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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans the Government has to establish an inter-Departmental Government committee to tackle the spectrum of health issues that result from or are exacerbated by living in homes which are unhealthy.

We recognise the increased importance of good quality, safe and decent homes and will continue to work to improve housing standards and support vulnerable people.

We have made a great deal of progress in recent years to help improve housing standards:

• We have given local authorities strong powers to deal with dangerously damp conditions in the private rented sector (strengthened in the Housing and Planning Act 2016).
• We have introduced the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2019 - empowering social and private tenants to take their landlords to court, and are committed to improving the energy performance of all properties - because warm homes mean a reduction in damp.
• The Government has recently announced the new Green Homes Grants, through which landlords and home owners will be able to apply for vouchers of up to £5,000 to help fund energy works, with low income households eligible for up to £10,000 of full subsidy, meaning that hundreds of thousands of homes could be warmer and safer this winter.
• We have announced a comprehensive review of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System to ensure it properly reflects the physical and psychological harm caused by poor standards.

The Decent Homes Standard requires homes to be free of serious hazards that could cause harm to health. In the social housing White Paper, we announced a review of the Standard to ensure it is the right ask of the social housing sector today.

My Department has taken the lead on many aspects of this work. There is extensive cross-Government work on healthy homes and buildings – from planning and place-making to design, delivery and standards and support.? Officials across all policies areas regularly engage industry and local government when developing, delivering and reviewing policies.? MHCLG recognises that the responsibility for ensuring homes and buildings are safe and decent is a shared one - lying with product designers, developers, building owners and managers and local authorities as well as central Government and devolved administrations.