Buildings: Safety

(asked on 13th October 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department will take to ensure that any baseline for standards in the Building Safety Bill includes (a) a property and (b) a life safety baseline to ensure that individuals can escape but also have a property to return to following a peril event.


Answered by
Christopher Pincher Portrait
Christopher Pincher
This question was answered on 21st October 2020

The Building Safety Bill will establish a new, more stringent regime for higher-risk buildings, both in design and construction and for the building in use. It will also drive improvements in building safety and performance standards in all buildings, driving culture change and incentivising compliance. The Bill will ensure that building safety standards are effectively enforced but the standards are not set out in the Bill itself.

A technical review of Approved Document B (fire safety) of the building regulations is underway. The scope of fire protection requirements will be considered as part of the review, including whether it should be extended to the protection of property in addition to life safety. Details of the review are set out at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/877365/Technical_review_of_Approved_Document_B_workplan.pdf.

Reticulating Splines