Red Tape Challenge

Grant Shapps Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Written Statements

[The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)]

My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Baroness Hanham, has made the following written ministerial statement:

I would like to inform the House that the Government are launching the housing and construction theme on the Cabinet Office’s red tape challenge website. The theme will include housing and construction related regulations and consider whether excessive or complicated legislation is a barrier to reinvigorating housing and construction in this country.

This review should be taken in context of the policies and measures announced in November’s housing strategy. That strategy outlines how the Government are committed to better environmental standards; more affordable housing; security of tenure; legal protection for tenants and leaseholders; and support for the elderly, vulnerable households and those on low incomes.

We have already taken a series of steps to cut unnecessary red tape, including abolishing home information packs, reducing burdens on short-term holiday lets, removing blanket regulation on houses of multiple occupation that would have reduced choice for tenants, and introduced new freedoms and flexibilities for social landlords via the Localism Act. This review will help inform the scope for farther reductions of such unnecessary and disproportionate red tape.