Draft Building Safety Levy (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2026

Debate between Florence Eshalomi and Gideon Amos

Monday 7th September 2026 General Committees

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the shadow Minister for highlighting that. I should have said that the levy has been designed to minimise potential housing supply impact.

The shadow Minister asked whether the levy could have an impact on our ambitious target—rightly so—of reaching 1.5 million new homes. We continue to work closely with the housing market to look at supply. We are committed to working with the industry to ensure that homes continue to be built at pace. This issue comes up in my inbox, as it does for many hon. Members—it is not isolated to London. It is important that we build good-quality homes.

The shadow Minister also highlighted the impact that the measures could have on innocent homeowners, who should not be burdened with the cost. I thank him for agreeing that the cost should not be placed on them. It is right that developers and house builders be responsible for it, in order to protect innocent homeowners.

The Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, highlighted an issue on which many of us have campaigned for many years: ensuring that innocent leaseholders and homeowners are not responsible for paying the levy. Many of them struggle with housing costs and the cost of living crisis on a day-to-day basis. It is important that developers have a way to fund the levy with no additional cost to the taxpayer.

The Lib Dem spokesperson asked about properties that fall out of scope. We will continue to identify those properties and work with the sector to highlight other ways of supporting them, in order to ensure, again, that costs are fairly shared across the market.

[Gideon Amos]

On a point of further clarification, I hope that the Minister agrees that one reason for broadening the scope of funding for the safety regime so that it includes cladding manufacturers is that in constituencies such as mine in Somerset, there are no high-rise buildings at all—indeed, most of Somerset has no high-rise buildings—but all the developers in Somerset will none the less pay for remediation in the big cities. None of us begrudges the importance of paying for that remediation, but I hope that that example illustrates the importance of widening the funding of the regime so that cladding manufacturers are required to contribute.

[Florence Eshalomi]

As I mentioned, we will keep under review the process and, importantly, the rates, and we will report back to the House every three years on those key areas.

The building safety levy is essential to fund the remediation of historic building safety issues without further burdening residents and leaseholders. The draft amending regulations before the Committee are designed to support this work and make the levy work more efficiently, in accordance with our initial intention to support redevelopment of brownfield sites. They are intended to correct drafting and improve clarity and consistency of process for developers and local authorities, rather than alter the underlying policy design of the levy.

The Government are committed to delivering 1.5 million homes in this Parliament to meet the country’s long-term housing needs and unlock growth. That mission must work in parallel with our commitment to remedy the building safety failures of the past. We expect the development industry to contribute to our work making buildings safe for those who live in them. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.