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Category: Housing

  • Sadiq Khan – 2022 Comments on Affordable Homes in London

    Sadiq Khan – 2022 Comments on Affordable Homes in London

    The comments made by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, on 13 May 2022.

    I am delighted to be able to announce that record-breaking numbers of genuinely affordable homes are being built in London. Fixing the housing crisis is an enormous challenge, but these latest figures show that even in the face of the pandemic, Brexit and soaring construction costs, we are continuing to turn the tide.

    I would like to thank councils, housing associations and the wider London housing sector for their work in helping us to continue building a better, more affordable London for everyone.

    We have once again exceeded our annual targets, but we still have a mountain to climb. I urge the Government to recognise the progress we are making in London and to provide the additional funding for housing we need to go even further and faster.

  • Michael Gove – 2022 Comments on the New Deal for Renters

    Michael Gove – 2022 Comments on the New Deal for Renters

    The comments made by Michael Gove, the Levelling Up and Housing Secretary, on 10 May 2022.

    Too many renters are living in damp, unsafe and cold homes, powerless to put it right, and under the threat of sudden eviction.

    The New Deal for renters announced today will help to end this injustice, improving conditions and rights for millions of renters.

    This is all part of our plan to level up communities and improve the life chances of people from all corners of the country.

  • Stuart Andrew – 2022 Comments on Consulting over Road Name Changes

    Stuart Andrew – 2022 Comments on Consulting over Road Name Changes

    The comments made by Stuart Andrew, the Housing Minister, on 12 April 2022.

    Up and down the country, street names often form a key part of an area’s history, cherished by the local community for the memories they hold and the places they represent.

    These proposals will strengthen local democracy by ensuring that councils in England get agreement from local residents in advance of any street name changes.

  • Eddie Hughes – 2022 Statement on Homes for Ukraine Scheme

    Eddie Hughes – 2022 Statement on Homes for Ukraine Scheme

    The statement made by Eddie Hughes, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, in the House of Commons on 31 March 2022.

    President Putin’s bloody invasion is a barbaric and unprovoked attack on the people of Ukraine, who are fighting a daily battle for freedom. The UK has stood shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine at every stage of the conflict, including sending extensive military supplies months before the Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine. We are steeled to stand with Ukraine for the long haul.

    In this country there has been an outpouring of public support for the Ukrainian people, and we have matched the generosity of the British public with an ambitious humanitarian offer to Ukrainians who wish to come to the UK to escape the conflict. As hon. Members will know, since the Home Office opened and expanded the Ukrainian family scheme and my Department launched the Homes for Ukraine scheme with our Home Office colleagues, both schemes have received thousands upon thousands of applications from people willing to open their heart and their home to a new guest.

    We have balanced the need to move rapidly with the equal need to get the Homes for Ukraine scheme right. The visa application process opened on Friday 18 March, since when we have seen the first arrivals come to the UK. Members on both sides of the House are as invested as we are in making the scheme as efficient and effective as possible. We are minimising bureaucratic foot-dragging and cutting unnecessary red tape, while making sure people are set up in the best possible situation to start a life in the UK and to access the right local services and support.

    The scheme will be a success only if local and national Government work as one, so we are providing councils with £10,500 per guest to help with all the support they will need. We have been working with the Local Government Association and individual councils across the country to fine-tune the scheme’s practicalities and logistics. As the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said, we will keep things under review to ensure that local government has and gets what it needs. We are also working closely with the devolved Administrations to ensure that we have a consistent offer across the country. Some 4 million Ukrainians have been displaced by this bloody and unjust war so far. The UK will continue to respond to the gravity of the conflict and we will continue to work with Members of the House to open up our communities to Ukrainians in the weeks and months ahead.

    Mike Amesbury

    Nearly 150,000 people have signed up to sponsor Ukrainian refugees in a testament to the generous spirit of our nation and regions, yet that generosity risks being wasted because the figures released confirm that just 2,700 visas have been granted by the Government under the scheme so far. Of course, visas being granted are not the same as refugees arriving here after fleeing for their lives from the bullets, missiles and bombs. Can the Minister tell the House how many refugees have arrived in the UK through the scheme and what has gone wrong so far in getting them here?

    After the issue with visas, things are even less clear. There remain real concerns among councils that have not been addressed. How will they know when refugees have arrived in their authority and require services? Proactive data sharing is simply not good enough and safeguarding is falling down. Do the checks on sponsor families need to have been fully completed before a family can begin travelling to the UK? Does the £10,500 for councils, which the Minister mentioned, cover refugees only in this scheme or in the family visa scheme too?

    There are real fears of a homelessness crisis if sponsorships break down. As reported yesterday by the Local Government Association, nearly 150 Ukrainians have already presented themselves to councils as homeless having fled the conflict to stay with family members in the UK who have no room. Can the Minister tell me and the House what urgent guidance and support his Department is giving to councils on those cases?

    The Government must now take an active role in matching sponsors to refugees, otherwise the generosity of people who want to help will be wasted. The British people have stepped up in Ukraine’s hour of need; it is clear that the Government urgently need to do the same.

    Eddie Hughes

    I think that the Government are acting urgently. It is testament to the efforts of people in an incredible civil service who are prepared to work very long hours, seven days a week and to pivot from their previous day jobs to move in an agile fashion to deal with the trauma that that country is facing and ensure that the maximum number of people have visas granted and can have a secure and safe home in this country. It is disappointing, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman, whom I respect tremendously, thinks that the Government and the civil service are not responding urgently.

    The hon. Gentleman mentioned a figure of 150,000; I believe that the number of people who have expressed an interest and are prepared to open up their homes is closer to 200,000. [Interruption.] It is slightly frustrating to answer one question and have Opposition Members race ahead to the three or four others that have been asked. Patience would be a virtue for everybody involved in this process—at least for the sake of this urgent question. Mr Speaker, do you not think it would be nice for them to wait for the answer before they get too carried away?

    How will councils know? We have a matching process and once the sponsor has been matched with the guest online with the form, councils will be alerted so that they know that a match has been made for a sponsor in their area. They can then begin the process of preparation immediately.

    Will checks need to be completed fully before people travel? Inasmuch as once the visa is granted, checks will already have started, we will already have started to investigate whether there has been criminality on the part of either party. We need to make absolutely sure that we are reassured of the safety on both sides of the equation—of the person travelling here and of the people opening up their homes. Those checks will be carried out initially and then further checks will be carried out by the receiving authority once it has been notified of the match.

    Once the authority has been notified, it will be expected to go out and inspect the property to make sure it is appropriate for such people’s needs, and begin the process of further checks, as required. For example, if there are children or vulnerable adults in the households that are coming, a further enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check will be required.

    With regards to the money, the £10,500 is for the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Obviously, for the rest of the elements of this scheme, we are making a very generous offer in that people who arrive in the UK will be allowed to work and claim benefits immediately, so that they can begin to integrate fully here.

    Finally, on the 150 homeless people the hon. Gentleman mentioned, he will know that I, as the Minister for homelessness, have a very keen interest in this. We will be investigating to ensure that we completely understand what has led to such a situation. As a Government, with the charities and all involved—and MPs have a role in this—we need to make sure people understand that the most appropriate, safe and reliable route is that prescribed by the Government.

  • Eddie Hughes – 2022 Housing Update Statement

    Eddie Hughes – 2022 Housing Update Statement

    The statement made by Eddie Hughes, the Minister for Housing, in the House of Commons on 17 March 2022.

    Supported housing plays a vital role in delivering better life outcomes and improved wellbeing and health for many vulnerable people.

    The Government are committed to ensuring that supported housing is good quality and meets the needs of its residents. In recognition of its importance, the Government are investing £11.5 billion in much needed supply through the affordable homes programme, which includes delivery of new supported housing for older, disabled and other vulnerable people.

    However, we are aware of a minority of landlords who charge high rents for poor quality accommodation and little or no support.

    I wish to inform the House of the Government’s intention to bring forward measures to put an end to unscrupulous landlords exploiting some of the most vulnerable in our society.

    We have no intention of penalising those providers who operate responsibly. We are clear that measures must be as targeted and proportionate as possible to protect supply of housing across the board.

    Our intention is to take forward a package of measures that will include:

    Minimum standards for the support provided to residents to ensure residents receive the good quality support they expect and deserve in order to live as independently as possible and achieve their personal goals;

    New powers for local authorities in England to better manage their local supported housing market and ensure that rogue landlords cannot exploit the system to the detriment of vulnerable residents and at the expense of taxpayers; and

    Changes to housing benefit regulations to seek to define care, support and supervision to improve quality and value for money across all specified supported housing provision.

    We will introduce any measures requiring legislation when parliamentary time allows.

    We will work closely with local government, sector representatives, providers and people with experience of supported housing as we develop these measures to ensure they are fit for purpose, deliverable and minimise unintended consequences for the providers of much needed, good quality supported housing.

    Alongside these proposed measures, today I am announcing that we will provide £20 million for a supported housing improvement programme. Funding for this three-year programme will be open to bids from all local authorities and build on the clear successes of the supported housing pilots. The pilot authorities were able to drive up the quality of accommodation and support to residents. They also improved value for money through enhanced scrutiny of housing benefit claims to verify that costs were legitimate and reasonable.

    The supported housing improvement programme will be vital to drive up quality in the sector in some of the worst affected areas immediately, while the Government develop and implement longer-term regulatory changes. The bidding prospectus for the programme will be published in due course.

    This package of proposed measures will tackle poor quality and poor value for money in supported housing and improve outcomes for individuals, while preserving good quality provision run by responsible providers.

  • Sadiq Khan – 2022 Comments on a Rent Freeze in London

    Sadiq Khan – 2022 Comments on a Rent Freeze in London

    The comments made by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, on 9 March 2022.

    Private renters make up nearly a third of everyone living in the capital and they are set to be hit by a devastating combination of price and bill rises. Too often the needs of private renters are ignored by both landlords and the Government.

    Rising fuel and energy costs – which will hit renters in energy inefficient homes the hardest – are already causing anxiety and stress, with a big rise in the energy price cap due next month. That’s why today I’m calling on ministers to give me the powers to stop rents rising in the capital, and help me to give people a chance to get back on their feet after the pandemic.

  • Sadiq Khan – 2022 Comments on Leaseholders Getting Information on Building Safety

    Sadiq Khan – 2022 Comments on Leaseholders Getting Information on Building Safety

    The comments made by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, on 28 February 2022.

    Nearly five years after the Grenfell Tower fire there are still too many Londoners who don’t feel safe in their homes.

    For too long now Londoners trapped in unsafe flats have faced a drawn out and complicated process to get an EWS1 form. The guidance published today will help leaseholders get this vital information by improving the way landlords and managing agents commission EWS1 forms and share those findings with the leaseholders who need them.

    The building safety crisis is a national crisis and it requires national solutions. While some progress is now belatedly being made by the Government, leaseholders are still facing huge bills for problems they played no part in causing. I’m determined to continue to fight for the rights of leaseholders to feel safe in their homes and to prevent them paying for a building safety crisis that is not of their making. That includes putting pressure on the private sector, the developers, the Government and those who manage these sites to ensure Londoners can feel safe in their homes again.

  • Diane Abbott – 2022 Speech on Housing Disrepair

    Diane Abbott – 2022 Speech on Housing Disrepair

    The speech made by Diane Abbott, the Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, in the House of Commons on 25 February 2022.

    I will speak this afternoon about the truly terrible housing conditions that have been endured for too long by the residents of Evelyn Court on Amherst Road in my constituency. This block is run and managed by the Industrial Dwellings Society housing association. One can see that it would have once been a very nice estate and a pleasant place to live, but when I visited it several times recently and residents kindly invited me into their flats, I was shocked by what I saw. Let me say straightaway that the tenants of all the flats I visited had made every effort to keep them nicely, which made it even more heartbreaking that their flats were disfigured by chronic disrepair problems that were not in their power to deal with and about which the Industrial Dwellings Society housing association had let them down time after time when it had promised to fix things.

    I saw dreadful mould covering walls, damp, water leaking in and dampness rising from the floor. In addition, tenants told me about blockages in their drainage system and insect infestations. Among the insects that they had had to deal with in large numbers were ants, spiders and slugs. Worst of all were the health problems that the tenants and their children were enduring because of the damp and mould. I was told about nausea, coughs, colds and chronic asthma. The conditions in Evelyn Court are completely unacceptable and the Industrial Dwellings Society should be ashamed of itself for leaving its tenants in that state.

    The Industrial Dwellings Society was set up in 1885 by a group of Jewish philanthropists and businessmen who wanted to relieve overcrowding in the east end of London. If they could see the dreadful conditions that, in 2022, their organisation is housing eastenders in, they would be shocked. Those problems are not confined to Evelyn Court, however: the private sector as a whole has the worst housing disrepair and more than 1.1 million homes in the sector—fully one quarter—do not meet the decent homes standard.

    I also deal with terrible housing disrepair problems elsewhere in the public sector. Among the cases that I am currently dealing with is an L&Q housing association tenant who is suffering from a leaking roof, rising damp, slugs, an infestation of drain flies, continually blocked drains, sewage spilling out into the garden and emerging from the sink, and a shower that has been broken for three years. Another L&Q tenant who I and my staff are trying to help is living in a flat with no working toilet, no gas, a leaking roof and an insect infestation.

    We are also trying to help a Hackney Council tenant who has been without gas and hot water since 15 December and whose bathroom is in a state of disrepair. A further Hackney Council tenant is in a property with severe mould and raw sewage outside her flat from a drain that has been blocked for six months. That is just a sample of the scores of new housing disrepair cases that I deal with every month.

    The Minister must be wondering why housing disrepair is so endemic. There are several reasons. There is a lack of funding from the Government generally and they, quite correctly, put the responsibility for fire safety and net zero carbon emissions on to housing associations. I support those policies and that is the right thing to do, but they fail to fund those issues properly. It would take £15 billion to deal with fire safety issues in London alone.

    Another issue is that housing associations—many of them, such as the Industrial Dwellings Society, set up more than a century ago with every intention of helping local people—no longer have a strong local presence. Tenants who need repairs often have to contact call centres situated far away in cities such as Birmingham and Liverpool. The people in these call centres do not know the estate or the individuals, and they often cannot grasp the problems they are trying to explain.

    The regulators, including the Regulator of Social Housing and the housing ombudsman, are the Government’s responsibility, but they do not have sufficient powers. They can only deal with the process, not individual cases, and they are not able to impose fines big enough to be a real deterrent.

    The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities promised a White Paper on this sector in autumn 2021, and it has still not appeared—it is now promised for 2022. Will the Minister commit the Government to producing the White Paper on this important sector in 2022?

    The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 requires private sector landlords to ensure that their properties are fit for human habitation at the beginning of a tenancy and throughout. Bearing in mind that 1.1 million homes in the private sector do not meet the decent homes standard, how many cases have been brought under this Act? How many of those cases have been successful? Finally, how much money has been allocated to local authorities to enforce the decent homes standards?

    I would not like to conclude this speech without applauding the London Renters Union, which has given so much support to the tenants of Evelyn Court. Furthermore, the London Renters Union, across London, has not only helped tenants but empowered them. The tenants of Evelyn Court are not asking for the world. They want the Industrial Dwellings Society to keep its promise of a 24-hour call out, they want it to communicate with them properly and, above all, they want it to do something permanent about the terrible disrepair in Evelyn Court.

    As a Member of Parliament for more than 30 years, one of the biggest parts of my case load is housing and housing disrepair. I cannot stress enough to Ministers the misery, depression and anxiety that long-running housing disrepair causes to tenants. The Government have a role to play in ensuring that tenants have disrepair addressed according to existing legislation and according to the needs of tenants. If the Government cannot meet the needs of tenants in these dreadful conditions, how much do they really care about tenants?

    I ask the Minister to look into the issues I have raised and to take action for the tenants of Evelyn Court.

  • Eddie Hughes – 2022 Comments on Rough Sleeping

    Eddie Hughes – 2022 Comments on Rough Sleeping

    The comments made by Eddie Hughes, the Housing Minister, on 24 February 2022.

    The government remains focused on ending rough sleeping by the end of this parliament and we’re making excellent progress towards this.

    Today’s figures are testament to that, showing our investment is helping more people have a roof over their heads and the best possible chance of turning their lives around.

  • Eddie Hughes – 2022 Comments on Support for Domestic Abuse Victims

    Eddie Hughes – 2022 Comments on Support for Domestic Abuse Victims

    The comments made by Eddie Hughes, the Rough Sleeping and Housing Minister, on 15 February 2022.

    This funding will give victims of domestic abuse and their children across the country the practical and emotional support to recover and rebuild their lives from this terrible crime.

    Through the landmark Domestic Abuse Act, the government has transformed the response to domestic abuse, helping to prevent offending and make sure victims are protected and supported.

    The consultations we are launching today build on this work and will help us give victims more options to move forward with their lives in the way that is right for them.