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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether the developer contract for the remediation of high risk buildings will ensure that buildings meet the same standards of (a) structural safety and (b) fire safety as those that will be required by the new Building Safety Regulator.

The developer contract is being finalised and will be published shortly. We expect developers to remediate or mitigate life-critical fire-safety defects. We expect developers to assess their buildings using the relevant standards, including the standard methodology for external wall construction and cladding set out in in PAS9980:2022 and we expect developers to obtain sign-off that the works meet the relevant standards and comply with Building Regulations.

The Building Safety Regulator will perform its statutory functions independently of the contract. The Regulator takes a risk-based approach to higher-risk buildings and will have regard to relevant industry standards.