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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of preventing landlords from letting properties that are electrically unsafe.

The Government is committed to offering greater protection to tenants and ensuring that people are living in safe and good quality properties.

The majority of landlords already take the safety of their tenants seriously. Landlords have their electrical installations checked regularly to identify and eliminate possible hazards unseen by the tenant. Existing legislation already requires landlords to keep electrical installations in their property in repair and proper working order and it is currently best practice for landlords to organise periodic inspection and testing and to provide a report to the tenant.

On 19 July 2018, we announced that we will introduce a mandatory requirement on landlords in the private rented sector to ensure electrical installations in their property are inspected every five years. We are working to bring these regulations into force as soon as possible, subject to parliamentary approval and timetable.