Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that the Building Safety Regulator works within its intended timeframes to process applications.

Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

We recognise there have been operational challenges within the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), which is why we announced a series of reforms to strengthen it in June. Improvements to ensure applications are processed within the intended timeframes are already underway. These include:

• An Innovation Unit which assembles multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs) in house to accelerate the processing of new build applications. The Innovation Unit is already demonstrating progress, with the majority of applications currently meeting or exceeding the 12-week service level agreement (SLA).
• A new ‘batching’ process for allowing applications from the same developer or organisation to be grouped. This consolidates the multi-disciplinary teams used to review applications into one organisation, significantly reducing processing delays while retaining BSR as the regulatory lead;

• Freeing up Class 3 Registered Building Inspectors to focus on new builds and remediation by enabling Class 2 Registered Building Inspectors to take on reviews of less complex building work;

• Improved communication with applicants, recruiting 100 additional staff, and greater use of staged and approvals with requirements to allow construction to begin safely.

The BSR previously committed to improving operations by December, with faster processing of new build applications and decisions on most of the existing new-build caseload. To increase transparency and accountability, the BSR published performance data on 16 October and will continue to do so on a monthly basis to track progress against this commitment.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists's report entitled A work in progress: evaluating the women’s health strategy, published in July 2025, whether he plans to update his Department's Women's health strategy for England to align it with the 10 Year Health Plan.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The 2022 Women's Health Strategy identified many important issues which remain valid, and we have already made excellent progress turning the commitments in the strategy into tangible action. This includes delivering 5.2 million extra appointments, tackling gynaecology waiting lists using the private sector, and we will shortly make emergency hormonal contraception free in pharmacies. We now need to update the Women’s Health Strategy to align with the 10-Year Health Plan and identify areas where we need to go further.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if her Department will hypothecate funding saved from hotel closures for legal aid to reduce the backlog of asylum claims.

Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)

As per the Spending Review the Government has committed to delivering savings of £1.1bn by 28/29 from exiting hotels and these savings have been factored into the Home Office budget. The Spending Review settlement includes transformation funding to accelerate the transformation of the asylum system and end the costly use of asylum hotels in this Parliament by clearing the asylum backlog, increasing appeals capacity and continuing to return those with no right to be here. This will deliver the Plan for Change commitment to restore order to the asylum system.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Timms Review into Personal Independence Payments will include assessments of the potential impact of proposed changes on levels of homelessness.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Timms Review will be co-produced with disabled people, the organisations that represent them, carers, clinicians, experts, parliamentarians and other stakeholders to ensure a wide range of views and voices are heard.

I have announced that the Review will be co-chaired by myself alongside Sharon Brennan and Dr Clenton Farquharson CBE. We will oversee a steering group made up of a majority of disabled people or representatives of disabled people’s organisations and recruited through an open and transparent Expression of Interest process.

It will be for the Review’s steering group to determine how it runs and what it recommends. The Terms of Reference give the group a broad remit to set out its strategic direction, priorities and workplan.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, on what date he will publish the Warm Homes Plan.

Answered by Martin McCluskey - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

We are working across government on a comprehensive Warm Homes Plan to cut energy bills for good. We will publish more details soon.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to increase flood resilience in (a) Bermondsey and Old Southwark constituency and (b) other flood-prone areas.

Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Government, through the Environment Agency (EA), is investing £2.65 billion between 2024/25 and 2025/26 to build and maintain flood and coastal defences, better protecting around 52,000 properties from flooding.

The Thames Barrier and tidal wall defences provide significant protection from tidal flood risk to Bermondsey and Old Southwark constituency. The EA is managing tidal flood risk through this century by implementing the Thames Estuary 2100 Plan. This will require defences to be raised by 0.5m by 2050 to keep pace with climate change on top of ongoing maintenance of these assets.

Last year London Borough of Southwark completed the Lost Peck Flood Alleviation scheme supported by £1.39 million of EA capital grant. This improved surface water flood risk to 207 residential properties in neighbouring constituencies. The Borough and the EA continue to work together to develop a pipeline of surface water flood alleviation schemes throughout London Borough of Southwark.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will take steps to require short-term holiday lets to (a) provide a fire extinguisher and (b) meet the same minimum fire safety standards as other rental accommodation.

Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

Article 13 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requiresthose responsible for fire safety in their premises to, where necessary, ensure it is equipped with appropriate fire-fighting equipment.

We published guidance for short term lets in April 2023 titled A Guide to making your small paying-guest-accommodation safe from fire which expands on this requirement and states the following:

In the event of a fire, evacuating the premises is the safest thing to do and guests should not be expected to use firefighting equipment. If you have staff on the premises, or if they regularly visit the premises, firefighting equipment should be provided, and staff should be trained on how to use the equipment. You should make sure that the instructions on how to use any firefighting equipment are clear, that there is a warning that evacuation is preferable, and that staff should not put themselves at risk or tackle anything other than a very small fire. In self-catering accommodation, although guests are not expected to use fire-fighting equipment, you may wish to provide a small fire extinguisher and/or fire blanket in the kitchen area.

We also published an update in 2024, which provides more detail on application of the Fire Safety Order to short term lets and expected fire safety standards in such premises.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure representatives of the People’s Republic of China employed in the (a) UK embassy, (b) consulate and (c) Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London do not engage in (i) supranational suppression and (ii) intimidation tactics against Hong Kongers now living in the UK.

Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)

The safety and security of Hong Kongers in the UK is of the upmost importance. The UK will always stand up for the rights of the people of Hong Kong.

We continually assess potential threats in the UK, and take protection of individuals’ rights, freedoms, and safety very seriously. Any attempt by any foreign state, including China, to intimidate, harass or harm individuals in the UK will not be tolerated.

Wherever we identify such threats, we will use any and all measures, including through our world-class intelligence services, to mitigate the risk to individuals.

The UK’s response to tackling state-directed threats is world leading. The National Security Act 2023 ensures that the appropriate tools and system-wide safeguards are in place to robustly counter state threats.

Guidance can be found on GOV.UK providing those who believe themselves to be at-risk of TNR with practical advice for their safety both physically and online.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has appointed a lead official to cover the issues (a) raised by and (b) that affect the British Chinese community.

Answered by Miatta Fahnbulleh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

As a part of my Department’s ongoing work to understand, hear from and support communities, including to drive cohesion, officials engage with a range of ethnically and religiously diverse communities. There are no plans for specific engagement with British Chinese communities at this time.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department plans to take to help reduce the number of children living in temporary accommodation.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 83747 on 27 October 2025.