Topical Questions

Question

Following Awaab Ishak's tragic death and the chief executive of Rochdale Boroughwide Housing standing down, will the House receive a statement on your departmental responsibilities?

Question

Will my right hon. Friend agree that the levelling-up fund must make a real difference in every region, including his colleague's area in the south-west?

Question

When will the overdue developer remediation contract be published? When will mortgage and insurance problems be resolved for affected leaseholders?

Question

Is the promised investment of £300 million still available despite fiscal statement?

Question

Would further council cuts be an act of Government vandalism?

Question

Will she commit to closing the loophole allowing rogue landlords to receive public funds?

Question

Does he agree that regulatory powers with adequate resources are needed for local government to implement them?

Question

How does he believe increasing council tax is compassionate or conservative? What message for households in Dorset?

Question

Since I met the Secretary of State, the pace of short-term holiday lets in my constituency has exploded, with the flipping of private rented homes and the hoovering up of homes to purchase meaning that people in my constituency have nowhere to live. When will he bring forward legislation to license short-term holiday lets? Will he support my private Member's Bill, which aims to do that?

Question

Our precious green belt should never be prioritised over brownfield sites. However, local authorities are coming under increasing pressure to include green belt in their core strategies because of unfair housing targets. Will my right hon. and learned Friend help councils to better implement a “brownfield first” policy by reforming the formula used to set housing targets? Will she meet me and representatives from Erewash Borough Council to discuss the matter further?

Question

The Secretary of State is well aware of Bell Building Projects and the work it is doing to remove cladding across these islands. What representations has he made to Homes England, which is taking four to five months to pay the invoices of this company and other contractors?

Question

Will my right hon. Friend take steps to ensure that green-belt sites set aside for housing in local council draft plans are removed prior to plan adoption?

Question

Taxpayers in St Albans district are shelling out £3 million a year to subsidise big developers because the Government's cap on planning fees prevents my local councils from charging the full amount for processing a big application, and last week I tabled the presentation Bill to scrap that cap. Given the enormous pressures on household budgets, will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how we can urgently address this issue, perhaps through the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill?

Question

There is overwhelming evidence that the building blocks for lifelong emotional and physical wellbeing are laid down during the first 1,001 days of human life. Does my right hon. Friend agree that supporting that is the best piece of levelling up we could possibly do? What more can he do to ensure that family hubs and joined-up start for life services are rolled out right across England as soon as possible?

Question

European social fund projects in Northern Ireland face a financial cliff edge. Over 1,000 jobs are at risk and over 17,000 service users fear for their future. Can the Secretary of State give me an assurance that there will be an investment plan and a process in place to give those organisations the chance to apply for shared prosperity fund support ahead of next April?

Question

The renters reform Bill will make private tenancy arrangements fit for the 21st century. Will my right hon. Friend set out what steps the Government are taking to ensure that such tendencies are also up to a decent standard? How will that be backed up with monitoring and enforcement?

Question

Awaab Ishak's death was shocking, and such things should not be happening in our country in 2022. His case shows what happens when people living in social housing are disregarded, as Wandsworth Borough Council has allowed social housing stock to go into decay. What is the Secretary of State's Department doing to assist investment in social housing?

Question

In Chelmsford we badly need more social and affordable housing. When new housing developments are built, the local authority can set a rule that a certain proportion of the new homes must be affordable. I urge my right hon. Friend to consider enabling local authorities to put in place similar rules when large commercial buildings such as office blocks are converted from commercial to residential properties.

Question

As private sector rents continue to rise in west London, more and more of my constituents on low incomes and dependent on benefits are having to pay rent well above the levels of the local housing allowance. They cannot afford it and are having either not to eat or not to heat their homes. Will the Secretary of State make a statement about the urgent need for the Government to uprate local housing allowance?

Question

In June, the Prime Minister announced plans to extend the right to buy to housing association tenants to enable them to purchase their own homes. Will my right hon. Friend update me on the progress of this initiative and confirm whether a tenant who has purchased an initial equity stake in a housing association home on shared-ownership terms will be able to use a right-to-buy discount to purchase the remaining equity stake through staircasing?

Question

I have been proud to support a very good levelling-up bid in Oswestry in my constituency. With North Shropshire being such a large rural area, public transport is a really important part of levelling up the whole region, so will the Secretary of State look favourably on both Oswestry's bid and Shropshire's bid to improve bus services across the county?

Question

Rutland and Melton councils have put forward a brilliant blueprint for rural innovation in our levelling-up bid, focused on health and transport. The context is an urgent need to put social mobility into funding formulas for those areas of deprivation otherwise hidden by affluence. Will my right hon. Friend do what he said he would do back in February: take up an offer that is too good to be true by coming to Rutland and Melton to discuss the bid and the future of social mobility funding?

Question

Recent analysis has found that £1 in every £13 allocated through the two levelling-up funding rounds will be lost to inflation—that is more than £560 million—so how will Ministers ensure that complex bids such as that for the remediation of hexavalent chromium at Shawfield in my constituency do not miss out on funding opportunities as a result?