Asked by: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to ensure that housing associations do not circumvent the 7.7 per cent cap on rent increases in 2024-25 by raising service charges.
Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government is clear that service charges should relate to costs, and that it would not be acceptable for Registered Providers of social housing to increase service charges simply as a means of boosting rental revenue. Registered Providers (including housing associations) are expected to supply tenants with clear information about how service charges are set.
Where there are concerns about the calculation, collection or communication of service charges, tenants may ask the Housing Ombudsman to investigate their complaint. The Government has strengthened the Housing Ombudsman Service, so tenants of social landlords have somewhere to turn when they are not getting the answers they need from their landlords.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities works closely with the Regulator of Social Housing, and the Department for Work of Pensions to ascertain the impact of social housing rent policy on taxpayers, tenants and providers.
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the letter to his Department on Tackling the Recruitment & Retention Crisis from Leading Violence Against Women and Girls organisations, published on 20 March 2024.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
Home Office officials are discussing the concerns and proposals raised in the correspondence you refer to directly with some of the signatories and have also engaged with officials at the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities to ensure a co-ordinated consideration of the concerns raised.
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of calls from a coalition of Violence Against Women and Girls organisations for an independent taskforce to tackle recruitment and retention in that sector.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
Home Office officials are discussing the concerns and proposals raised in the correspondence you refer to directly with some of the signatories and have also engaged with officials at the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities to ensure a co-ordinated consideration of the concerns raised.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department has taken to reduce the costs of error in the last three financial years.
Answered by Simon Hoare - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Details of measures the department is taking to prevent fraud and error are set out in the department’s annual accounts.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many staff working on Levelling Up have left his Department since its creation.
Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Table 42 in the annual Civil Service statistics includes information on the number of leavers for the period in question and this information can be found at the following link for the years in question: Civil Service statistics - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how much funding has been allocated from the (a) UK Community Renewal Fund, (b) Levelling Up Fund, (c) Community Ownership Fund and (d) UK Shared Prosperity Fund to projects in (i) Scotland, (ii) Wales, (iii) England and (iv) Northern Ireland (A) overall and (B) in each financial year for which figures are available; and if he will publish a breakdown by project.
Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Information on the projects that these funds have supported and the dates when commitments were announced are publicly available and can be found on gov.uk:
Delivery of UKSPF is delegated to local authorities.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what proportion of his Department’s (a) advertising and (b) marketing expenditure was on (i) local newspapers in print and online, (ii) national newspapers in print and online, (iii) social media, (iv) search engines, (v) broadcast and on-demand television and (vi) other channels in the most recent year for which data is available.
Answered by Simon Hoare - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The data requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to ensure people leaving prison have settled accommodation upon release.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is committed to preventing homelessness and works closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and the Welsh Government to do so. Prisons and probation have a statutory duty to refer someone at risk of homelessness to a local authority for assistance, and we have worked closely with DLUHC on the design and delivery of their Accommodation for Ex-Offenders scheme. We have set up a Cross-Whitehall Accommodation Board, attended by officials from MoJ, HMPPS, Welsh Government and DLUHC, to ensure collaboration across policy and operational areas. In the year to March 2023, 86% of prison leavers were in accommodation on their first night of release from custody (excluding cases where the status was unknown). This is up from 80% in 2019-20, the year immediately before our accommodation investments began.
In July 2021, we launched our groundbreaking Community Accommodation Service Tier-3 in five probation regions, to guarantee up to 12-weeks temporary accommodation to prison leavers subject to probation supervision who are at risk of homelessness on release, including those released under the End of Custody Supervised Licence measure. From April 2023, the service was expanded across all probation regions in England and Wales and continues to bring new beds online as the service embeds. By January 2023, the proportion of offenders housed on the first night of their release from custody was 7.6 percentage points higher in CAS3 regions versus non-CAS3 regions.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to help ensure prison leavers do not become homeless upon release.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is committed to preventing homelessness and works closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and the Welsh Government to do so. Prisons and probation have a statutory duty to refer someone at risk of homelessness to a local authority for assistance, and we have worked closely with DLUHC on the design and delivery of their Accommodation for Ex-Offenders scheme. We have set up a Cross-Whitehall Accommodation Board, attended by officials from MoJ, HMPPS, Welsh Government and DLUHC, to ensure collaboration across policy and operational areas. In the year to March 2023, 86% of prison leavers were in accommodation on their first night of release from custody (excluding cases where the status was unknown). This is up from 80% in 2019-20, the year immediately before our accommodation investments began.
In July 2021, we launched our groundbreaking Community Accommodation Service Tier-3 in five probation regions, to guarantee up to 12-weeks temporary accommodation to prison leavers subject to probation supervision who are at risk of homelessness on release, including those released under the End of Custody Supervised Licence measure. From April 2023, the service was expanded across all probation regions in England and Wales and continues to bring new beds online as the service embeds. By January 2023, the proportion of offenders housed on the first night of their release from custody was 7.6 percentage points higher in CAS3 regions versus non-CAS3 regions.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department has taken to reduce the costs of fraud in his Department in the last three financial years.
Answered by Simon Hoare - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government is determined to uncover fraud in the public sector and is proud of its record.
As part of this, the Government established the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA). In 22/23 the PSFA set a target of delivering £180 million of savings to the taxpayer. In fact the PSFA far surpassed this within the first 12 months by preventing and recovering £311 million. As it enters its second year, the PSFA has a target of achieving £185 million of savings for the taxpayer.
The Government has also announced an additional £34 million to deploy cutting edge tools and Artificial Intelligence tools to help combat fraud across the public sector, saving £100 million for the public purse. This is in addition to existing partnerships between PSFA and the tech sector.