Oral Answers to Questions

Samantha Dixon Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)]

18. What progress his Department has made on reforming the Building Safety Regulator.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Samantha Dixon)]

On 27 January, the Building Safety Regulator became an arm’s length body under the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. This was a major step towards creating a single construction regulator. The BSR continues to make strong progress on overhauling its operating model. Only the most complex legacy new build cases remain, and new applications are being approved near the 12-week target, through the innovation unit. The BSR is building on this progress, and is focusing on delivering improvements in respect of remediation and the occupation regime.

[Sarah Olney]

The Mayor of London has set a target of building 88,000 new homes in London a year over the next decade. However, recent figures show that construction began last year on only 5,891. Over the past two years, construction of new builds has fallen by 85% for affordable homes and 94% for council housing, and delays in the Building Safety Regulator’s approval processes are stalling development projects, curtailing investment and losing people their jobs. Does the Minister agree that ensuring that the regulator operates efficiently is paramount if we are to deliver on housing targets and support the UK housing sector?

[Samantha Dixon]

The Government recognised last summer that the Building Safety Regulator needed to be reformed and brought in new leadership, and there has been a marked improvement in performance. Performance data is published monthly, so there is transparency on how the Building Safety Regulator is performing. In the final quarter of 2025, we saw the highest number of decisions—673—since the BSR commenced operations, and we are still pushing hard for further improvements.

[Darren Paffey]

Tomorrow marks one year since the residents of Sundowner Court in Southampton were forced to leave their home because of serious fire safety defects. Two neighbouring blocks followed suit soon after, and no one expects to be back in their home for at least another year. The Government rightly prioritised speeding up remediation, and it is important that our regulator shares that sense of urgency, but the Building Safety Regulator is taking up to 40 weeks to approve some of the remediation plans. What improvements can the Minister promise that this Government will make to speed up those approvals and end the misery for my residents?

[Samantha Dixon]

MHCLG and the Building Safety Regulator accept that many applicants have experienced delays, and we recognise that having to wait 40 weeks for decisions is unacceptable. That is why the BSR has established a dedicated external remediation team, and is engaging with stakeholders to work through the detail of applications. A new batching model is being trialled to reduce the length of time taken to assess building control applications, while maintaining building and resident safety.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

When announcing reforms to the Building Safety Regulator last June, the Secretary of State’s Department promised to

“enhance the review of newbuild applications, unblock delays and boost sector confidence”,

but in London, where demand is highest, house building has fallen to its lowest level since 2009, which was under the last Labour Government. At gateway 2, towards the end of quarter 4 of 2025, there were still 740 live cases. On top of that, where decisions were made on applications, the vast majority were invalid, withdrawn or rejected; 67% were not classed as approved for one reason or another. That is not success, is it?

[Samantha Dixon]

In the last 12 weeks, 11,962 new-build homes have been approved, allowing construction to start. The BSR is moving forward. We will continue to press it to do better.

[Gareth Bacon]

With all due respect, the Government need to do an awful lot better than that. They hide behind the claim that there is a clear downward trend in live gateway 2 applications, but the reality, according to the Government’s own statistics across all categories, is that the number of live applications in London has fallen by a mere 6% in the last 12 weeks. That is hardly a reason to celebrate, is it? Will the Government admit that they, Sadiq Khan and their under-delivering reforms are hindering building, rather than helping to get London building?

[Samantha Dixon]

Performance continues to improve steadily across gateway 2, and decisions are being made increasingly quickly and at higher volumes. We will continue to press the BSR to do better, faster.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

11. What assessment his Department has made of the level of need for additional social and affordable housing in Bradford.