Every parliamentary written question tabled by Lee Pitcher this session, with the full answer and department. See how every department answers, or back to the MP page.
Showing 1–8 of 8 · Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure confidence in the Community Governance Review process where concerns are raised about local consultation and democratic represe
The Government has committed to updating the Community Governance Review guidance with good practice examples to better support local authorities and town and parish councils to work together. The decision to establish parish councils remains a local one.
Communities and Local Government, whether his Department plans to review planning regulations for houses in multiple occupation.
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 22786 on 17 January 2025.The government continues to keep permitted development rights under review.
Communities and Local Government, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications of his policies the recommendation in the report entitled FloodReady – an action plan to build the resilience of people and properties, published on 16 October 2025, that the Government explore (a) amending Building Regulations and (b) amending the Future Homes Standard to include low-cost property flood resilience measures.
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 81948 on 21 October 2025.
Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of increasing the rate of office-to-residential asset conversions to accelerate the delivery of social housing.
Under nationally set permitted development rights a wide range of commercial buildings such as offices and shops are able to change use to residential without the need for a planning application. The government continues to keep permitted development rights under review.
Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that cladding remediation works on high-risk buildings are not subject to avoidable delays in the building control approval process by the Building Safety Regulator.
The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has established a dedicated external remediation team who assess all building control approval applications for cladding remediation. The team is already delivering engagement events to improve developers’ understanding of the requirements, and therefore increase the quality of applications and approval rates.The BSR is also in the process of establishing a remediation enforcement unit, to oversee escalations from government/partner regulators where remediation is not progressing quickly enough. The unit will have access to additional, dedicated resources for building control work to deal with the increasing demand, and to help increase the pace of remediation works.We recognise that delays in assessing Gateway approval applications are unacceptable, which is why we announced reforms on 30 June including carving out the BSR from the Health and Safety Executive and establishing the Regulator as a standalone body with a clear focus on building safety.The BSR is already making operational and policy changes to speed up decision making, particularly on building control approval, including through the introduction of an Innovation Unit. Early signs are positive with all applications in the Innovation Unit so far on track to exceed or meet the 12-week SLA as they progress through the application process.In addition to this, BSR has initiated a new approach of batching applications so they can be processed by multidisciplinary teams formed by Registered Building Control Approvers with oversight from BSR.The BSR is continually improving the suite of guidance that supports those with duties in understanding what the law requires of them and how they can comply. New guidance with the Construction Leadership Council (CLC) has been published to help applicants better understand what’s needed for a successful submission.
Communities and Local Government, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of a national Housing First rollout.
The Rough Sleeping Prevention and Recovery Grant (RSPARG) is providing a total of £185.6 million to local authorities across England in 2025/26. The RSPARG gives local authorities the flexibility to determine the most suitable rough sleeping services required to meet local need, including support to housing first projects.The Government has published evaluations of the Housing First pilots on GOV.UK (linked here), which local authorities can use to inform their approach.
Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to help people sleeping rough access long-term and stable accommodation.
Homelessness levels are far too high. This can have a devastating impact on those affected. We are determined to address this and deliver long term solutions.The Government is looking at these issues carefully and is developing a new cross government strategy. We are committed to moving away from a system focussed on crisis response, taking a holistic approach to preventing homelessness in the first place and driving better value for money interventions.The Rough Sleeping Prevention and Recovery Grant (RSPARG) is providing a total of £185.6 million to local authorities across England in 2025/26. The RSPARG gives local authorities the flexibility to determine the most suitable rough sleeping services, this includes accommodation required to meet local need.
Communities and Local Government, what estimate her Department has made of the number of children living in temporary accommodation in Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme constituency.
The government publishes statistics on homelessness including the number of children in temporary accommodation each quarter through gov.uk. You can find the data gov.uk here.