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31 Jan 2006 : Column 425W—continued

East of England Plan

Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether he plans to meet representatives of the East of England Regional Assembly to discuss the results of the examination in public of the draft East of England Plan when it is concluded on 16 March. [46063]

Jim Fitzpatrick: The normal practice is that any dialogue required between the Regional Assembly and my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister in the
 
31 Jan 2006 : Column 426W
 
period following the Examination in Public and prior to issue of the Secretary of State my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister's proposed changes would be by written communication. The guidance provides for two types of occasions after the publication of the Panel Report where the Secretary of State my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister may need to meet with representatives of the Regional Assembly:

'where more evidence is required on matters left unresolved in the Panel Report or further information is required on whether the Secretary of State's proposed changes could be effectively applied'.

Such a meeting would need to be the subject of a publicly available minute. As yet, no such meeting is envisaged.

Flag Masts (Planning Permission)

Mr. Burns: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether planning permission is required for domestic households to erect flag masts on their properties; and if he will make a statement. [43482]

Yvette Cooper [holding answer 24 January 2006]: Planning permission is required for domestic households to erect flag poles on their properties. The exceptions: are vertical flag poles flying a national flag; flag poles flying flags as advertisements under Class 7 of Schedule 3 of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 1992; flag poles flying all other flags that have the express consent of the local planning authority to be flown.

Formula Spending Share (Peterborough)

Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what account has been taken of demographic changes since May 2004 in respect of the allocation of the formula spending share to Peterborough city council for 2005–06, with particular reference to migrants from EU accession countries. [46006]

Mr. Woolas: The 2005–06 formula spending shares announced in a written ministerial statement on 27 January 2005, Official Report, column 24–25WS, used the mid-2003 population estimates. Therefore population changes since May 2004 would not have been taken into account in the calculation of the formula spending shares for 2005–06.

From 2006–07, projections of population published by the Office for National Statistics will be used in the Local Government Finance Settlement as the key driver of population.

Funding (Lancashire)

Rosie Cooper: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what (a) revenue and (b) capital funding his Department has allocated to (a) West Lancashire district council and (b) Lancashire county council in each of the last 10 years. [45128]

Jim Fitzpatrick: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) was established following the Machinery of Government changes on 29 May 2002.
 
31 Jan 2006 : Column 427W
 
The following tables set out payments made to (a) West Lancashire district council and (b) Lancashire county council since 2002–03
(a) Funding to West Lancashire district council

£ million
	2002–03	2003–04	2004–05	Total
Revenue	8.302	8.836	8.668	25.806
Capital	0.483	0.542	1.450	2.475

(b) Funding to Lancashire county council

£ million
	2002–03	2003–04	2004–05	Total
Revenue	652.099	714.415	735.571	2102.085
Capital	0.561	2.143	1.494	4.198

 
31 Jan 2006 : Column 428W
 

Government Office for London

Jeremy Corbyn: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will list the programmes managed by the Government office for London in 2005–06; and what the total funding for each was. [47514]

Jim Fitzpatrick: The Government office for London (GOL) delivers policies and programmes in London on behalf of 10 central Government Departments. Its programme budget in 2005–06 totals £3.3 billion, of which £2.6 billion is grants to the Greater London Authority and its functional bodies. GOL leads on negotiating local area agreements on behalf of Departments, it handles planning casework, it leads on multi-agency work to improve arrangements for the resettlement of London's ex-offenders and preparing and testing plans for emergencies (the work of the London resilience team based in GOL).

Sponsor Department	2005–06 programme	Allocation for 2005–06 (£)
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM)	Single Community Programme (aka Community Empowerment Networks CEN)	8,180,694
ODPM	Disabled Facilities Grant	15,952,000
ODPM	Greater London Authority General Grant	37,493,000
ODPM	GLA Preparation Costs	4,000
ODPM	Lee Valley Regional Park SCA	458,000
ODPM	Housing Action Trusts	7,850,000
ODPM	Single Regional Housing Pot (HIP element)	215,210,000
ODPM	Private Sector Renewal Discretionary Pot (Housing)	11,100,000
ODPM	LA Regeneration Pot (Housing)	58,571,000
ODPM	Neighbourhood Renewal Fund	128,489,841
ODPM	Neighbourhood Renewal—Skills and Knowledge	391,327
ODPM	New Deal for Communities	72,000,000
ODPM	Neighbourhood Management	2,090,000
ODPM	Street Crime Wardens	3,736,475
ODPM	Liveability Fund	3,338,333
ODPM	Local Area Growth Initiative (LEGI)	2,355,000
ODPM	European Regional Development Fund (Objective 2)	31,480,916
ODPM	ERDF URBAN	1,275,877
Department for Transport (DfT)	Greater London Authority Transport Grant	2,161,015,000
Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)	Sustainable Development Regional Publicity Budget	46,000
DEFRA	Sustainable Farming and Food Fund	50,000
DEFRA	Public Sector Food Procurement Initiative	20,000
DEFRA	Regional Waste Fund	50,000
Department for Education and Skills (DFES)	Community Champions	556,968
DFES	Connexions Partnership Grant Funding	74,437,563
DFES	Positive Activities For Young People Total (including main project, Uproject, key workers, key workers training and devt, secondees)	14,920,362
DFES	Transforming Youth Work Performance Improvement Fund	1,585,660
DFES	TYWPIF Secondees	47,000
DFES	Millennium Volunteers	1,852,984
DFES	Vocational and Work Related Learning	300,000
DFES	Testbed Learning Communities	67,000
DFES	Regional Networking and Development Budget	10,000
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)	London Development Agency Grants	374,053,000
DTI	Regional Energy Strategy Delivery Budget	195,355
Department of Work and Pensions (DWP)	European Structural Fund (ESF) Objective 2	3,104,118
DWP	European Structural Fund (ESF) Objective 3	75,141,688
Home Office	Basic Command Unit Fund	9,952,587
Home Office	Building Safer Communities Fund	11,880,386
Home Office	Anti-Social Behaviour Grant	825,000
Home Office	Gun Crime (Recovered Criminal Assets Fund)	260,000
Home Office	Recovered Assets Fund (RAF)	100,000
Home Office	Home Office Directors' Allocation Fund	1,243,300
Home Office	Business Crime Advisers	52,000
Home Office	Drug Strategy Partnership Support Grant	2,280,581
Home Office	Additional Capital Funding	200,000
Home Office	Partnership Business Model	106,176
Home Office	Domestic Violence Grant	300,000
Home Office	Tackling Violent Crime	300,000
Home Office	ChangeUp Programme	5,680,693
Home Office	Voluntary Sector Regional Networks	116,000
Home Office	Connecting Communities	1,283,398
Total		3,342,009,282

 
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Hereditaments

Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the Department's definition of a corporeal hereditament is for council tax valuation purposes. [47140]

Mr. Woolas: The term 'corporeal hereditament' is not one defined for council tax valuation purposes.

Housing

Mr. Clifton-Brown: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what guidance he has given to the South West Regional Assembly on the numbers of new houses to be built in (a) the South West, (b) Gloucestershire and (c) the Cotswolds. [45901]

Yvette Cooper: Current Government guidance on the number of new additional housing required in the South West for the period 1996 to 2016 is contained in Regional Planning Guidance for the South West (RPG10) published in 2001. RPG10 includes a figure for Gloucestershire County but no figures for any district council such as Cotswolds. The South West figure in RPG 10 is 20,200 net additional houses per annum and 2,400pa for Gloucestershire.

The South West Regional Assembly (SWRA), as the Regional Planning Body, is now preparing a draft Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) as required by the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. The RSS will replace RPG10; cover the period to 2026; and set out District housing requirements. It is understood that a draft RSS will be submitted by the SWRA for public consultation later this year. No guidance has been given by Government to the SWRA as to what specific housing numbers should be proposed in the draft RSS. Government guidance on the content of the RSS is contained in PPS11 Regional Spatial Strategies" and in PPG3 Housing" on planning for housing.

Mr. Purchase: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister when he will publish the Housing Revenue Account Subsidy Determination 2006–07 Consultation Paper. [47033]

Yvette Cooper: The draft Housing Revenue Account Subsidy Determination 2006–07 was issued for consultation on 7 November 2005.

Following the conclusion of the consultation, and taking account of representations from stakeholders, including Wolverhampton, the final Determination was published on 20 December 2005.

Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what assessment he has made of the effect of his decision to replace local authority council house valuations by valuations by registered social landlords. [40398]

Yvette Cooper: It is Government policy that social rents should be restructured and that over time tenants in social housing should pay similar rents for similar properties regardless of landlord.
 
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The three-year review of rent restructuring policy, which reported in 2004, made a number of recommendations. One was to use the same formula for restructuring local authority rents as that which is currently used for restructuring Registered Social Landlords (RSL) rents, and adopt the Retail Price Index (RPI) as the inflation measure used in calculating local authority rent increases. Individual property valuations are unchanged, but the formula used to calculate rents now uses the average 1999 value for RSL properties.

We announced on 7 November that we would introduce in full the recommendations made in the review in 2006–07, reinforcing the steps already taken to create a fair and transparent rent setting system in the social rented sector. We have provided additional protection for council tenants by capping at 5 per cent. the average cash increase in rents in any local authority for each of the next two years. This is in addition to the caps and limits that have been in place since the policy was first introduced.

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister (1) when he expects to announce the Housing Corporation's National Affordable Housing Programme in the south east region for (a) 2006–07 and (b) 2007–08; [47493]

(2) what action his Department has taken to increase the proportion of family-sized social rented homes to be built in the Housing Corporation's National Affordable Housing Programme in the south east region in (a) 2006–07 and (b) 2007–08. [47492]

Yvette Cooper: The Housing Corporation is currently assessing bids for affordable housing schemes planned to start in 2006–08 and discussing with regional housing boards how these will achieve the priorities set out in the regional housing strategies.

A decision on the overall programme, and its regional components is expected to be announced in March 2006 and announcements on individual allocations will be made subsequent to that.

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