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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will review the scope of the Building Safety Bill and the 18 metre threshold at which the Building Safety Regulator has oversight of buildings.

The Building Safety Regulator will have a duty to keep under review the safety and standard of all buildings, not just those over 18 metres. It could fulfil this oversight duty by undertaking research, using evidence, data and intelligence to identify and assess emerging risks, encouraging learning to be shared and making recommendations to Government to improve standards when needed. This could include recommending altering the definition of higher-risk building if the conditions for doing so are met.

The Building Safety Bill has a provision requiring the Secretary of State to appoint an independent person to carry out a periodic review of the system every five years once Royal Assent is received. The 18 metre height threshold used to define higher-risk building for the new regulatory regime set out in the Building Safety Bill and the effectiveness of the Regulator in carrying out its duties must be covered under these reviews.