Written questions by Anderson.

Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to reduce homelessness among veterans.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 903640 on 7 April 2025.

Communities and Local Government, how many foreign nationals have been granted social housing in the last year.

People are generally eligible for social housing if they have leave to remain in the UK and have recourse to public funds. The Home Office decides whether persons from abroad have leave to remain in the UK and whether they have recourse to public funds. Only individuals that are eligible can join housing registers and be given a social housing tenancy. For those who are eligible, housing needs will be considered on an equal basis in accordance with the relevant local authority’s housing allocation scheme. There were 33,000 new social lettings in England to households whose lead tenant was a non-UK national in 2023/24. This constitutes 13% of all new social lettings that year (262,000 lettings). The Department does not hold data on the nationality of individual members of households in social housing, but such households can contain UK nationals as well as non-UK national lead tenants.

Communities and Local Government, how many disabled people were on the waiting list for social housing in the last 12 months.

My Department does not hold data on the number of disabled people on social housing registers (waiting lists).

Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to prioritise disabled people on waiting lists for social housing.

Local authorities are responsible for designing and managing their own housing allocations policies to meet local need but have to do so within the legislative framework set by government. As part of this, they are required to ensure they give ‘reasonable preference’ (priority) to people for medical or welfare reasons, which includes a physical or learning disability. Allocations guidance also encourages local authorities to give additional preference to people who need to move urgently because of a sudden disability. Social housing allocations guidance can be found on gov.uk here.

Communities and Local Government, what diversity, equality and inclusion targets her Department has for staff recruitment.

MHCLG do not have diversity, equality and inclusion recruitment targets. Our recruitment processes aim to attract a diverse range of applications, with a focus on parity with the economically active population in the places we work. The Economically Active Population (EAP) is published by the Office for National Statistics for the regions in the UK.

Communities and Local Government, how many disabled people have been allocated council housing in Nottinghamshire since 27 March 2024.

The Department does not currently hold figures on allocated council housing since 27 March 2024. However, the Department has begun collecting data for the 2024/25 financial year as part of our Social Housing Lettings in England statistical series and will publish the 2024/25 report in this series in November 2025 on gov.uk here.

Communities and Local Government, how much her Department has been spent on projects that have not been launched in each of the last five years.

This information requested is not held centrally.

Communities and Local Government, if she will take steps to ensure that council staff are unable to work from abroad.

Local authorities are independent employers responsible for the management of their own workforces, including where staff can work from. It is not the responsibility of central government to micromanage this. Councils are, however, expected to manage their workforces to best meet the needs of their residents. Staff working arrangements and value for money should be considered as part of this.

Communities and Local Government, whether public funds will be made available to Palestinians granted the right to settle in the UK via the Local Authorities Housing Fund.

Palestinians are not directly accommodated under the Local Authority Housing Fund. They can, however, seek advice from their local authority if they need support with housing, who will assess what homelessness duties are owed, based on the circumstances of the household.

Communities and Local Government, for what reason she increased council tax referendum thresholds.

The government has confirmed it will maintain the previous government’s policy of a 3% core council tax principle and the 2% principle for the adult social care precept, in line with OBR forecast. In a limited number of cases the government has set bespoke referendum principles following requests for councils. These requests have been considered on a case-by-case basis. We have not agreed to all requests and no request has been agreed to in its entirety to reduce the impact on taxpayers. The ability to request additional increases already existed, but this government is being stricter to protect taxpayers from excessive rises. At its highest, the previous government allowed a council tax rise of 15% – this year no council will see an increase of higher than 10%, with five of the six councils seeing a lower increase. The government has agreed to provide these flexibilities, but it remains the responsibility of individual authorities to decide the level at which they set their council tax. We have been clear to all councils that they should take whatever steps locally they consider will help to protect the most vulnerable residents from the impact of any additional increase.

Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to help prevent postal vote fraud.

Our postal voting systems contain a range of measures that are designed to protect the security of postal voting, such as the requirement for postal voters to use personal identifiers when applying for and returning their ballot.We are currently carrying out a review of electoral registration and conduct, and if any further changes to postal voting are found to be necessary or appropriate, we will bring forward proposals for them in due course.

Communities and Local Government, what discussions she has had with (a) local authority officers and (b) local authority elected representatives on the cancellation of the local elections in West Sussex, and if she will publish those discussions.

The Secretary of State has not had discussions with these local authorities on the cancellation of the local elections. Discussions on the applications to the Devolution Priority Programme have been had with all upper tier and unitary councils in the preparation of the programme, and those discussions covered all matters related to the timetable and process by both officials and ministers, as you would expect.

Communities and Local Government, what discussions she has had with (a) local authority officers and (b) local authority elected representatives on the cancellation of local elections in East Sussex; and if she will publish those discussions.

The Secretary of State has not had discussions with these local authorities on the cancellation of the local elections. Discussions on the applications to the Devolution Priority Programme have been had with all upper tier and unitary councils in the preparation of the programme, and those discussions covered all matters related to the timetable and process by both officials and ministers, as you would expect.

Communities and Local Government, if she will make it her policy that local authority areas which have had elections postponed in May 2025 will have elections in May 2026.

We have postponed local authority elections from May 2025 to May 2026 only, where it is crucial to do so in order to ensure that we can reorganise local government and deliver devolution as quickly as possible.For those areas which are part of the Devolution Priority Programme, it is the government's intention to deliver a new wave of mayoral elections in May 2026.For any area in which elections are postponed, we will work with areas to move to elections to new ‘shadow’ unitary councils as soon as possible as is the usual arrangement in the process of local government reorganisation.

Communities and Local Government, if she will publish the conversations and negotiations which she had in order to determine which elections were to be postponed.

The Secretary of State will not publish these details. I wrote to councils who requested for their local elections to be postponed from May 2025 to May 2026 to inform them of the outcome of the government's decision. The bar for postponement was high and requests were only granted where this supports delivery of both reorganisation and devolution to the most ambitious timeframe.

Communities and Local Government, when she plans to publish a timetable for local government re-organisation.

I wrote to all councils in two-tier areas and to neighbouring small unitaries on 5th February to formally invite unitary proposals from all these councils. These letters will shortly be published on gov.uk and they set out the timelines and next steps for local government re-organisation.

Communities and Local Government, what discussions she has had with Ashfield District Council about phase one of the local government re-organisation.

There has not been a meeting with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and Ashfield District Council about phase one of the local government re-organisation.

Communities and Local Government, what steps the Government is taking to help (a) first-time buyers and (b) low-income families secure housing in Ashfield constituency.

The affordability challenges facing prospective first-time buyers mean that too many people are now locked out of homeownership.The government is committed to delivering 1.5 million homes, including the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation.In addition to increasing the supply of homes of all tenures, we are committed to introducing a permanent, comprehensive mortgage guarantee scheme which will support first-time buyers in Ashfield and across the country who are struggling to save for a large deposit.

Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to protect park home owners from charges by park owners when they sell their home.

I refer the hon Member to the answer given to Question UIN 11995 on 6 November 2024.

Communities and Local Government, if she will take steps to prioritise the allocation of affordable housing to UK citizens.

Eligibility for social housing is already tightly controlled. If a person’s visa means that they cannot access state benefits or local authority housing assistance, they are not eligible for an allocation of social housing. Migrants arriving in the UK on student or work visas are not eligible and nor are those who arrive in the country illegally with no leave to remain.Where someone is eligible, they will have their housing needs considered on the same basis as other eligible applicants in accordance with the local authority’s housing allocation scheme. Social housing goes to those who need it most.The previous government consulted on changes to social housing allocation tests. This government’s response was published on 2 September and can be found on gov.uk here.