Written questions by Morgan.

Communities and Local Government, when she plans to respond to Question 24712, tabled on 17 January 2025.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to Question UIN 24712 on 12 February.

Communities and Local Government, what proportion of Homes England's Affordable Homes Programme was invested in new affordable homes in rural settlements with a population of 3,000 or fewer in each of the last three years.

Homes England publish allocations data for the 2021-2026 Affordable Homes Programme. This can be found on gov.uk here.With regard to their Continuous Market Engagement (CME) activity to the end of March 2023, Homes England made allocations for 1,862 homes in areas with a population of less than 3,000 (10% of all CME allocations).Further updates on allocations, including those with Strategic Partners, which make up a large proportion of programme delivery, will be released in due course.

Communities and Local Government, what proportion of completions funded by Homes England's Affordable Homes Programme were in rural settlements with a population of 3,000 or fewer in each of the last three years.

Homes England publish allocations data for the 2021-2026 Affordable Homes Programme. This can be found on gov.uk here.With regard to their Continuous Market Engagement (CME) activity to the end of March 2023, Homes England made allocations for 1,862 homes in areas with a population of less than 3,000 (10% of all CME allocations).Further updates on allocations, including those with Strategic Partners, which make up a large proportion of programme delivery, will be released in due course.

Communities and Local Government, what proportion of completions funded by Homes England's Affordable Homes Programme were in rural settlements with (a) a population of 3,000 or fewer and (b) schemes of 15 dwellings or less in each of the last three years.

Homes England publish allocations data for the 2021-2026 Affordable Homes Programme. This can be found on gov.uk here.With regard to their Continuous Market Engagement (CME) activity to the end of March 2023, Homes England made allocations for 1,862 homes in areas with a population of less than 3,000 (10% of all CME allocations).Further updates on allocations, including those with Strategic Partners, which make up a large proportion of programme delivery, will be released in due course.

Communities and Local Government, what proportion of Homes England’s investment programmes was spent in rural settlements with a population of 3,000 or fewer in each of the last three years.

Homes England do not publish a breakdown of rural housing spend or delivery for the Affordable Homes Programme. The Local Authority Housing Statistics [footnote 8] collects the number of new build and acquisitions in populations of less than 3,000. In 2023-24, there were 5,248 new affordable homes in these areas, which accounted for 8% of all new affordable housing. This is an increase of 7% compared to the previous year but lower than a peak of 5,702 in 2018-19. As a percentage, delivery in populations of less than 3,000 has been 8% since 2020-21, lower than a peak of 12% in 2015-16.

Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to ensure that councils have adequate resources to enforce planning decisions.

The government appreciate that planning departments across the country are experiencing challenges with recruitment, retention, and skills gaps and that in many cases these issues are having a negative impact on service delivery.At the Budget, the Chanceller announced a £46 million package of investment into the planning system as a one-year settlement for 2025-2026. A proportion of this funding will be used to support capacity and capability in local planning authorities, including the recruitment and training of 300 graduate and apprentice planners and developing the skills needed to implement reforms and unlock housing delivery.This will be further underpinned by increases in planning fees that will help improve the resourcing of planning application services, so that local planning authorities can fund the skills they need.More broadly, the Department’s established Planning Capacity and Capability programme is also developing a wider programme of support, working with partners across the planning sector, to ensure that local planning authorities have the skills and capacity they need, both now and in the future, to modernise local plans and speed up decision making, including through innovative use of digital planning data and software.It is for local planning authorities to ensure they have the resources in place to carry out their planning enforcement function.

Communities and Local Government, when the Flood Recovery Framework has been activated in each of the last 10 years; which local authorities were eligible for support on each occasion; and how much was paid to each local authority area on each occasion.

The Flood Recovery Framework (the Framework) has been activated on four separate occasions in the last 10 years. The Framework was activated in November 2019, February 2020, following Storm Babet in October 2023 and Storm Henk in January 2024.For each activation of the Framework, the following tables lists the names of the local authorities eligible to receive flood recovery relief from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government sponsored schemes and the amounts awarded to date. The Ministry will be making final payments to those local authorities impacted by Storms Babet and Henk that incurred costs up to 31 March 2025, after which both recovery schemes will close.For other associated Flood Recovery Framework grants schemes, the Ministry does not hold information about awards made in relation to the Department for Business and Trade’s Business Recovery Grant scheme, and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Property Flood Resilience scheme.

Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of allowing Councils to borrow from the Public Works Loan Board at discounted rates in order to build homes for social rent.

Local authorities already have access to a preferential rate from the Public Works Loans Board to support housebuilding in the Housing Revenue Account. The preferential rate of gilts +0.4% is available until June 2025. The Government is committed to suppo...

Communities and Local Government, if she will take steps to reform the eligibility criteria for the Flood Recovery Framework to include more (a) households and (b) businesses that have experienced flooding.

A post activation review of the Flood Recovery Framework is underway and I expect this to report in the Autumn.

Communities and Local Government, if she will ensure that the fair funding formula accounts for the increased cost of delivering services in rural areas.

Future local authority funding decisions will be a matter for the next Spending Review and Local Government Finance Settlement. The department will work with local government leaders to ensure they are better able to fulfil their statutory duties.