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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the transitionary arrangements for implementing the Future Homes Standard, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of a phased implementation of those arrangements to enable developments to proceed based on planning permission already granted and energy infrastructure already laid.

We have listened to calls for a swifter and more certain pathway to 2025 and have already accelerated our work on a full technical specification for the Future Homes Standard, which is planned for Spring 2023. In the meantime, to provide greater certainty for all stakeholders, we have published a draft notional building specification for the Future Homes Standard. The specification is not final but provides a basis on which we are already beginning to engage with industry on the indicative technical detail of the Future Homes Standard.

A full impact assessment on the Future Homes Standard will be carried out ahead of implementation and published online. Government's intention is to publish a draft impact assessment alongside the consultation in 2023.

As part of the consultation, we will consider what transitional arrangements are appropriate. Transitional arrangements are important as they provide all developers with certainty about the standards they are building to, and assurance that they should not have to make material amendments to work which is already underway when new Regulations came into force.