Asked by: Baroness Pinnock (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage on 24 March (HL Deb cols 1447–9), whether they have met insurance companies about the rising insurance costs of leaseholders due to the lower remediation required by PAS 9980.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Officials in my department engage regularly with the insurance industry and Minister Norris met representatives earlier in the year. PAS9980:2022 sets out steps that can be taken to identify and assess risk factors as well as mitigation steps that might improve the risk rating of a building via a holistic and fact-based assessment of a building’s construction.
Once buildings comply with Building Regulations or align with industry-accepted PAS 9980 standards, insurers should offer affordable premiums and should not be prescribing additional remedial works.
BSI has commenced the review, which will include a six-week public consultation, and BSI anticipates publishing the updated guidance in early 2026. The consultation will provide the opportunity for industry and the public to participate in the review of PAS 9980.
Asked by: Baroness Pinnock (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will amend the PAS 9980 Fire Risk Appraisal of External Walls and Cladding of Flats code of practice to require compliance with building regulations and statutory guidance in force at the time of construction.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The British Standards Institution (BSI) developed and published PAS 9980 and Government has sponsored BSI to review it to make sure it captures best practices, meets market needs, and identifies any necessary revisions. BSI has commenced the review, which will include a six-week public consultation, and BSI anticipates publishing the updated guidance in early 2026. The consultation will provide the opportunity for industry and the public to participate in the review of PAS 9980.
Asked by: Baroness Pinnock (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether additional funding and support is available to local authorities in drawing up draft boundaries in response to the Government’s proposals for local government reorganisation.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
£7.6 million will be made available in the form of local government reorganisation proposal development contributions, to be split across the 21 two-tier local government areas which the government has invited proposals from. This is the first time that capacity funding has been made available for reorganisation proposals, recognising the priority that this government attaches to this. Further information will be provided on how this will be allocated and we intend to make payments as soon as possible.
Asked by: Baroness Pinnock (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to amending building regulations to require the use of non-fossil-fuel heat sources for all new properties.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Future standards next year will set our new homes on a path that moves away from relying on volatile fossil fuels and towards more clean, secure energy. These homes will be future proofed with low carbon heating and high levels of energy efficiency. No further energy efficiency retrofit work will be necessary to enable them to become zero-carbon over time as the electricity grid continues to decarbonise.
The Future Homes Standard consultation was published in December 2023 and closed in March 2024. It set out detailed technical proposals for what future standards could entail. All the options that were proposed would preclude the use of fossil-fuel heating in new homes. We are reviewing proposals and feedback from the consultation and will publish the Government response in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Pinnock (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government following the passage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, whether local authorities are able to determine the number of housing units that their district needs without having to follow any direction from the Government on numbers required.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The definition of deliverable sites is set out in the National Planning Policy Framework. The Framework also sets out that authorities should use the standard method to calculate housing need.
Asked by: Baroness Pinnock (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether, in calculating a five-year supply of allocated housing sites, they will include (1) those sites with existing planning consent but not yet developed, and (2) units not yet built in partly developed sites.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The definition of deliverable sites is set out in the National Planning Policy Framework. The Framework also sets out that authorities should use the standard method to calculate housing need.
Asked by: Baroness Pinnock (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Local Government (Levelling Up), during her visit to Hull on 28 February that she would like to see a devolution deal for Hull and the East Riding “sooner rather than later”, when they will provide further details of any plans.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Hull and East Yorkshire were announced in the Levelling Up White Paper as an early County Deal area. The Minister for Levelling Up visited Hull on 28 February where she took part in conversations with the Leaders of Hull and East Yorkshire about their plans for devolution in the region. Devolution discussions will continue following the May elections.
Asked by: Baroness Pinnock (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what identifying information is required for residents not living in the UK to register to vote in UK elections.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Currently an overseas elector must be a British citizen who was previously registered within the UK within the last 15 years. Overseas electors are subject to identity checks when registering to vote in the same way as domestic electors.
They are required to provide their full name, date of birth and National Insurance number to be checked against DWP data. If an overseas applicant’s identity cannot be verified via the National Insurance number check, they can be required to provide an attestation of identity from a registered overseas elector who is not a close family member. Overseas electors are also subject to checks to demonstrate their connection to the address at which they are registering.
Asked by: Baroness Pinnock (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the levels of fraud in the operation of postal voting; and what plans they have, if any, to introduce photo identification requirements for postal voting.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Electoral Commission publishes a report annually on electoral fraud. I also refer the noble peer to the report by (then) Sir Eric Pickles on electoral fraud, which identified a series of weaknesses in the postal vote process (attached). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/securing-the-ballot-review-into-electoral-fraud.
That report was commissioned following the 2015 Election Court ruling on electoral corruption in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
There are longstanding security measures which enhance the security of the postal voting process, including requiring postal voters to provide personal identifiers at the time of applying for a postal vote and which are checked at the time of a poll. The Elections Act 2022 introduces a package of sensible measures to enhance the security around absent voting including an identity check at the point of application for a postal vote, whereby an applicant will need to provide their National Insurance number to be checked against Government records. This process mirrors the current practice for Registering to Vote.
As is usual, the Government will keep this area of policy under review in the future.
Asked by: Baroness Pinnock (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government how they expect the provisions of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, if passed, will interact with the Building Safety Act 2022; and what steps they will take to ensure provisions in the Act concerning building safety standards are not undermined by the revocation of retained EU law.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
I refer the noble Baroness to the answer given (attached) to PQ 105305 on 12 December 2022.