The government remains committed to promoting fairness and transparency for homeowners and ensuring that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service

We have set out a strong package of measures to tackle unfair practices in the leasehold market. This includes a commitment to bring forward legislation to ban the unjustified use of leasehold for new houses, reducing future ground rents to zero financial value, and introducing new rights to challenge fees for freeholders on private and mixed tenure estates. We are also working with the Law Commission to make buying a freehold or extending a lease easier, faster, fairer and cheaper, as well as reinvigorating Commonhold and making Right to Manage easier, to provide greater choice for consumers

The government is also working to ensure charges related to leasehold properties are transparent and communicated effectively and that there is a clear route to challenge or redress if things go wrong. Last October we established an independent working group chaired by Lord Best to raise standards across the property sector, which also considered how fees such as service charges should be presented to consumers. The working group published its final report to government on 18 July. We are considering the report’s recommendations and will announce next steps in due course.

We remain committed to legislating on leasehold reform as soon as parliamentary time allows.

The government is committed to rebalancing the relationship between tenants and landlords to deliver a fairer, good quality and more affordable private rented sector.

In April this year the government announced that it proposes to consult on the future of Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988. This would provide tenants with more stability, protecting them from having to make frequent moves at short notice, empowering them to challenge poor property standards and enabling them to put down roots and plan for the future. Our consultation on how the new system should operate closed on 12 October. We are now carefully considering the responses received and will publish our response in due course.

In January 2019, the government committed – in response to the Strengthening consumer redress in housing consultation – to requiring all private landlords to belong to a redress scheme, so that all tenants have access to redress when things go wrong. This will require primary legislation, which will be introduced at the earliest appropriate opportunity

The government will also shortly lay regulations to introduce mandatory five yearly safety inspections and tests on electrical installations in private rented sector properties.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

The Government, working in partnership with industry, launched the Construction Sector Deal in July 2018, in order to deliver a substantial improvement in the productivity growth of the sector. At the heart of the deal is a joint public and private sector investment of £420m in the Transforming Construction Programme, which will accelerate the adoption of digital and manufacturing technologies to improve building performance and reduce waste, with the aim of reducing lifetime carbon emissions by 50%. In particular, £32m has been invested in the Advanced Building Centre which is developing energy generation and storage technologies for use in buildings.

Through the Green Construction Board, we are working with industry to achieve the Buildings Mission goal of halving the energy consumption of new buildings by 2030, and halve the cost of retrofit over the same period. The Board is also working with Government to develop a road map to zero avoidable waste in the sector. The road map will be delivered by the end of next year. By reducing waste and encouraging the use of sustainable materials we can further reduce Green House Gas emissions.

Free trade is a driver of economic growth that can trigger positive changes in a country’s economy, helping to raise incomes, create jobs and lift people out of poverty. The poorest countries have enjoyed some of the benefits of global free trade through receiving preferential access to the UK, the world’s fifth-biggest market.

The Government’s consultation response on bus open data explains that the Government will bring forward a statutory instrument later this year which will require bus operators in England to publish various forms of data.

The key requirements are for data on routes and timetables to be published from January 2020; real time information and simple fares by January 2021; and complex fares by January 2023. The difference between simple and complex fares is explained in section 4 of the consultation response.

To support this, the response also explains that the Government is developing a Bus Open Data Digital Service, which will allow app developers to access all of the information in a machine-readable format. We are currently developing the digital service and expect it to be available for use by all bus operators towards the end of the summer.

We will celebrate UK Export Finance’s centenary throughout the year, notably at the UK Trade & Export Finance Forum in June. I am delighted that in its centenary year UK Export Finance was awarded ‘Best Export Credit Agency’ at the 2019 International Trade Finance Awards. As the world’s first export credit agency, UK Export Finance will continue to innovate as it has done for the past 100 years.

The Export Strategy sets out how the Government will encourage, inform, connect and finance UK businesses to enable them to take advantage of the international demand for British goods and services. Last month we launched an enhanced digital service on great.gov.uk, connecting businesses to over 20,000 export opportunities.

All tenants deserve a safe and decent place to live. In respect of the private rented sector, Lord Best is chairing a new working group on property agent regulation, and we have extended mandatory licensing. The social housing Green Paper contains proposals to drive up the performance of social landlords in delivering a good service.

Between 2011 and 2015, Government land was sold with the capacity to deliver up to 109,000 new homes.

The direct costs of TB tests for routine surveillance and control are met by government although no staff in my department are employed full time on TB testing. In England government staff costs associated with TB testing totalled £2,454,234 in 2016-17. In the same year the cost to government of TB testing carried out under contract by delivery partners totalled £17,489,217. Cattle keepers pay for pre- and post-movement TB tests, however they can use a government-funded surveillance test instead if it takes place within the required time period.

No staff in my Department are employed full time on TB testing. Animal and Plant Health Agency vets and animal health officers involved in TB testing also carry out other duties.

Help to rent projects play an important role in enabling homeless people to access the private rented sector. We are considering how best to take forward mediated access in the context of our overall homelessness prevention approach.

We will be implementing manifesto commitments to help those at risk of becoming homeless, already sleeping rough or with complex needs, to support them to lead more independent lives. We aim to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminate it altogether by 2027. The remit of the Homelessness Reduction Taskforce will include looking at prevention and affordable housing. In addition we will pilot a Housing First approach to tackle rough sleeping.

Homelessness is a wide-ranging and complex set of issues. That is why we aim to set up the Homelessness Reduction Taskforce with the right membership to drive these commitments forward.

The consultation on the draft Airports National Policy Statement closed on 25 May, and we are analysing the tens of thousands of responses received. The Government will set out the next steps in the process in due course.

In March we published a Government Review: Making Commercial Terms of Government Land Disposals More Transparent. The report committed to publish details of Government land sales annually, with the first publication in summer 2017. The report will include all sales in 2015/16 and 2016/17.

Progress towards meeting the housing ambition is set out in Table 3 of the Public Land for Housing Programme Annual Report published in February 2017 which shows that between 8 May 2015 and 30 September 2016, DCLG released land with capacity for 6,618 homes, generating £145,783,417 in receipts.

As a major landowner the Government has a crucial role to play in managing its estate more efficiently to secure best value for money for the taxpayer, boost growth and help support the building of new homes.

The Government has an ambition to sell surplus land and property to generate £5 billion from sales receipts and create capacity for at least 160,000 homes by the end of March 2020.

In March we published a Government Review: Making Commercial Terms of Government Land Disposals More Transparent. The report committed to publish details of Government land sales annually, with the first publication in summer 2017. The report will include all sales in 2015/16 and 2016/17.

Progress towards meeting the housing ambition is set out in Table 3 of the Public Land for Housing Programme Annual Report published in February 2017.

Increasing the supply of land for new homes is central to this Government’s vision of a country that works for everyone. As a major landowner the Government has a crucial role to play in managing its estate more efficiently to secure best value for money for the taxpayer, boost growth and help support the building of new homes.

The Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015 were conducted before the establishment of the Department for International Trade (DIT) and at this time UK Trade and Investment was part of the then Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). When DIT was set up there was no transfer of land assets from BIS or FCO and hence DIT do not own any land or property assets that could be sold.