Levelling Up, Housing and Communities – in the House of Commons at on 7 March 2022.
Ian Byrne
Labour, Liverpool, West Derby
What steps he is taking to protect tenants from housing disrepair and poor-quality housing conditions.
Eddie Hughes
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
This Government are committed to driving improvements in both social and private rented homes. This spring we will publish our white paper setting out our ambitious proposals to reform the private rented sector, including exploring a legally binding decent homes standard as well as a landlord register. We are driving forward reform of social housing quality through our social housing White Paper commitments, including a review of the decent homes standard.
Ian Byrne
Labour, Liverpool, West Derby
One in four properties in the private rented sector are classed as non-decent. Every day that the Government delay their white paper is a day that millions spend in cold, insecure, unsafe and unaffordable homes. The words “levelling up” will ring hollow in the minds of millions of tenants living in these awful, awful conditions. Will the Minister commit that the White Paper will actually have teeth to resolve the crisis that we are seeing in our communities and hold rogue landlords to account, which is not happening now?
Eddie Hughes
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
I have tremendous respect for the hon. Gentleman and his work, and the work of the Select Committee in total. I will be working very closely with them to ensure that the white paper does indeed have teeth and that our collective efforts drive down the number of non-decent homes. The target set in the levelling-up White Paper was to reduce the number by 50% by 2030.
A document issued by the Government laying out its policy, or proposed policy, on a topic of current concern.Although a white paper may occasion consultation as to the details of new legislation, it does signify a clear intention on the part of a government to pass new law. This is a contrast with green papers, which are issued less frequently, are more open-ended and may merely propose a strategy to be implemented in the details of other legislation.
More from wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_paper
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.