argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Housing — House of Commons, 2019-04-09
Topic: Housing
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman has met me to press his constituents’ case. In turn, I have raised the matter face to face with the representative of Ballymore. We continue to put pressure on the industry generally to do its duty to leaseholders and critically, to remediate to ensure that everybody is safe in their homes. However, I am more than happy to write to the hon. Gentleman in the next few days about the progress we are making generally on the issue.
Housing — House of Commons, 2019-04-09
Topic: Housing
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): Sadly, I cannot quite confirm that. We are very close to completing the rehousing of everybody who was involved in the Grenfell Tower fire. At the moment, the numbers remaining are small and the cases are often complex, and we are making significant progress I am also mindful of those without a place to call home. When I reflect on what we can do better, I am clear that we must do everything possible to confront rough sleeping and the broader challenges of homelessness. Our cross-Government, £100 million rough sleeping strategy is helping our rough sleeping initiative reach more parts of the country—now more than 75% of local authorities in England. As part of that, we announced £46 million to support people off the streets and into accommodation in 2019-20, because we have already seen how that can work and make a real difference. Recent figures have shown the first fall in the number of people sleeping rough in eight years. However, we should make no mistake: one person sleeping rough is one person too many and we remain more determined than ever to end rough sleeping for good. That means combating homelessness, and our ambitious £1.2 billion package of support will help tackle it in all its forms, giving some of the most vulnerable people in our society the security and dignity they deserve.
Housing — House of Commons, 2019-04-09
Topic: Housing
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): We have made a commitment to review the implementation of the permitted development rights policy. However, alongside that, I urge local authorities to use the maximum power available to them through their building regulation powers and other forms of inspection to ensure that the homes people inhabit are suitable. I also urge local authorities that place people in those homes to reassure themselves that they are suitable for occupation. We have often found that people in unsuitable homes are placed there by councils that frankly should know better and should seek higher quality accommodation for their residents As I hope I have shown, we are making every effort to get everyone on board to deliver not just more homes but stronger communities. My triple challenge—more, better, faster—is the key to the country’s happiness, health and prosperity and the work is starting to pay off. The number of homes built is up, rough sleeping is on the turn, there is greater fairness in the rented sector and more beautiful and innovative places to call home should start to appear. We have every reason to be confident and optimistic as we look forward to our future outside the European Union. A stronger, fairer, more diverse housing market can be the bedrock of our future success—a way to spread opportunity and ensure that no one is left behind. We remain focused on delivering that and fulfilling the basic promise that each generation must make to the next: that their life will be better than ours.
Housing — House of Commons, 2019-04-09
Topic: Housing
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned nine years, and what we are going to do. Does he not accept that the number of housing starts is roughly 100% higher than it was at the lowest point under a Labour Government in 2009? If he is not sure about that, he need only speak to any brickie, chippy or sparky. They will tell him that they are a lot busier than they were back then.
Housing — House of Commons, 2019-04-09
Topic: Housing
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to correct the right hon. Gentleman on the rehousing numbers for Grenfell, not least because I hope he would never seek to use it as a political football. We are putting enormous efforts into rehousing residents. Of the 202 households from Grenfell Tower and Grenfell Walk that required rehousing, every one has accepted an offer of either high-quality temporary accommodation or permanent accommodation, 196 have moved in, 181 have moved into their permanent home, and 15 remain in temporary accommodation. Six house- holds remain in emergency accommodation—two in hotels, three in serviced apartments, and one living with family or friends. There is a constant and ongoing conversation with those people about their needs and requirements. We are taking this very slowly and sensitively. We cannot compel anyone to do anything. We are working closely with them to try to ensure that they get the homes they need. It is unfair of the right hon. Gentleman to try to make out that we are being dilatory in that effort.
Housing — House of Commons, 2019-04-09
Topic: Housing
Sarah Louise Newton (Conservative, Centre-right): This Minister does get it; he works day and night to ensure that he delivers the homes that the nation needs. He knows that I am a champion of community-led housing, and I was delighted that the Government responded so positively to the campaigning of myself and colleagues for the establishment of the community housing fund. It was first announced in the 2016 Budget with a commitment to invest £300 million over five years, with the money coming from the proceeds of extra stamp duty on second home sales. Money was allocated to 148 local authorities, roughly in proportion to the number of second homes and affordability issues I believe that the fund will transform the community-led housing sector. It is expected to deliver 10,000 homes by 2021. However, the fund ends with the end of the current spending period. With more than 3,500 homes now in the pipeline, it is essential that the fund is extended to the next spending review period so that those homes can be delivered. Because of the delay in the spending review, there will now be a significant period of uncertainty for groups. Money must be spent by March 2020, so few bids will come forward from this point on. The spending review will not conclude until the autumn statement, at the earliest, and there could be further delay and indecision following that. So groups, including those in Cornwall, face an invidious choice. Should they continue to work on their projects and hope that funding will come through, or should they wait and potentially stall and collapse In the social housing Green Paper, the Government acknowledged that housing associations could deliver more if they were given more time. That is more true for this sector than for any other. To illustrate my point, the Cornwall Community Land Trust, a well-respected enabler of community-led housing, estimates that the discontinuance of the community housing fund could put up to 230 community-led homes in jeopardy I am sure we all agree that we need to deliver more genuinely affordable homes for local people in beautiful coastal communities where there are very high house prices, such as those in Cornwall, where it is so attractive for people to buy second homes. We need those affordable homes to sustain communities for generations to come, so I urge the Minister, who I know wants to ensure that my constituents and people all over the country have high-quality homes to live in, to make an urgent statement about the continuity of the much-supported and much-needed community housing fund.
Housing — House of Commons, 2019-04-09
Topic: Housing
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady talks about the great things happening with housing in Scotland, but what does she make of the fact that the target of delivering 35,000 homes between 2007 and 2016 was missed by 50%? Only 16,000 of the planned 35,000 were delivered.
Housing — House of Commons, 2019-04-09
Topic: Housing
Priti Sushil Patel (Conservative, Centre-right): The residents of the Witham constituency are concerned about a wide range of housing matters. Ministers might be familiar with some of them, but I want to pick on three examples First, the issue of how the five-year land supply is calculated affects communities across the country. In planning applications and appeals, we see developers trying to pick apart the declared pipelines in councils’ local plans. To be frank, highly paid consultants and advisers are producing lengthy reports for applications and appeals, and the public struggle to contest them because they do not have the resources. I have seen many cases in my constituency of developers trying to pick apart the council’s supply pipeline and go against local community planning and the council’s planning objectives. That is not good enough We all recognise that the delivery of land and housing can sometimes be beyond councils’ framework and mandate. I urge the Government to look again at how much weight is applied to the five-year supply. We must ensure that councils and communities have more protection. Developers think that by ripping apart five-year supply calculations, they can develop almost anywhere. That is a major issue across the board.
Housing — House of Commons, 2019-04-09
Topic: Housing
Priti Sushil Patel (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Minister for that point. I will come on to that. Like all Members of Parliament, I want to see my communities empowered in planning decision making. In Witham town, there was recently an application for Gimsons—a site at River View in Witham—which is deemed a visually important site and is highly regarded by everyone in the community. The current local plan protects it from development. The draft local plan, which could be two years away from adoption, recommends approximately 40 dwellings, but an application for 78 came along and was granted permission. The residents were appalled that their views were ignored I am a great believer in neighbourhood plans and I encourage all my parishes to develop them. We want much more support for community-based planning and neighbourhood plans, particularly with parish councils. I urge the Minister and his team to give more resource to parishes and communities so we can ensure that they are protected from developers, who sometimes come along wanting to rip up the five-year land supply and to challenge councils and communities. Importantly, we must ensure that there are resources and that place-shaping can happen. The Minister has already spoken about that My final point is about the ways in which we can support housing and development. The Minister spoke about garden settlements. We have had many conversations and I urge him to ask the Secretary of State to reply to me—we have some outstanding correspondence. There is a huge opportunity for all Departments to work together to ensure we have integrated planning. That means that we have the right infrastructure, including road and rail, health, schools, and public amenities and services. That is a great programme that our Government could take forward. I urge the Minister and his colleagues across Government to work in an integrated way so we can drive the right kind of local community outcomes on housing and planning.
Housing — House of Commons, 2019-04-09
Topic: Housing
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to speak after my Select Committee Chair; we agree on much, although I am not sure about selective licensing, which is too often a licence to print money for some local authorities. It is also a pleasure to speak with the Housing Minister on the Treasury Bench. I feel, from my short time in Parliament, that he has got at least as good a handle on these issues as anyone I have seen We need to build more truly affordable housing, both to rent and to buy. We cannot simply do what Labour would do—put more pressure on an overburdened taxpayer. We must do it in different ways. The best way to do it is to cut out the middlemen or middlewomen; I speak as a middleman who has been involved in the property market for 30 years. There are a couple of simple ways we could do that that are simply too good to miss. The Housing Minister is familiar with some of my ideas on this, particularly on delivering more affordable homes to purchase through the section 106 system Every year, we deliver around 25,000 affordable homes through section 106 requirements. They are typically sold to housing associations at 50% of market value. The housing association then rents them out at 80% of market value and puts them on their balance sheet at 100% of market value; nice work if you can get it. Why, instead of doing that, do we not simply sell those properties—or half those properties—to first-time buyers on low incomes, at 50% of market value? That would be in perpetuity and those first-time buyers could pass the properties on to the next person. There is no cost to the taxpayer whatsoever. It is good for them. It is good for the developers, who are dealing direct with their customers. The only people who probably will not be too keen on it are the housing associations, but that is not who we are here for; we are here for real people.
Housing — House of Commons, 2019-04-09
Topic: Housing
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): This proposal is also good for the community because people are buying those houses rather than renting them, which is very popular locally. To give a local example, in the town of Easingwold where I was born and brought up, 656 homes are being delivered, 279 homes affordable, all for renting, and only eight are two-bedroomed properties for young first-time buyers. That dynamic could be changed, and tens of thousands of homes delivered for first-time buyers on low incomes The second way to cut out the middlemen is through the pension system. Currently, residential property cannot be put in a pension. If we change that rule, lots of empty or unconverted space above shops could be changed overnight. We should allow those properties to be put in a pension, as long as—this would be the catch, but it is a fair one—those properties were made available at a social rent. We would widen the pension system to allow people to buy property to put it into a pension, as long as they let it out at a social rent. That would be good for the owner as a tax break and great for the tenant, and great for the taxpayer because the burden of housing benefit is reduced. Everyone wins, apart from the middleman.
Housing — House of Commons, 2019-04-09
Topic: Housing
Heather Kay Wheeler (Conservative, Centre-right): This has been a really excellent debate. I have this wonderful speech here, which is obviously way too long, so we are not going to worry about that. The contributions made by so many people in the House make it clear why housing is the No. 1 domestic priority for the Government. We all want Brexit done, so please vote for the deal, and then we can get on with dealing with this stuff The important thing to me is talking about community land trusts, as my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) did, and sorting out what we are going to do in the private rented sector, with the changes to electrical standards and carbon monoxide—
Housing — House of Commons, 2019-04-09
Topic: Housing
Heather Kay Wheeler (Conservative, Centre-right): That is why it is important that it is coming through. The important thing here is that the guidance is coming through now, and there has been great respect for that, which I am very pleased about I am appalled at the way in which issues are turned into political footballs. There is no stronger Department in trying to deal with such issues one by one, in a logical way, so that nobody ends up sleeping rough or dying on our streets. The important thing is that the Government totally get this. We are spending an awful lot of money to change things around, because that is what is important. People out there realise that changes are being made in the private rented sector, changes are being made for tenants, and changes are being made to professionalise the professional services—the letting agents and managing agents. Leasehold changes are on the way. There are all sorts of things in our country that are wrong; they need to change, and it is this Government who are going to change them I am delighted that our ministerial team is on the case, looking at how many houses we need to build in the year; looking at giving councils the freedoms to build more council houses; encouraging social housing to grow; encouraging first-time buyers; encouraging veterans to get on the housing ladder once they leave the armed forces; making sure that veterans are not sleeping rough and that they get the help they need; and looking after people in Scotland, where there are innovative ideas—I looked at rough sleeping issues and Housing First in Glasgow. All these ideas are very important to the Government; no one should be left under any illusion about the fact that only the Government are making the changes that will get these things right People’s lives are at risk. People’s happiness is at risk. We want to make sure that fairness is sorted out for the future. I pay huge tribute to the teams of civil servants that are going round the country making sure that people get the help they need. In Medway and Cornwall, there has been a 40% reduction in rough sleepers. These are huge changes, and I am very proud of what the Government are doing.
Mental Health Support: Young People — House of Commons, 2019-04-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jacqueline Doyle-Price (Conservative, Centre-right): I have not had that opportunity yet, but I am sure I will I could say an awful lot more, but I do not have much time remaining. It is clear from hon. Members’ contributions to the debate that we all recognise that this is perhaps one of the biggest challenges facing our young people right now. It is heartening to see that so many people are really seizing those challenges, whether by demanding better services or by asking for changes to Government policy to deal with some of the threats. That is all very welcome, and I have no doubt that all Members will continue to challenge me on this important issue Question put and agreed to.
Horse-racing — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Jeremy Paul Wright (Conservative, Centre-right): Our world leading horse-racing industry employs over 17,000 people and contributes around £3.5 billion to rural economies across Britain each year. The Government support British racing, and our reforms to the horse-race betting levy have established a firm financial basis to support the sport.
Horse-racing — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Jeremy Paul Wright (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, not just for what he says, but also for the valuable work he does with the APPG to support the industry. He is right that the levy receipts this year will be lower than expected, but he will recognise that there was a very substantial increase last year because the Government reformed the levy in order to bring offshore bookmakers into scope. That was an important change to give the industry a broader and more substantial financial base. We will look at future changes to the levy that may be appropriate to deal with any change in circumstances, but it is right to allow the substantial changes that we made last year to bed in. We will of course discuss with the hon. Gentleman and the APPG what further action may be appropriate.
Horse-racing — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Laurence Anthony Robertson (Conservative, Centre-right): As the other co-chairman of the APPG, may I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests? I am sure that the Secretary of State is aware of the recent Racing Together Community Day. Does he agree that, with 60 racecourses across the country, horse-racing has a wonderful opportunity to reach out to very many people, including schoolchildren, and can he help us to support that action?
Horse-racing — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Jeremy Paul Wright (Conservative, Centre-right): In order to be even-handed, I should offer equal thanks and congratulations to my hon. Friend for the work that he does with the APPG. He is right that horse-racing can make a significant contribution —not just to our sporting life, but to our broader community life. It is important that young people understand the sport and understand horses, and we welcome any opportunity that the industry has to support that.
Digital Skills: Older People — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Margot Cathleen James (Conservative, Centre-right): Three quarters of people who lack basic digital skills are over the age of 65, so we have launched a digital inclusion innovation fund specifically to help older people and people with disabilities. We are also tackling digital exclusion via the £15 million future digital inclusion programme, which since 2014 has helped more than 1 million adult learners to develop their basic digital skills.
TV Licences for Over-75s — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jeremy Paul Wright (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government have guaranteed the over-75s licence concession until 2020. After that, the future of that concession is the BBC’s decision, but we have been clear that we would want and expect it to continue. We expect the BBC’s decision next month.
TV Licences for Over-75s — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jeremy Paul Wright (Conservative, Centre-right): We have made it quite clear that we will continue to fund the concession until 2020. It is worth noting that, over the last two years, the funding has been managed in a transitional way. The Department for Work and Pensions transferred £468 million in 2018-19 to the BBC and £247 million this year. It is important to make that point, because it means that the remainder of the cost is now being borne by the BBC. We have been clear that when the BBC takes on this responsibility, it is important for the concession to continue.
TV Licences for Over-75s — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jeremy Paul Wright (Conservative, Centre-right): First, let me mostly endorse what the hon. Lady said about the women’s World cup and wish a huge amount of luck to England and almost as much luck to Scotland I disagree with the hon. Lady’s description of the position. We do not accept the characterisation in the report that she refers to. In relation to TV licences, as she has heard me say this morning, I think it is important to wait until we see the BBC’s proposals, and we will then be in a position to comment. That principle applies more broadly—it is always sensible to wait and see what is proposed before you decide you do not like it.
Gambling-related Harm — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Questions: What steps his Department is taking to ensure adequate funding for (a) education, (b) research, (c) treatment and (d) support to minimise gambling-related harm.
Miriam Jane Alice Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): GambleAware was fully funded last year. As the hon. Gentleman said, it almost reached the £10 million target, and another £7 million was brought in through financial penalties. We expect targets to be increased in the future and welcome commitments by operators to substantially increase the amounts they give. However, as I said at the Gambling Commission strategy launch, if the voluntary system cannot meet current or, more importantly, future needs, we will look at alternatives. Everything is on the table, including a mandatory levy.