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21 July 2009 : Column 1657W—continued
Housing Associations
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what powers local authorities have to set up housing associations. [288827]
John Healey: There is no express provision in statute allowing local authorities to set up housing associations, although there is a general power available to local authorities to do anything which would promote or improve the economic, social or environmental well-being of an area.
The Housing Act 1985 allows a local authority to facilitate the creation of a housing association through
the transfer of its housing to another person (subject to consultation, a ballot of tenants and the consent of the Secretary of State).
Housing Investment Trusts
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many housing investment trusts have been established since 1996. [287524]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: I have been asked to reply.
Housing Investment Trusts, known as HITs, were introduced in the 1996 Finance Act. No HITs were ever created. Legislation creating the HIT regime was repealed by Finance Act 2006 following two consultations, during which there was no opposition to repeal.
Housing Market
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many residential properties were sold in England in 2008-09; and what estimate his Department has made of the number of such properties expected to be sold in 2009-10. [287507]
John Healey: Data published by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs report the number of residential property transaction completions with a value of £40,000 or above in England in 2008-09 as 664,000. We have not made any estimates for transactions in England for 2009-10.
Housing: Construction
Mike Penning: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many new homes were built in (a) Hemel Hempstead, (b) Dacorum and (c) Hertfordshire in each of the last eight quarters. [284317]
John Healey: Information on house building completions is not available below the spatial level of local authority.
The following table shows the number of new homes built in each local authority in Hertfordshire county in each of the last eight quarters.
| 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | ||||||
| Local authority | April to June | July to September | October to December | January to March | April to June | July to September | October to December | January to March |
| Source: New build completions from P2 quarterly returns submitted by local authorities and the National House-Building Council to CLG. | ||||||||
Data on numbers of new build housing starts and completions by district are published routinely on the CLG website. The latest data can be found at:
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many houses in each of the millennium villages have been built; and in what locations. [288101]
John Healey: Since the programme began in 1997, the number of houses in each millennium village and the locations in which they have been built are:
| Millennium community | Location | Completed homes |
Housing: Elderly
Robert Neill: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government who the members are of the Housing our Ageing Population Panel for Innovation established by the Homes and Communities Agency; and what the remit of the panel is. [288290]
John Healey: The housing our ageing population panel for innovation (HAPPI) will gather good practice from across Europe and put together new and creative proposals to help inform the HCA on scope for innovative housing for older people.
The membership of this panel is:
Lord Richard Best OBE, president, Local Government Association (Chair)
Anne Ashworth, property editor, The Times
Roger Battersby, managing director of PRP Architects
John Belcher CBE, chief executive of Anchor Trust
Anthony Hamilton, user representative
Sir Richard MacCormac CBE, McCormac Jamieson Prichard
Aggie MacKenzie, journalist and television presenter
Peter Maxwell, head of enabling, Public Buildings, CABE
John Penton MBE, architect, member of the Council of City & Guilds
Tony Pidgley, chairman, Berkeley Homes
Anne Power MBE, CBE, professor of social policy, LSE
Judith Torrington, reader in architecture, University of Sheffield
Dru Vesty MBE, chair of HCA design and sustainability advisory group
Housing: Expenditure
Grant Shapps:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the answer of 16 June 2009, Official Report, column 203W,
on housing: expenditure, how much his Department plans to spend on capital expenditure on housing in each of the next two years. [281524]
John Healey [holding answer 22 June 2009]: Capital expenditure in this instance is taken to cover grants to the private sector, contributions to registered social landlords, and expenditure on council-owned housing stock.
The total planned investment for next year (2010-11) is £4,492 million. This includes additional funding of £510 million to be invested in new affordable housing as announced in 'Building Britain's Future'. This will be made available from anticipated underspends in other departments. However this figure excludes the major repairs allowance (MRA) element of housing revenue account subsidy, because the figure will not be known until 2010. For information, MRA for the current financial year is £1,277 million.
Budgets for 2011-12 will be subject to the next spending review.
Housing: Low Incomes
Jon Cruddas: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many houses provided under the National Affordable Housing Programme 2008-11 under projects with starts in London after March 2009 (a) there will be in each borough, (b) will be new build, (c) will be converted from privately-developed units and (d) will have (i) one, (ii) two, (iii) three and (iv) four or more bedrooms. [288075]
John Healey: The number of new build homes forecast to start on site through the National Affordable Housing Programme since March 2009 are set out in the table. These figures show the current position and more starts on site will be added as the Homes and Communities Agency allocates more funding to successful bids for grant.
| National Affordable Housing Programme-forecast starts on site | |||||
| Number of bedrooms | |||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Total | |
| Source: Homes and Communities Agency | |||||
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