Planning: Energy Efficiency and Fire Safety

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We are working very closely with leaseholder bodies to understand their issues. I understand the difficulties, and we are making sure that those responsible for the buildings are held to account and that they support leaseholders to get the work done. I am still talking to leaseholders, and we will bring forward more action on their general conditions in the leasehold Bill later this year. I know that this is a very difficult issue for them, and we continue to work with them on it.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a councillor in Central Bedfordshire. The building safety regulator has a critical role to play to ensure fire safety, particularly for high-rise buildings. However, it does not currently have the capacity to deliver its role, creating huge delays to many housing projects. Can the Minister give the House a date when the substantial delays of the building safety regulator will be addressed?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I do not know if the noble Lord was in the Chamber when I spoke about this last week, but we are aware of the building safety regulator’s difficulties. We have put in additional funding and are working with the regulator to improve performance, particularly on the gateway issues. It is very important that we get this balance right. We want our buildings to be safe, and the building safety regulator must be able to do its job properly. We also want to move things on for the development industry so that developers can get through the gateways as quickly as they can; both things are important. I will not give the noble Lord an exact date—I do not suppose he would have expected me to—but we are working with the building safety regulator to move this on as quickly as possible.