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15 May 2006 : Column 803W—continued
Housing
Mr. Kidney: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether the Code for Sustainable Homes will apply to new buildings other than dwellings. [69729]
Yvette Cooper: The Code for Sustainable Homes currently covers only homes, not all buildings. The Government are considering a wider Code for Sustainable Buildings. However, the first priority is to complete the Code for Sustainable Homes in the light of consultation responses.
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if she will make a statement on the provision of affordable housing in Torbay. [69874]
Yvette Cooper: Recognising the need for more affordable housing in Torbay, the Housing Corporation has allocated £11 million from its National Affordable Housing Programme for the Torbay housing market area for 2006-08, a 63 per cent. increase on investment in 2004-06. This is expected to provide around 270
additional affordable homes to rent or buy and demonstrates the Government's commitment to building new affordable homes for the current and next generation in Torbay.
Torbay council is currently consulting on issues and options for its core strategy planning document, the chief document in the local development framework, and we would expect this to include targets for the provision of affordable housing. We continue to encourage local authorities, registered social landlords and other key stakeholders to work together to meet the challenges of high housing need.
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what the average density is in dwellings per hectare of the average (a) detached property, (b) semi-detached property, (c) terraced property and (d) flat. [70696]
Yvette Cooper: The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what plans his Department has to develop an electronic register of (a) licensed private rented stock and (b) licensed houses of multiple occupation. [66316]
Yvette Cooper: I have been asked to reply.
Section 232 of the Housing Act 2004 requires every local authority to establish and maintain a register of licences granted under Parts 2 and 3, temporary exemption notices, and management orders under Part 4.
The information required to be included on the registers is prescribed by the Licensing and Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation and Other Houses (Miscellaneous Provisions) (England) Regulations 2006 (SI Number 373).
As required by the Act, it is up to every local authority to ensure that they establish and maintain a register of the licences granted in their area.
It is not Government's intention to develop an electronic register of (a) licensed private rented stock and (b) licensed houses in multiple occupation. The Government have therefore left the format for the registers up to local authorities' discretion.
Mr. Drew: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many and what proportion of vulnerable people were estimated to be living in non-decent homes according to the English Housing Conditions Survey, in each year since 1990, broken down by (a) owner-occupier, (b) private sector rented, (c) local authority, (d) housing association and (e) other housing. [68563]
Yvette Cooper: I have been asked to reply.
The English House Condition Survey 2004: Headline report (ODPM, 2006) includes details of private sector vulnerable households living in homes that did not meet the decent homes standard in 1996, 2001, 2003 and 2004 (the years the survey was carried out).
The report is available on the ODPM website at www.odpm.gov.uk/ehcs. More detailed data for owner-occupiers, private tenants and social sector tenants (local authority and RSL tenants combined) are
provided in the English House Condition Survey Standard Tables (Table VNla) also on the website. The data for Standard Tables currently cover 2001 and 2003 only and will be updated along with the publication of more detailed findings from 2004 later this year.
Mr. Dismore: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many people have participated in the key worker housing scheme in (a) Barnet and (b) London over the last five years, broken down by category of employment; and if he will make a statement. [67753]
Yvette Cooper: I have been asked to reply.
(a) 215 key workers have been helped in Barnet through the starter home initiative and key worker living since 2001.
| Barnet | Starter home initiative 2001 to 2004 | Key worker living 2004 to 2006 | Totals by sector |
(b) 8,405 key workers have been helped in London through the starter home initiative and key worker living since 2001.
| London | Starter home initiative 2001 to 2004 | Key worker living 2004 to 2006 | Totals by sector |
Mr. Dismore: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what categories of employment are eligible as key workers for the purposes of the key worker housing scheme; if he will review the categories; and if he will make a statement. [67754]
Yvette Cooper: I have been asked to reply.
For the purposes of the Key Worker Living (KWL) programme, a key worker is defined as someone employed by the public sector in a frontline role in health, education or community safety delivering an essential public service where there are serious recruitment and retention problems. Within this broad definition, sponsor Government Departments and police and fire authorities specify the groups at which
help should be targeted based on recruitment and retention issues in critical frontline services. The sector- specific eligibility criteria can be found in Annex B of the KWL Capital Funding Guide on the Housing Corporation's website (www.housingcorp.gov.uk). This is currently being updated and will be published in due course.
Eligibility for KWL is kept under regular review.
David Howarth: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what assessment he has made of the impact of negative subsidy on local authority housing revenue accounts; and if he will make a statement. [64171]
Yvette Cooper: I have been asked to reply.
The impact of the positive and negative subsidy system on housing revenue accounts is redistributive. The balance of individual local authority housing revenue accounts is based on assumptions made by central Government, and means that some accounts are in surplus while others are in deficit. These assumptions bear no relationship to local rents or local authority decisions. The subsidy system allows surpluses in some local authorities’ housing revenue accounts to be used to support other areas where there are deficits. In addition, the Government provide annually a further net contribution to the system of around £200 million, as total deficits are greater than total surpluses.
Edward Miliband: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many people on average were living in (a) council and (b) housing association properties in (i) 1981, (ii) 1991 and (iii) 2001. [68293]
Yvette Cooper: I have been asked to reply.
Census data show that the following numbers of people in England were living in (a) council and (b) housing association properties:
| Council | Housing Association | ||
Sarah Teather: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how much social housing grant has been (a) allocated and (b) spent in each English region in (i) 2004-05 and (ii) to date in 2005-06. [55775]
Yvette Cooper: I have been asked to reply.
The following table shows the amount of social housing grant allocated for each region through Regional Housing Boards. Allocations are approved for each scheme and represent the total grant for the life of a scheme regardless of what year the funds are expended. There is no direct comparison between allocations and spend in a particular year.
| Region | Approved allocations 2004-05 (£ million) | Approved allocations to 2005-06 (provisional) (£ million) | 2006-08 allocations value |
The following table shows the profile of expenditure between the two years of the 2004-06 Approved Development Programme.
| £ million | |||
| Region | Expenditure 2004-05 | Provisional expenditure 2005-06 | 2006-08 estimated expenditure |
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