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 took to ensure that there was no conflict of interest between Sir Ken Knight's role as (a) Chief Fire Officer and (b) a trustee of the Building Research Establishment's charitable parent company, the BRE Trust.

The Department carried out all appropriate due diligence when it appointed Sir Ken Knight as Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser in 2007. Sir Ken took up an unpaid role as a Trustee with the Building Research Establishment (a charitable trust) in 2011 and would have been required to notify the Department of any such appointment. Due to the passage of time there are no extant records that confirm this action was undertaken.