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26 Jun 2007 : Column 633W—continued
Home Information Packs: Finance
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what funding is being allocated to local authority trading standards officers to enforce the home information pack regulations. [145521]
Yvette Cooper: The Government have allocated significant additional resources through the local government settlement for local authority trading standards officers to meet the statutory duty to enforce home information packs.
Home Information Packs: Vetting
Michael Gove: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what the estimated time period is for an energy inspector (a) to undergo a Criminal Records Bureau check and (b) to be accredited. [140860]
Yvette Cooper: A fully completed application for a criminal records check for a domestic energy assessor is currently being processed within seven to 10 working days by Disclosure Scotland.
It is the trained assessor’s responsibility to ensure that all required documentation is provided to the accreditation scheme they have applied to. Due to this, the process varies in duration. Required documentation includes: certificate of qualification from awarding body, completed criminal records check, and proof of suitable operating insurance.
Hometrack
Michael Gove: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what (a) representations her Department has received from and (b) meetings her Department has held with Hometrack in the last 24 months. [140870]
Yvette Cooper: We have regular discussions with all key stakeholders about home information pack development and implementation including Hometrack. Officials have received consultation representations from Hometrack. Officials also met with Hometrack in June 2005, July and September 2006.
Michael Gove: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what payments her Department and its predecessor have made to the company Hometrack since 2002. [143480]
Yvette Cooper: Since 2002, neither Communities and Local Government nor its predecessor, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, has made any payments to Hometrack.
Hounslow Borough Council: Members
Ann Keen: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what representations Ministers in her Department have made to the London borough of Hounslow on its relationships with its local Members of Parliament; and if she will make a statement. [135633]
Mr. Woolas [holding answer 3 May 2007]: No representations by Ministers from this Department have so far been made to the London borough of Hounslow about its relationship with local Members of Parliament.
Housing
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what proportion of domestic dwellings in England have four or more bedrooms. [145134]
Yvette Cooper: The most reliable estimates are in terms of numbers of households not dwellings. In 2005-06, an estimated 18 per cent. of the 21 million households in England lived in dwellings with four or more bedrooms.
Source: Survey of English Housing.
Housing: Construction
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (1) what the Government's target is for the number of new domestic dwellings to be built in each year in England; [145523]
(2) what the Government's target is for the number of new homes to be built in each year under its Sustainable Communities programme. [145524]
Yvette Cooper: The Sustainable Communities Plan, launched in 2003, set out plans to increase housing delivery across London and the wider south east in the period to 2016 to 1.1 million in total, from previous plans for 900,000. In 2005, the Government set a target for 200,000 new homes a year by 2016.
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many homes have been built in each year under the Sustainable Communities Plan since its inception. [145525]
Yvette Cooper: Since the Sustainable Communities Plan was announced in 2003, net additions to the housing stock in England have been as follows:
| Net additions | |
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many domestic dwellings were completed in England in each year since 1996-97. [145526]
Yvette Cooper: The number of new domestic dwellings completed in England in each year since 1996-97 has been tabulated as follows.
| House building: permanent dwellings completed, England | |
| Financial year | Houses |
| Sources: P2m returns from local authorities, returns from National Housebuilding Council (NHBC) | |
The number of domestic dwellings completed in England is also shown on the Communities and Local Government website:
Housing: Empty Property
Margaret Moran: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government which local councils have brought into use empty private sector properties under the Housing Act 2004. [145067]
Yvette Cooper: Local authorities have a range of powers to bring empty properties back into use. The provision in the Housing Act for Empty Dwelling Management Orders (EDMOs) is just one of a range of measures and in many areas is used to encourage landlords to take action on a voluntary basis. Since the commencement of the Housing Act 2004 in April 2007, three interim EDMOs have received authorisation (Norwich, Peterborough and South Oxfordshire).
Margaret Moran: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what steps she plans to take to regularise the definition of empty homes for the purposes of comparative council performance in respect of the Housing Act 2004. [145069]
Yvette Cooper: We have no plans to make any changes to the Housing Act 2004 in respect of the Empty Dwelling Management Orders provisions.
Housing: Females
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what guidance she has issued on the priority to be given to the provision of appropriate housing for (a) women and (b) women with children who have (i) suffered domestic violence and (ii) who have been trafficked. [135276]
Yvette Cooper: Local housing authorities must allocate housing accommodation in accordance with part 6 of the Housing Act 1996. Among other things, this requires authorities to publish a scheme for determining their priorities, and defining the procedures to be followed, in allocating housing. The scheme must be framed so that reasonable preference for an allocation is given to certain groups of applicant, but it is for individual authorities to decide on the priorities to be given to people within these groups. The reasonable preference groups are based on housing need and include people who need to move on medical or welfare grounds (including grounds relating to a disability) and people owed a homelessness duty. The scheme may also be framed so that additional preference is given to people within the reasonable preference categories who have urgent housing need. The Department has issued statutory guidance to local housing authorities on how they should discharge their functions under part 6. This gives examples of people with urgent housing needs to whom housing authorities should consider giving additional preference including those owed a homelessness duty as a result of domestic violence.
Under the homelessness legislation (part 7 of the 1996 Act), local housing authorities must secure that suitable accommodation is available for housing applicants who are eligible for assistance, homeless through no fault of their own and who fall within a priority need group. Accommodation must be secured until a settled home becomes available. The priority need groups include people whose household includes a dependant child or a pregnant woman and, in 2002, the Government extended the priority need groups to include, among others, people who are vulnerable as a result of leaving their home because of violence or threats of violence likely to be carried out. Jointly with the Secretaries of State for Education and Skills and for Health, the Secretary of State has issued statutory guidance to local authorities which they must have regard to when exercising their homelessness functions. The guidance reminds authorities that, under the legislation, a person is homeless if it is not reasonable for them to continue to live in their home and it would not be reasonable for someone to continue to live in their home if that was likely to lead to violence against them or against a member of their family. The guidance also encourages authorities to offer people who have experienced domestic violence a range of accommodation and support options, including the option of remaining in their home with additional security measures provided under a sanctuary scheme.
The Government have signed and ratified the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. It has also recently signed the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. This will build on our strategy to combat human trafficking by providing minimum standards of protection and victim support, whilst also providing a framework for enhanced provision.
Details on how implementation will be taken forward are currently being developed. These will involve close co-operation with non-governmental organisations, law enforcement agencies and other
Government Departments. Progress will be monitored by the Inter-Ministerial Group on Human Trafficking of which Communities and Local Government’s Deputy Minister for Women and Equality is a member.
The London-based POPPY Project, run through “Eaves Housing for Women”, was launched in 2003 and provides a highly regarded combination of safe accommodation and support for victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation, which meets Council of Europe Convention requirements. Additionally, as a result of Operation Pentameter there are now a number of independently funded organisations (Salvation Army, CHASTE, the Medaille Trust), who also provide accommodation.
The Government are currently considering a pilot scheme to test the level and type of support required for victims of forced labour trafficking.
The UK Human Trafficking Centre was launched on 3 October 2006, the first of its kind in Europe. This is becoming a centre of excellence for dealing with human trafficking and will promote the expansion of victim support services. The Government also published the UK Action Plan on Tackling Human Trafficking on 23 March. This aims to strike the right balance between protection and assistance for all victims of trafficking, and prevention and enforcement activity to crack down on criminals.
Through its recently published Gender Equality Scheme, the Department has also initiated a number of actions aimed at supporting those women who are victims of domestic violence or who have been trafficked. These include co-ordinating and joining up Government actions on violence against women, and monitoring the impact of changes in local government funding on locally delivered support for vulnerable women. Communities England will also ensure that gender issues are taken into account in exercising functions delivering local strategies for regeneration, housing growth and affordable housing.
Housing: Finance
Michael Gove: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much (a) capital and (b) revenue funding the Government provided to each local authority in England for (i) housing and (ii) regeneration purposes in the last year for which figures are available. [143668]
Mr. Woolas: Capital funding for local authority housing is provided through the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) subsidy system in the form of supported capital expenditure (SCE) and the major repairs allowance (MRA). SCE is the level of borrowing for capital purposes that is supported by the Government through the HRA subsidy. This value is based on the Regional Housing Boards' allocations. MRA represents the estimated long-term average amount of capital spending required to maintain a local authority’s housing stock in current condition. The capital funding includes an element for regeneration but that is combined with the decent homes programme in the private sector. There is also an element of non-HRA funding for local authorities.
Revenue funding for local authority housing is provided in the form of HRA Subsidy and Formula Grant. HRA subsidy refers to the entitlement local authorities receive from Government to support their housing programs. 2005-06 is the latest year for which audited figure are available. Housing is one of the services supported by formula grant. Formula grant, which comprises Revenue Support Grant, redistributed business rates and principal formula Police Grant, where appropriate, is an unhypothecated block grant, i.e. authorities are free to spend the money on any service. For this reason, and because of the method of calculation, particularly floor damping, it is not possible to say how much grant has been provided for a particular service. Tables displaying the 2005-06 HRA subsidy and 2005-06 capital funding for each local authority have been placed in the Library of the House.
For regeneration purposes, there is no local authority wise breakdown available. The information is compiled on a program-specific basis. Departmental funding for regeneration projects in 2005-06 is tabled as follows.
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