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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent assessment his Department has made of the vulnerability of social housing stock to overheating; and what steps he is taking to ensure social housing is (a) designed and (b) retrofitted to enable passive cooling in high temperatures.

In 2021 the Government introduced a new overheating requirement in the Building Regulations to reduce the risk of overheating in all new residential buildings, including new social housing. These regulations came into force in June 2022 and will mean that all new residential buildings must be designed in such a way as to reduce overheating.

Social Housing providers have a responsibility to ensure that all social homes have a "reasonable degree of thermal comfort" through "efficient heating and effective insulation" as well as "adequate ventilation", as part of their requirement to meet the Decent Homes Standard.