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24 Oct 2006 : Column 1797W—continued
Clinical NHS staff (with the exception of doctors and dentists);
Teachers and nursery nurses in schools and further education/sixth form colleges;
Police officers, Community Support Officers and some civilian staff;
Prison Service staff in certain prisons;
Probation Service staff;
Social workers, nursery nurses, educational psychologists, and therapists (e.g. occupational therapists) employed by local authorities, CAFCASS or the NHS;
Local Authority Planners;
Firefighters and other uniformed staff below principal level in Fire and Rescue Services;
Connections Personal Advisors employed by a local authority or a Connexions Partnership;
MoD personnel, certain personnel qualify for new build products (New Build HomeBuy and Intermediate rent).
East of England Plan
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government by what means the public consultation on her proposed changes to the draft East of England plan will be considered before the publication of the final Regional Spatial Strategy. [91549]
Meg Munn: All responses received will be entered into a database and analysed by officials. Ministers will then be asked to take a view on whether to make any further changes to the draft plan before publishing the final Regional Spatial Strategy.
Empty Dwellings
Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many empty properties there were in Chorley local authority area in each year since 1997. [96349]
Yvette Cooper: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Rogerson) on 25 July 2006, Official Report, column 1604W.
Margaret Moran: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if she will publish data on registered social landlord-owned empty properties. [96363]
Yvette Cooper: Data on empty homes for registered social landlords (RSLs) are collected on the Regulatory and Statistical Return of the Housing Corporation (Long form) which is completed by those RSLs which have 250 or more dwellings and bedspaces.
Information on vacant general needs vacant dwellings is published on the Department for Communities and Local Government website on Table 613. The web link is: http://www.communities.gov.uk/pub/26/Table613_idll56026.xls
EU Interreg III
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the answer of 9 October 2006, Official Report, column 370W to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), on EU Interreg III, how many full-time equivalent staff within her Department work on EU Interreg III. [95809]
Meg Munn: Six full-time equivalent staff currently work in the Department on the Interreg 111 programmes, covering work on the existing programmes and work on the new programmes which replace Interreg 111 in 2007.
In addition, nine full-time equivalent staff work in the Government Office for the South East on the current Interreg 111A programme.
Firemen's Pension Scheme
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what the annual saving would be from increasing the employee contribution rate of the firemen’s pension scheme by 1 per cent.; and if she will make a statement. [93545]
Mr. Woolas: If the employee contribution rate for members of the Firefighters Pension Scheme was increased by 1 per cent., and other things being equal the additional cost to scheme members would be about £9.5 million.
Home Information Packs
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) of 2 October 2006, Official Report, column 2535W, on home information packs, what period of time must elapse before a vendor could be fined £200 again for an on-going breach. [95811]
Yvette Cooper: Where enforcement officers decide to take action following a breach of the home information pack duties, they will have the option of serving a penalty charge notice. The penalty charge is set at £200 in the Home Information Pack Regulations 2006. It will be for Trading Standards Officers to make the appropriate judgment regarding enforcement of the regulations.
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what her most recent estimate is of the number of home inspectors who will be required to implement the revised Home Information Packs from June 2007. [95839]
Yvette Cooper: I refer the hon. Member to my reply on 10 October 2006, Official Report, column 644W, to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove).
Housing
Mr. Love: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if she will revise the Standard Assessment Procedure for the Energy Rating of Dwellings 2005 so that fuel costs used to assess Energy Ratings are based upon the latest available average of energy prices. [93586]
Ian Pearson: I have been asked to reply.
Energy prices are used to determine the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) rating, which is a measure of a dwelling's energy efficiency. SAP ratings are used to compare the energy performance of dwellings, so it is important that they are produced on a consistent basis.
The fuel price data used in SAP are derived from information produced at six-monthly intervals, so the latest available energy prices are used to determine the rating. The data are collected on a regional basis and weighted according to the population of the region. The price of each fuel is then averaged over a three-year period. This helps to smooth the effect of short-term price fluctuations but permits longer-term price trends to influence the rating. Prices are updated when a new edition of SAP is prepared, but a deflator is used to adjust for general fuel price inflation. Therefore, increases in the price of all fuels will have no effect on the SAP rating following a recalculation of prices and the deflator term, although slight differences can occur if the price increases differ for different fuels.
If we simply used the raw, latest available, averaged prices then we would have no basis on which to compare the energy efficiency of dwellings. The SAP rating, even for the same dwelling, would fluctuate according to the fuel price on the day of the assessment. This would not be sensible, so I do not propose to change the basis on which the SAP rating is calculated.
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many stakeholder discussion meetings which members of the public and social tenants could attend her Department organised on the Decent Homes to Sustainable Communities paper. [94631]
Yvette Cooper: Of the four regional events, held on the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) discussion paper, three included tenant representation. There have also been three separate tenant discussion groups organised for DCLG by the Tenant Participation Advisory Service (TPAS) and DCLG held a discussion with tenants in Cambridge.
Andrew Stunell: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much equity (a) her Department and (b) housing associations hold in shared equity affordable housing schemes introduced since 1997; and if she will make a statement. [94761]
Yvette Cooper: The Department for Communities and Local Government does not hold any shared equity in affordable housing schemes.
As at 31 March 2006 Registered Social Landlord’s (RSL) owned over 85,600 shared ownership/HomeBuy units. Where RSLs specialise in shared equity schemes only they have shown in their accounts that they have fixed assets of over £1.7 billion. These RSLs represent around one third of the total RSLs that are providing shared ownership/HomeBuy units. Other RSLs do not distinguish between shared ownership and other forms of equity.
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many new domestic dwellings were created in England in the last 12 months; and how many of those new domestic dwellings were (a) flats and (b) leasehold properties. [95896]
Yvette Cooper: In 2005-06 there were 163,273 new build completions in England. It is estimated that 46 per cent. of these were flats. Information on the number of new build leasehold dwellings is not available centrally.
Source:
Figures for total completions is from the P2 return to DCLG and National House Building Council data; Information on the proportion of flats is from the NHBC data.
Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what estimate she has made of the number of abandoned properties in each of the housing low demand pathfinder areas in England. [96172]
Yvette Cooper: We do not hold information on the number of abandoned properties in pathfinder areas. However the following table lists pathfinders' estimates of the number and percentage of long-term vacant properties (those that have been vacant for more than six months) in each of their areas.
| Pathfinder | Estimated number( 1) of long-term vacant properties in pathfinder intervention area | Estimated percentage( 1) of long-term vacant properties in pathfinder area |
| (1 )At 31 March 2006 | ||
Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what assessment she has made of trends in house prices in each of the housing low demand pathfinder areas in England over the last two years; and if she will make a statement. [96173]
Yvette Cooper: The following table shows changes in lower quartile house prices in each of the market renewal pathfinder areas between the second quarters of 2004 and 2006.
House prices have risen significantly over this period in all of the pathfinder areas, however those areas of persistent low demand have seen a lower rate of increase than the rest of the region. Pathfinders have been required to reassess the progress to ensure they are responding to changing market conditions.
| Lower quartile price Q2 2004 (£) | Lower quartile price Q2 2006 (£) | Percentage change over the period | Proportion of regional average at Q2 2006 (Percentage) | |
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