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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 13 July 2021 to Question 29857 on Housing Revenue Accounts, what assessment he has made of the impact of (a) fire safety remediation works and (b) carbon reduction retrofitting on the levels of debt of housing revenue accounts.

The Government has made a series of funds available to local authorities in support of necessary fire safety remediation works. This includes the £400 million Social Sector Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) Cladding Remediation Fund, to fully fund the remediation of unsafe ACM cladding on social sector residential buildings over 18 million in height, including council-owned blocks. Remediation has either completed or started on 157 social sector residential buildings (98% of social sector buildings, equating to 100% of buildings identified at 31 December 2019).

The Government has also provided support for local authorities carrying out important and necessary carbon reduction retrofitting, including the £3.8 billion Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF), to support local authorities and housing associations to improve the energy performance of social rented homes. In addition, there will be around £160 million total funding for the first wave of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund programme in 2021/22, to make further progress towards delivering the government's commitment to invest in the energy performance of homes.