Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent estimate his Department has made of the cost to the public purse of fire damage.

As identified in the call for evidence (paragraphs 15 and 16), published in December 2018, the Department intends to assess the scope of the fire safety requirements of the building regulations including the need for property protection objectives as part of the technical review of Approved Document B of the building regulations. The Department will be setting out its intentions shortly.

The call for evidence and a summary of the responses received are available at the following:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/technical-review-of-approved-document-b-of-the-building-regulations-a-call-for-evidence

The Department has not recently carried out an assessment of fire damage to the public purse however the Department regularly monitors the fire statistics published by the Home Office.