|
Memorandum from the Department for Communities and Local Government (HCC 02)
Annex A
Question 41 & 42 with answer
Q41 Chair: Can I move on to a different issue, which is one that we raised last time and which we did not really get an answer to. A great deal of the money, which is very welcome, is not new money, it is money which has been brought forward from succeeding years. We were concerned as to what is going to happen in those succeeding years, given that the money will have already been spent and will not then be available. Can you update us any more about how that money is going to be replenished?
Margaret Beckett: Well, prior to the Budget, yes, that is absolutely correct, the money that we were making available was money that was brought forward, but of course the Budget money is new money and, as a result of the outcome of the balance that has been done, I think I am right in saying that the available money for 2010/11, which is the year when the gaps were arising, will be about £2.6 billion, which is roughly the same level as the spend for this year, so it is not a perfect situation, but it is not a disastrous one either.
Q42 Chair: Are you saying that there is still a gap in 2010/11, but not as big as it would have been?
Margaret Beckett: I think that is probably right, yes. Mr McCarthy: Yes, we happen to have a peak in terms of the level of resources made available in the current year. The important point is there are still substantial funds to follow into the next year, and what we are trying to do is take that peak to stimulate maximum activity at the current time. So the additional money which, you will be aware, was new resources secured in the Budget, including some release of our EYF, but primarily completely new resources, is spread between this year and next with a heavy focus on the current year, but our main affordable programme peaks this year, falls next, but does not fall to such a low level as to mean we cannot maintain activity into the following year.
Question 57 with answer
Q57 Anne Main: You referred to apartments, everyone keeps referring to apartments and overbuilding of apartments and small units. Does the Government take any responsibility for having encouraged such high densities which have led developers down this route?
Mr McCarthy: Can I just clarify, if I may, Minister, the national density guideline is 30 homes per dwelling. You will find many of these are much higher than that. The Government leaves that decision to local authorities, as the local planning authority, and to developers in terms of the things they consider appropriate. What we did do was strengthen the hand of local government with the Planning Policy Statement 3, which is the planning policy that now exists for housing, which actually asks local authorities to understand need in their area, to actually engage with developers and to challenge them that they are producing schemes that do not meet local needs. On the other hand, developers can reasonably expect local authorities to have identified the land in their area that is needed to build the number of homes identified for that area, so I think PPS3 is a very important development of the Government's in recent years in terms of determining that issue. It was in part a reaction to some people finding they had built homes at their decision in the private sector, approved locally, which they felt actually were not necessarily the homes they could now sell.
Margaret Beckett: Could I just add one thing to that about the unsold stock that was bought by housing associations. I do not have them with me, I am afraid, but, if you look at the figures for the pattern across the different regions, only in London were there more flats than houses that had been bought by housing associations. Everywhere else, it was mostly family housing because I looked specifically, and I was quite encouraged to see that.
Chair: Perhaps we could have those figures, thank you.
Annex B
Q57 Response
Figures of unsold stock purchased by housing associations broken down across different regions.
The table below shows the split of the allocations made for the purchase of unsold developer stock between flats and houses by region.
The majority of units purchased are flats for both social rent and low cost home ownership but it must be remembered that the purchase of this stock was very much dependent on what was available from developers.
Furthermore, it would be expected that stock purchased for first time buyers would typically have a higher concentration of flats. In the case of stock purchased for social rent, the distribution is more even as would be anticipated.
Annex C
Q41 & 42 Response
Could CLG set out for us the figures for the planned departmental spending that substantiates the answers given in response to questions 41 and 42?
Following the recent Budget, the indicative budget for the national affordable housing programme (NAHP) for 2010-11 stands at £2.6 billion. The Budget provided new money for social housing in both 2009-10 and 2010-11, both through the NAHP and through the new housing kick-start programme. For the NAHP the new money consisted of £50m for grants from the HCA to local authorities for new social housing and £80m for mortgage rescue. From this, £75m additional funding has been added to the NAHP budget for 2010-11 (with the remainder in 2009-10).
Mrs Beckett also referred on 1 June to the overall balance of funding: given the large amount of investment scheduled for 2009-10 it was agreed to re-profile , £200m of funding for affordable housing in the 2009 Budget from 2009-10 to 2010-11 to smooth investment over both financial years. In all these changes bring the current NAHP indicative budget for 2010-11 to £2.6 billion.
June 2009
|