Written questions by Holden.

Communities and Local Government, what steps she plans to take to reduce new build freehold estate management fees.

I refer the Hon Member to the answer to Question UIN 13718 on 15 November 2024.

Communities and Local Government, what plans she has to reform the leasehold system for residential property; and whether she has a planned timetable for such reforms.

The Government will act quickly to provide homeowners with greater rights, powers, and protections over their homes by implementing the provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, including those designed to increase service charge transparency.Over the course of this Parliament, the Government will further reform the leasehold system. We will enact remaining Law Commission recommendations relating to enfranchisement and the Right to Manage, tackle unregulated and unaffordable ground rents, reinvigorate commonhold through a comprehensive new legal framework, and ban the sale of new leasehold flats so commonhold becomes the default tenure.The Government has made clear it intends to publish draft legislation on leasehold and commonhold reform in this session so that it may be subject to broad consultation and additional parliamentary scrutiny. We will announce further details in due course.

Communities and Local Government, how many people are sleeping rough.

According to the official Rough Sleeping Snapshot statistics, 3,898 people were estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in England in autumn 2023. This was 27% higher than the previous year and represented an annual increase for the second year in a row.The Government is committed to taking action to address all forms of homelessness and will develop a new cross-government strategy, working with mayors and councils across the country to get us on back on track to ending homelessness once and for all.We will deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation and deliver 1.5 million new homes over the next Parliament. I refer the Hon Member to the written statement made on 30 July 2024 (HCWS48), setting out our first steps on how we achieve this.

Communities and Local Government, whether her Department has discussed the Laindon Centre with Basildon Council.

Officials at Homes England, the Government’s housing and regeneration agency, are in dialogue with Basildon Council to discuss where their programmes, capacity and funding may be able to support the Council’s priorities.

Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department plans to take to assess the adequacy of (a) roads, (b) other physical infrastructure, (c) GP services, (d) schools and (e) other service infrastructure in the reform of planning restrictions.

As set out in the National Planning Policy Framework, the purpose of the planning system is to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development, including the provision of supporting infrastructure in a sustainable manner.Local planning authorities are required to plan for infrastructure delivery as part of plan-making and report on their use of developer contributions in Infrastructure Funding Statements.The Government will keep the provision of local infrastructure under review, including when considering revisions to national planning policy.