Draft Building Safety (Responsible Actors Scheme and Prohibitions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Debate between Samantha Dixon and Steve Barclay

Monday 13th April 2026 General Committees

[Samantha Dixon]

I will simply say that although no prohibition has been effected, that is not to say that the Government would not do so in the future—I give my hon. Friend that assurance.

[Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The Government’s own documentation contradicts what the Minister has just said. Sections 9.1 to 9.4 of the explanatory memorandum to the Government’s SI present the draft regulations as not requiring an impact assessment, and say that these are purely minor technical changes that will have no impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies. However, when we look on the Government’s own website, it is interesting that there seem to be no firms on the prohibitions list. The Minister will be familiar with the Comer Group, for example, which was subject to a very significant fine of £7.8 million in Greenwich for what Greenwich council described as a “mutant development”, in the home constituency of the Minister for Housing and Planning. Has the Comer Group signed up to the scheme? If not, why is it not on the prohibitions list?

[Samantha Dixon]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a specific issue; I do not know the details of that particular development in that particular constituency, but I will write to him with the details of that particular business.

[Steve Barclay]

I am grateful that the Minister will write to me, but I simply point out to the House that this development was so notable that the Housing Minister raised it in opposition—he tabled parliamentary questions on this issue and flagged it in advance of the election. Two years on, it seems odd that Ministers do not know what has happened with it.

In reference to the question asked by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough, can the Minister name a single firm on the prohibitions list? If she cannot do so, given the fact that before the election the Government said they wanted to move quicker on this issue, why have they not done so?