Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the incidence of costs on a) land-owners in reduced land value uplift as against b) new build sales prices, resultant from environmental standards for new build homes.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Future Homes Standard, which will ensure all new homes are net zero ready, will be published early this year and a full impact assessment will accompany that publication. The impact assessment presents the costs and benefits of the Standard.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking towards drafting technical specifications for energy efficiency for the new homes standard.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Department is currently finalising the Future Homes and Buildings Standards following the consultation, which opened in December 2023 and closed in March 2024. As part of establishing the new Government, we have taken the time to carefully review previous proposals to ensure they align with our ambitions in this area. It is essential that we get the technical details right to deliver a robust and workable standard.
Work to develop the technical specifications for new homes has included drafting proposed performance requirements, undertaking detailed modelling, and engaging with industry and other stakeholders. These processes have informed the energy efficiency specifications set out in the consultation. Industry engagement has continued throughout the policy development process. In particular, key issues around rooftop solar have required a series of follow-up discussions with industry to ensure the policy is practical and effective. The consultation response will be published in Q1 this year.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the a) fatality and b) injury rate of fires attended by fire services during the night hours compared with fires during daytimes.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
MHCLG collects data on incidents attended by Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs) in England through the Incident Recording System (IRS). This includes information on fires and fire-related fatalities and casualties by hour of the day from 2010 to 2025. Data covering the year ending March 2025 is published on gov.uk here, see FIRE 0801 ‘Percentage of fires and fire-related fatalities by hour of the day’. These tables present the percentage of fatalities from all incidents occurring at the different hours of the day, along with breakdowns by financial year.
Data is available on the total number of fatalities and non-fatal casualties in the FIRE 0501 data table. Incident level data is also available on both casualties and fatalities in fires by individual person recorded, which provides further details on injury type and severity for everyone involved in the incident by hour of the day, however this data is not aggregated. The datasets covering fatalities and casualties are published on gov.uk here.
Additionally, an in-depth review was conducted of fire-related fatalities and severe casualties in England from 2010/11 to 2018/19, which is available on gov.uk here. Section 4.3.3 of this paper specifically discusses the time of day fatal and severe casualty fires occur.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether fire services are classified as safety-critical work for the purposes of the HSE's classification of 12-hour shifts as undesirable for such work.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government recognises the risks that firefighters face and is grateful to them for their bravery.
The maximum working hours for Fire and Rescue Service personnel are prescribed by the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR), which implement the provisions of the EU Working Time Directive, and include specific exemptions applicable to civil protection roles. These statutory requirements apply to fire and rescue personnel, subject to limited derogations during declared emergencies.
Each Fire and Rescue Service is responsible for establishing work patterns that reflect its assessment of operational risk and local circumstances balanced against their responsibility for the health and wellbeing of firefighters. The government-issued National Framework directs that all Fire and Rescue Authorities should have a people strategy which sets out the mental and physical health and wellbeing support available to firefighters.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has made any assessment of the impact on family life of twelve hour shifts within the fire service.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government recognises the risks that firefighters face and is grateful to them for their bravery.
The maximum working hours for Fire and Rescue Service personnel are prescribed by the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR), which implement the provisions of the EU Working Time Directive, and include specific exemptions applicable to civil protection roles. These statutory requirements apply to fire and rescue personnel, subject to limited derogations during declared emergencies.
Each Fire and Rescue Service is responsible for establishing work patterns that reflect its assessment of operational risk and local circumstances balanced against their responsibility for the health and wellbeing of firefighters. The government-issued National Framework directs that all Fire and Rescue Authorities should have a people strategy which sets out the mental and physical health and wellbeing support available to firefighters.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what comparative assessment his Department has made of fires attended by fire services affecting i) heritage sites ii) tower blocks and iii) HMOs during a) the night hours and b) daytimes.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
MHCLG collects data on incidents attended by the Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs) in England through the Incident Recording System (IRS), which includes data on different dwelling and building types, as well as on fires by hour of the day. These statistics are published on gov.uk here.
Data is available on fires attended by Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs) by dwelling type, which includes Purpose Built High Rise (10+ stories), Flats/Maisonettes, and Multiple Occupancy Dwellings (see FIRE0205). However, the department does not presently collect data on heritage site status. Data is also available on all fires by hour of the day, from 2017 onwards, which is published here.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what discussions she has had with relevant stakeholders on introducing a new planning use class C5 for short-term lets in England; and what assessment she has made of the potential merits of including in it properties described by the landlord as guest houses but that are short-term lets within a house in multiple occupation.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The previous government consulted on proposals for a new planning use class for short-term lets.
The consultation generated a wide range of responses and highlighted both the merits and various challenges associated with the proposal.
In addition to the measures the government has already committed to, including a registration scheme for short term lets and changes to the furnished holiday lets rules, we continue to consider what additional powers we might give local authorities to enable them to respond to the pressures created by excessive concentrations of short-term lets, and what type of properties such powers might apply to.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps (a) her Department and (b) the Building Safety Regulator is taking to reduce decision times by the regulator for approving multi-storey residential blocks.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
MHCLG and the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) both recognise the impact of Gateway delays on the construction pipeline of high-rise projects and are taking action to address the current challenges.
The Department is working closely with the BSR to improve processing times and has already taken several actions. As a new function, the BSR has needed to refine and improve its processes. We have provided funding to the BSR to recruit an extra 30 frontline staff to bolster its capacity. On 14 May, the BSR also launched a campaign to directly recruit Registered Building Inspectors (RBIs) with significant further recruitment planned in June 2025. The impact of these mitigations will scale up in the coming months as the BSR continues to clear applications.
MHCLG and the BSR are also reviewing better ways to access specialist advice on multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs) which assess applications to enable faster assessment times.
Whilst the BSR and MHCLG are exploring all possible opportunities to strengthen the new Gateway process and guidance to industry, it is important to recognise that a significant volume of applications continue to be invalidated or rejected for not meeting the legislative requirements. These are buildings that, had they been constructed, might have placed residents at risk and/or living in housing that did not meet long-standing requirements. It is also important to note that additional information requests for missing details in applications can add between at least 4-6 weeks onto the process. In recognition of this, the BSR issued new guidance in March 2025 to assist applications in preparing high quality applications.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment her Department has made of the potential implications for its policies of Social Housing Action Campaign's research entitled Tribunals Research Finds Overcharging in 70% of Cases as HA Service Charge Income Soars, published in February 2025; what assessment she has made of trends in the level of service charges being found unreasonable in law; and what steps her Department is taking to prevent unreasonable service charge decisions.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government recognises the considerable financial strain that rising services charges place on leaseholders and tenants. The level of service charge that leaseholders pay depends on a range of factors, including the terms of a lease or tenancy agreement and the age and condition of a building.
By law, variable service charges must be reasonable. Overcharging through service charges is completely unacceptable. Should leaseholders wish to contest the reasonableness of their service charges they may make an application to the appropriate tribunal.
My Department does not hold data on the number of unreasonable service charge challenges that are upheld by the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber).
The Leasehold and Freeport Reform Act 2024 includes measures designed to drive up the transparency of service charges to make them more easily challengeable if leaseholders consider them to be unreasonable. Once commenced, these will ensure all leaseholders receive minimum key financial and non-financial information on a regular basis, including introducing a standardised service charge demand form and an annual report.
The government is committed to acting quickly to implement the provisions of the Act. Further detail can be found in the Written Ministerial Statement made on Thursday 21 November 2024 (HCWS244).
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of compliance by social landlords with guidance that service charge increases are restricted in line with rent increases.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government does not regulate the level of service charges for social housing tenants.
Our policy statement on social housing rents states that Registered Providers of social housing should endeavour to keep any service charge increases for tenants within the limit on rent increases, to help keep charges affordable.
Registered Providers are expected to set reasonable and transparent service charges for tenants which reflect the service being provided, and tenants should also be supplied with clear information about how service charges are set.