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Author Archives: GovWorldMag

These statistics show a worrying increase in both poverty and inequality – Debbie Abrahams

Debbie Abrahams MP, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, commenting on the Households Below Average Income statistics, said:  

“These statistics show a worrying increase in both poverty and inequality. Four million children and two million older people are now living below the breadline. Those living with a disabled person are more likely than ever to be struggling to make ends meet.

“This is a direct result of this Government’s seven wasted years of austerity and punitive social security cuts.

“The Tories’ shocking failure to tackle the increasing costs of basic essentials, stagnating wages and their ruthless slashing of social security is leaving working families worse off up to 2020.”

“Labour would reverse cuts to in-work support, ban the exploitative zero hours contracts being used on hundreds of thousands of workers, and guarantee a real Living Wage.”

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Labour • • •

Tory Government is not doing enough to ensure young people are on the electoral register – Cat Smith

Cat Smith MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Voter Engagement and Youth Affairs, commenting on today’s Electoral Registration Statistics, said:

“While the increase in electoral registration numbers following the EU referendum is welcome, this Tory Government is still not doing enough to ensure that young people are on the register.

“That is why the Lords voted in favour of a Labour motion to the Higher Education and Research Bill, requiring universities to give students the option to register to vote when they sign up at university.

“If the Tories are serious about making every voice matter they need to keep this sensible addition when the Bill comes back to the Commons.”

Ends


Notes to editors:

·       The total number of UK parliamentary electors increased by just over 1 million (2.3%) between December 2015 and December 2016, reflecting the high levels of public engagement with the EU referendum. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/elections/electoralregistration/bulletins/electoralstatisticsforuk/2016  

·       A study from the Electoral Commission in 2014 found that young people were a particularly under-represented group on the electoral register http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/169889/Completeness-and-accuracy-of-the-2014-electoral-registers-in-Great-Britain.pdf

·       Before the Conservatives rushed the introduction of Individual Electoral Registration, students were automatically enrolled by their universities. However, the Electoral Administration Act of 2013 did not provide for a suitable student registration to be put in place when the old system of household registration was abolished.

·       On Monday 7th March the House of Lords voted in favour of Baroness Royall’s amendment to the Higher Education and Research Bill. The amendment was passed, defeating the Government, by a majority of 200 to 189. The amendment would require universities to offer students the opportunity to register to vote at the point of enrolment or re-registration as a student at their university, a proposal first made by Paul Blomfield MP in the Commons.

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Labour • • •

Press release: £45 million to accelerate 4,500 homes in Cambridgeshire

A key site near Huntingdon that will provide over 4,500 new homes has been given a major boost with a £45 million loan from the Homes and Communities Agency, it has been announced today (16 March 2017).

The investment from the Home Building Fund will help developers Urban&Civic accelerate the delivery of the site by funding the provision of vital infrastructure across the 1400 acre former airfield at Alconbury Weald.

Announcing the deal at international property conference MIPIM HCA Chief Executive Nick Walkley said:

This deal is exactly the sort of thing we are here to do – providing the means to realise the full potential of development sites and provide the impetus to enable a real transformation in local housing markets.

Alconbury Weald is a major development of recognised quality and we will work closely with Urban&Civic to accelerate the new housing and community facilities that this site can delivery for a major growth region of the country.

Alongside thousands of new homes, the former airfield near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire will provide up to 300,000sq m of floorspace for new businesses within the GCGP LEP’s Enterprise Zone and a range of community facilities, including a secondary school and three new primary schools of which the first opened last year, alongside hundreds of acres of green space.

Housing and Planning Minister, Gavin Barwell said:

Speeding up house building is one of the key measures we set out in our Housing White Paper, so that we get the right homes built in the right places. The £3 billion Home Building Fund helps do just that by unlocking large housing sites like Alconbury Weald.

Having visited the development last year, it will not only provide much-needed homes, but also space for new businesses as well as schools and community facilities.

Chief Executive of Urban&Civic plc Nigel Hugill said:

The HCA and Urban&Civic are fully aligned from our experience of large sites to our ambition to accelerate the delivery of housing from them. At Alconbury Weald we have brought forward infrastructure spend as a direct consequence of the HCA’s involvement and look forward to working in partnership with Nick and his team over the lifetime of the development.

The government is right to emphasise the importance of large sites in meeting housing demand in areas of strong economic and demographic growth, as well as helping widen the supply chain for faster housing delivery.

The HCA is the government’s national housing and regeneration delivery agency for England and manages around 8,900ha of land.

Urban&Civic plc is an established property development and investment company. The delivery of strategic land is at the core of Urban&Civic’s business model where, as Master Developer, it owns or has the stewardship of over 4,000 acres across 4 sites located close to Cambridge, Huntingdon, Newark and Rugby.

  • Alconbury Weald is located at the former Alconbury Airfield and adjacent land to the North of Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, approximately 15 miles south of Peterborough; the site is a 1,420 acre predominantly brownfield site
  • as a whole, the Alconbury Weald site will support the delivery of 290,000sqm of employment floor space, 5,000 homes, 700 acres of green spaces and an assortment of complementary transport, energy and community facilities
  • HCA is lending £45.07m to Urban&Civic Alconbury Ltd (wholly owned subsidiary of Urban&Civic plc) under the Home Building Fund and will accelerate the delivery of 4,507 housing units in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
  • the HCA funding will help to fund enabling works, road and utility infrastructure and s106 obligations across the wider site; HCA funded infrastructure will also benefit the current housebuilders on site, particularly Redrow and Morris with the delivery of a secondary road access points onto their respective sites
  • currently, Hopkins homes are already on site building homes and Redrow and Morris to have houses built by Summer 2017; the first primary school to support this development was opened in Sept 2016

For further information on Alconbury Weald visit their website.

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HM Government