Draft Building Safety Levy (England) Regulations 2025

Jonathan Davies Excerpts

Monday 15th September 2025 General Committees

[Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I welcome these measures, and it is good to see that they are welcomed across the Committee. Too many people in this country live in poor quality or dangerous housing, and unfortunately on a number of occasions we have seen the result of that. I also welcome the efforts to protect hospices and social housing from additional costs as a consequence of the regulations.

My specific question relates to the redevelopment of sites where there is a significant conservation deficit. In my own constituency of Mid Derbyshire, which includes the UNESCO world heritage site of the Derwent valley, is a very significant regeneration project, the Belper Mills. The building has sat empty for many years, but it played an important role in the development of the industrial revolution and has had a significant architectural impact on the town and the landscape of the UNESCO world heritage site. I am keen for us to make progress on the project, and I want to see movement on it as soon as possible. Can the Minister clarify, either in her summing up or later, how the redevelopment of heritage sites such as former mills will not be jeopardised by any additional costs that developers face, or where the wider development of a site is actually paying for its heritage aspect?

Will the Minister also provide clarity about the new burdens money? As a former local councillor, I appreciate that councils are well placed to implement these regulations; however, when the Government come up with an idea and ask councils to implement it, the new burdens money has helped at the start, but later down the line, councils have struggled to keep up with what the Government originally intended. I am also thinking about asset of community value status as part of that, which was introduced by the previous Government to help communities to take to control of locally important buildings and facilities. However, councils were insulated for only a certain amount of the costs, which has presented a challenge to local authorities.