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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether her Department is taking steps to help reduce delays in Building Safety Regulator processes that relate to the construction of (a) social and (b) affordable homes.

MHCLG and Building Safety Regulator (BSR) have taken significant steps towards reducing delays relating to the Gateways construction processes. We have put in place a range of mitigations including additional funding aimed at boosting BSR capacity for additional building control caseworkers, who are being trained and have started to make an impact on reducing processing times. This has already resulted in some green shoots of improvement including BSR reporting a reduction in processing times of newly submitted applications. BSR are now informing new applicants to plan on 16 weeks to clear Gateway 2.

Older and more complex applications which were transferred from private building control companies that ceased to trade present a particular challenge to the processing time of new applications, but please be assured that the BSR are focused on clearing this backlog as quickly as possible.

It is important to recognise that BSR is a newly established operational regulator which is critical to upholding the standard of building regulations to industry. We are working closely with BSR to support their plan for improved delivery and guidance to the sector whilst maintaining the building safety standards. If applications for buildings do not meet this standard and pose a risk to life BSR will not approve them.