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DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Yvette Cooper): I am delighted to announce the award of a total of £80 million to two more housing market renewal pathfinders over the next two years to begin to implement their strategic schemes. The funding comes from the £500 million market renewal fund announced in "Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future" in February 2003.
I am allocating this funding to the two pathfinders in the west midlands region. This will allow activity in the area to tackle the most acute weak and failing housing markets in the region and create sustainable communities.
The investment from the market renewal fund will be complemented by significant investment from other public programmes as well as from the private sector.
I am announcing today that the north Staffordshire market renewal pathfinder will receive £30 million and that the Birmingham Sandwell market renewal pathfinder will receive £50 million until March 2006 to start to tackle the problems caused by low demand. This is in addition to £4 million each received for an early action programme in June 2003.
By March 2006 the pathfinders expect to deliver:
In North Staffordshire the demolition of over 80 homes; the refurbishment of over 300 homes; more than 280 housing acquisitions; and additional management measures to over 11,500 homes.
In Birmingham and Sandwell the demolition of over 590 homes; the refurbishment of 1,600 homes; over 150 new homes built; more than 280 housing acquisitions; and additional management measures to over 9,000 homes.
Each of the pathfinder schemes has been independently scrutinised by the Audit Commission, and their findings have been published in a report. The Audit Commission has looked at the evidence base and the proposed strategy to help ensure that the schemes are realistic, offer value for money and will deliver long-term housing market renewal. To meet this aim, the Audit Commission has made a number of recommendations about each scheme. The Office of the
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Deputy Prime Minister and each pathfinder has accepted all the recommendations and funding will depend on effectively addressing them.
Housing Corporation
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Keith Hill): I am pleased to announce that the report of the end to end review of the Housing Corporation is now available on he website of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister at http://www.odpm.gov.uk.
Paper copies will be made available in the Libraries of both Houses tomorrow.
HEALTH
NHS Foundation Trusts
The Secretary of State for Health (Dr. John Reid): The chairman of the independent regulator of national health service foundation trusts has today announced that, in accordance with section 6 of the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003, the independent regulator has authorised the following NHS trusts as NHS foundation trusts from 1 July 2004:
Addenbrooke's NHS Trust
City Hospital Sunderland NHS Trust
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust
Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital NHS Trust
Papworth Hospital NHS Trust
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Southern Derbyshire Acute Hospital Services NHS Trust
The Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Trust
University College London Hospitals NHS Trust
University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust
The independent regulator has deferred consideration of the applications from Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS trust and King's College hospital NHS trust. Further decisions on both trusts may be made at a later date by the independent regulator.
Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre NHS trust has not been authorised. In the coming weeks, I have asked officials in the Department to work with the trust to ensure that full support is provided for a further application for authorisation at a later date.