local level. The second report focuses on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the pilots and service users. The Mobilising Housing First toolkit provides information for those looking to implement Housing First and includes examples of good practice in the pilot areas. The most recent interim report (published July 2021) builds on the first interim report and focuses on the embedding of the pilot approaches in each area and the resulting key learning. The reports are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/housing-first-pilot-national-evaluation-reports
We recognise that rough sleeping is a nationwide challenge, and that is why it is important that we consider the findings of our evaluation, together with our experiences from the three pilots, to ensure that we know how it could work best on a larger scale.
The Government committed to expanding Housing First in its latest manifesto and we will use the findings of our evaluation, together with our experiences from the three pilots, to inform next steps.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester, Gorton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the delivery of funding to support the remediation of private buildings with ACM cladding.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Leaseholders are protected from the cost of removing unsafe aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding on high rise residential buildings. The remediation of over 50 per cent of privately owned high-rise residential buildings with unsafe ACM cladding is being paid for by building owners and developers, or through warranty or insurance claims, without passing the cost to residents. The Government has committed to fund the remediation of all unsafe ACM on private sector high rise residential buildings, except where a warranty claim has been accepted.
Where funding alone has not been enough to increase the pace of remediation we have provided direct expert support to projects. We have also appointed construction experts who are reviewing remediation timescales and identifying what can be done to increase pace. Where building owners have failed to act, despite Government support, the Government has supported enforcement action by Fire and Rescue Services and local authorities. From December, those responsible for buildings where remediation is not forecast to start on site by the end of 2020 will be publicly named, and we are clear that works to remove unsafe ACM cladding must be completed by the end of 2021. Information on the progress and pace of ACM remediation and fund allocation is available in the Building Safety Data Release at: www.gov.uk/guidance/aluminium-composite-material-cladding#acm-remediation-data
Asked by: Andrea Leadsom (Conservative - South Northamptonshire)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether the recommendations of the Inter Ministerial Group on early years family support have been agreed by his Department; and what further steps he has taken to improve early years family support.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
The Early Years Family Support Ministerial Group has been considering how the Government can improve the coordination and cost-effectiveness of early years (conception to age 2) family support and identify gaps in available provision. The group has made recommendations to Secretaries of State which they are now considering.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the means by which local authorities are funded for the statutory services they provide to children.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Funding for children’s services is an un-ring-fenced part of the wider local government finance settlement, to give local authorities the flexibility to focus on locally determined priorities and, of course, their statutory responsibilities, including children’s social care. Over the five year period from 2015-16 to 2019-20 councils will have access to more than £200 billion to deliver the local services their communities want to see, including children’s services. In February, Parliament confirmed the 2018-19 settlement for local government, providing a real terms increase in resources available to local government - £44.3 billion in 2017-18 to £45.1 billion in 2018-19.
The government’s fair funding review of relative needs and resources will develop a robust, up-to-date approach to distributing funding across all local authorities in England at local government finance settlements, including for children’s services. We are working towards implementation in 2020/21, while keeping this date under review as our work progresses.
To inform the review, the Department for Education and the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government have jointly commissioned a data research and collection project on the cost and demand pressures for children’s services, to understand local authorities’ relative funding needs.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will assess the effectiveness of the way in which local authorities are funded to provide statutory services to children.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Funding for children’s services is an un-ring-fenced part of the wider local government finance settlement, to give local authorities the flexibility to focus on locally determined priorities and, of course, their statutory responsibilities, including children’s social care. Over the five year period from 2015-16 to 2019-20 councils will have access to more than £200 billion to deliver the local services their communities want to see, including children’s services. In February, Parliament confirmed the 2018-19 settlement for local government, providing a real terms increase in resources available to local government - £44.3 billion in 2017-18 to £45.1 billion in 2018-19.
The government’s fair funding review of relative needs and resources will develop a robust, up-to-date approach to distributing funding across all local authorities in England at local government finance settlements, including for children’s services. We are working towards implementation in 2020/21, while keeping this date under review as our work progresses.
To inform the review, the Department for Education and the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government have jointly commissioned a data research and collection project on the cost and demand pressures for children’s services, to understand local authorities’ relative funding needs.
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent estimate he has made of Government funding for Ben Ainslie’s sailing team; what assessment was made (a) before and (b) after that expenditure of its cost-effectiveness; what return was expected from that investment; and whether further funding will be allocated to the team.
Answered by Andrew Griffiths
In 2014, under the Coalition Government, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport agreed a funding package of up to £7.5 million to support Sir Ben Ainslie’s America’s Cup team and their proposal to base their permanent headquarters on the Camber in Portsmouth. This was announced by the then Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Rt hon Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable).
This funding ensured the racing team’s commitment to basing their operations in Portsmouth for a minimum of 12 years to support three America’s Cup cycles, which in turn enabled economic benefits for the city’s marine and maritime sector. It also helped support community engagement and sailing participation projects in collaboration with Sport England.
The benefits arising from this investment extended beyond the sailing team. They included direct economic benefits from the generation of jobs and apprenticeships, together with the up-skilling of workers in the Solent area, the setting up of a Technical Innovation Group to help feed the innovations in applied technology developed by BAR into the marine industry, engagement with schools and higher education institutions, engagement with the local supply chain, and the setting up of a visitors’ centre.
Published details of this funding agreement are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-approves-75-million-for-sir-ben-ainslie-project-to-boost-portsmouth
No further funding to the team is currently planned.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to paragraph 1.25 of PFI and PF2, published by the NAO on 18 January 2018, HC 718, what plans his Department has to start recording data on the cost effectiveness of PFI deals.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
My Department supports Public Finance Initiatives (PFI) Housing and Joint Service Centre projects contracted directly by local authorities. The majority of PFI projects date back to 1999-2010 and no PFIs have been set up since 2014. They were subject to extensive value for money assessments before authorities entered into them and, in 2011, the Department ran a savings exercise on projects still within their procurement stage which identified over £531 million of savings over the lifetime of remaining projects.
All PFI projects are now operational and authorities are expected to continue to seek to improve the value for money of their projects wherever possible. The Department offers advice and support directly to individual local authorities and holds network events to share best practice between local authorities on making savings on its supported Housing and Joint Service Centre PFI projects.