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2 Mar 2010 : Column 1142W—continued
Housing
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what recent estimate he has made of the average deposit required of a first time buyer. [318737]
Mr. Ian Austin: The Department does not collect this information.
Housing: Construction
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many housing starts for housing of each type of tenure there were in (a) Essex and (b) Castle Point in the latest period for which figures are available. [318085]
Mr. Ian Austin: The following table shows the number of new house building starts in Essex county and Castle Point in the December quarter of 2009.
| Local authority | ||
| Essex | Castle Point | |
| Source: New build starts from P2 quarterly returns submitted by local authorities and the National House-Building Council to CLG. | ||
Housing: Coventry
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many empty properties have been brought back into housing stock by Coventry City Council in each year since 2005. [319464]
Mr. Ian Austin: Information on the number of empty properties that have been brought back into housing stock by Coventry City Council in each year since 2005 is not held centrally.
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many (a) homes and (b) affordable homes have been built in Coventry since 1997. [319465]
Mr. Ian Austin: Information on the number of house building completions and the number of affordable new build homes delivered in Coventry since 1997-98 is provided in the following table:
| House building completions and additional affordable new build homes delivered: Coventry, 1997-98 to 2008-09 | ||
| House building completions | Additional affordable new build homes delivered( 1) | |
| '*' = Denotes not available. (1) Rounded to nearest 10. Sources: 1. House building completions = Local authority returns to CLG and National House Building Council 2. Affordable new build homes = Homes and Communities Agency Investment Management System (IMS) and local authority returns to CLG | ||
Not all affordable housing is delivered through new build completions, supply can also come from the acquisition and refurbishment of private sector homes. In 2008-09 for example a total of 270 additional affordable homes were delivered in Coventry.
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many homes have been built as a result of the Kickstart initiative in Coventry to date. [319466]
John Healey: Under round one of the Kickstart initiative, allocations of £973,000 were made to schemes in Coventry to provide a total of 111 homes all of which will be built by the end of March 2011.
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many home repossessions there have been in Coventry in each year since 1997. [319467]
Mr. Ian Austin: There are two independent sources of data on actual numbers of mortgage possessions: The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) and the Financial Services Authority (FSA). However both are only available for the United Kingdom as a whole.
Housing: Energy
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what estimate his Department has made of the average Energy Performance Certificate rating of a house built to Code for Sustainable Homes Level (a) 1, (b) 2, (c) 3, (d) 4, (e) 5 and (f) 6. [319134]
Mr. Ian Austin: From the information we have available, the average Energy Performance Certificate rating of houses built to the Code for Sustainable Homes various levels are as follows:
| Code Level | Average EPC rating |
Housing: Finance
Mrs. Lait: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government when he expects to publish further proposals on reform of the Housing Revenue Account subsidy system; and if he will make a statement. [318918]
John Healey: In the consultation paper in July, I proposed a devolved system of responsibility and funding for council housing. On 16 December I announced that the responses show strong support for the principle of self-financing. I intend to make a further announcement in the next few weeks which will describe the progress we have made on self-financing, set-out more details of my proposals and provide a summary of responses to the consultation.
Housing: Regeneration
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much his Department has spent on the Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder programme in each year since its establishment; and what the equivalent forecast figure is for (a) 2009-10, (b) 2010-11 and (c) 2011-12. [319038]
Mr. Ian Austin: Housing Market Renewal allocations from the beginning of the programme to 2010-11 are given in the following table. 2011-12 falls outside the current settlement period and funding levels cannot therefore be confirmed at this stage.
| HMR Pathfinder funding( 1) | £ million( 2) |
| (1) An additional £23.4 million was allocated for HMR programme preparation 2002-04. (2) Includes funding for the three areas of wider lower demand. | |
Housing: Sales
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether any assessment has been made of the level of (a) gazundering and (b) gazumping in the housing market since the introduction of home information packs. [319264]
Mr. Ian Austin: No such assessment has been made. However, we intend to evaluate the effectiveness of HIPs by updating "The HIP Baseline Research Report", published in January 2007.
Housing: Standards
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what estimate he has made of the number of properties in (a) Essex and (b) Castle Point which (i) have been improved under the Decent Homes programme in each year of that programme and (ii) do not meet the Decent Homes standard. [318086]
Mr. Ian Austin: The only information we hold on all the stock is the annual number of non-decents. These are set out in the table.
| Non-decent dwelling estimates-Essex 2001-09 | |||||||||
| 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | |
| n/a = not available Source: Annual returns to Communities and Local Government | |||||||||
Housing: Thames Gateway
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many homes have been built in the Thames Gateway area since 2008; and what target has been set for the number of completions by 2016. [318717]
Mr. Malik: Since 2008 to 30 September 2009, the latest period for which data are available, 5550 new dwellings (new build and conversions) have been delivered in the Thames Gateway. Data for the fourth quarter of the calendar year will be available shortly.
The Thames Gateway Delivery Plan, published in November 2007, sets out an ambition to build 160,000 new homes between 2001 and 2016. From 1 April 2001 to 30 September 2009, 56,870 new dwellings (new build and conversions) have been added to the Thames Gateway housing stock (including the 5550 already referred to).
The recession has impacted on the start of construction of new dwellings in the Thames Gateway as elsewhere. But the Government remains confident its ambitions are still achievable in the longer term: indeed research has shown that the Thames Gateway has the potential not only to meet but to exceed these ambitions. In the meantime, CLG and HCA continue to make every effort to sustain delivery, through initiatives like Kickstart.
Landlords: Registration
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what mechanisms will be used to ensure that landlords register on the proposed National Register of Landlords. [319212]
Mr. Ian Austin: Details of our proposals for the national register for landlords, including mechanisms for ensuring compliance are provided in the document which we published on 3 February-"The Private Rented Sector: Professionalism and Quality-Consultation. Summary of Responses and Next Steps."
Local Government: Partnerships
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether he has made an assessment of the effects of the Court of Appeal ruling in the case of Brent London Borough Council v. Risk Management Partners Limited on the entry of local councils into joint companies and partnerships other than mutual insurance bodies. [319312]
Ms Rosie Winterton: Provisions to enable best value authorities to set up and participate in mutual insurance arrangements were secured in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. We have made clear that we are committed to considering further the adequacy of local authority powers following the consultation on 'Strengthening Local Democracy' (July 2009) and the responses to it. The Government are interested in extending powers-subject to certain prudential restrictions-to deal both with the issues raised in the LAML case around councils giving guarantees and indemnities to each other and also to ensure greater clarity in relation to action to drive efficiency and cost savings and so secure best value. These will be taken forward at the first legislative opportunity. Such developments are intended to ensure that councils will have a broad range of powers on which to take action in their communities' interests, building on the best value duty. The well-being power remains as a power of first resort for councils acting in relation to the social, economic and environmental well-being of their areas. The White Paper 'Putting the Frontline First: Smarter Government' (December 2009) and the pre-Budget report have committed to further exploring, subject to the overall fiscal position, what further finance mechanisms, powers and flexibilities could support local authorities to drive growth and innovation most effectively.
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