Margaret Mullane

The Government’s Warm Homes Plan will improve the existing housing stock by tackling fuel poverty and ensuring lower energy bills for decades to come. The Autumn 2024 Budget confirmed an initial £3.4 billion for heat decarbonisation and household energy over the next three years. This includes £1.8 billion to support fuel poverty schemes, with £1.29 billion of grant funding allocated to Wave 3 of the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund in England to support social housing providers and tenants, with delivery starting in April 2025.

The Government is committed to transforming diagnostic services and will support the National Health Service to increase diagnostic capacity to meet the demand for diagnostic services through investment in new capacity, including magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography scanners.

Our Elective Reform Plan, published in January 2025, builds on the investments already made with an ambitious vision for the future of diagnostic testing. This will include more straight-to-test pathways, increasing and expanding community diagnostic centres (CDCs), and better use of technology. With 170 CDCs due to be up and running by the end of March 2025, CDCs can take on more of the growing diagnostic demand within elective care. We will also deliver additional CDC capacity in 2025/26 by expanding a number of existing CDCs and building up to five new ones.

Alongside Alzheimer’s Research UK, Alzheimer’s Society, Gates Ventures, and the People’s Postcode Lottery, the National Institute for Health and Care Research is funding the Blood Biomarker Challenge which seeks to produce the clinical and economic data that could make the case for the use of a blood test in the NHS to support the diagnosis of dementia.

The Dementia Care Pathway: Full Implementation Guidance, commissioned by NHS England, outlines the dementia care pathway and associated benchmarks to support improvements in the delivery and quality of care and support, for people living with dementia and their families and carers. The guide showcases good-practice examples of services that have successfully reduced their waiting times. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/docs/default-source/improving-care/nccmh/dementia/nccmh-dementia-care-pathway-full-implementation-guidance.pdf

We recognise the negative impact theft has on victims who rely on the tools of their trade to earn a living.

We are continuing to work with the police-led National Business Crime Centre and industry via the Combined Industries Theft Solutions forum to explore ways to tackle and prevent the theft of tools.

We are also working alongside the police and businesses to tackle these crimes and ensure perpetrators receive just punishment, including work to make tradespeople’s vans secure.

Following engagement with the Home Office and National Vehicle Crime Working Group, Thatcham Research agreed to add to their New Vehicle Security Assessment (NVSA), locks and alarms on the back of vans (previously NVSA only covers the cab area of vans) and a motion sensor on the load area of the van. This is supported by crime prevention advice developed by the Police Crime Prevention Initiatives: Secured by Design - Vans & Tool Theft.

A key part of making acquisitive crime less attractive to criminals is making stolen goods harder to sell on. That is why we are working closely with policing and academic leads to examine what more can be done to tackle the disposal markets for stolen goods and reduce the ability to profit from this criminality.

In the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the UK government took significant steps to enhance fire safety in new residential buildings including increased provisions of sprinkler systems, and the ban on combustible materials in external walls.

Following engagement with the sector including fire and rescue services, developers and designers, the government proposed to introduce new guidance making provisions for a second staircases in new residential buildings exceeding 18 metres in height. This new guidance takes effect on 30 September 2026.

The current guidance, Approved Document B (Fire Safety), is already clear that residential buildings with a floor area of 900sqm should include a minimum of two firefighting stairs. For buildings below this threshold where a second stair is provided, the second staircases should be, as a minimum, a protected escape stair able to provide an effective means of egress for occupants.

The government acknowledge the concerns that exist about the quality of residential units created through permitted development rights, particularly office-to-residential conversions. We will continue to keep permitted development rights under review.

Regulators – local authorities, fire and rescue authorities and the Building Safety Regulator – have powers to compel landlords and other responsible persons to remediate their unsafe buildings. Where necessary, regulators have powers to prosecute those who are failing to fulfil their duties.

The Remediation Acceleration Plan (RAP) published this week (2 December) sets out key measures to fix buildings faster, identify remaining buildings still at risk and ensure that residents are supported through the remediation process. We are increasing funding to ensure that local regulators have the capacity to drive remediation where responsible parties fail to undertake the work quickly. A further £30 million investment in 25/26 will provide capacity for regulators to tackle hundreds of enforcement cases a year, targeting those failing to remediate their buildings.

The Government has published new guidance for regulators on the enforcement of remediation work. The guidance establishes key principles for remediation enforcement, such as the designation of a lead regulator at each building. This reduces ambiguity and allows regulators to work together and drive remediation effectively.

For landlords, the message is clear: time is running out to do the right thing. Those who fail to fix their buildings can expect swift and robust enforcement action from regulators with the full support of government behind them.

I refer my Hon Friend to my answer to Question UIN 11383 on 31 October 2024.