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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing regulation of the residential block management industry to improve building safety.

The Government is committed to promoting fairness and transparency for homeowners and renters and making sure that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service. This commitment includes raising professionalism and standards amongst managing agents, protecting consumers while defending the reputation of good agents from the actions of rogue operatives. We therefore welcome the ongoing work being undertaken by the industry itself to raise professionalism and standards across the sector.

The Government is considering the recommendations in the report received from the working group on the regulation of property agents chaired by Lord Best. We welcome the work of the independent steering group on codes of practice for property agents, and we will continue to work with industry on improving best practice.

With regard to building safety, the Government is bringing forward fundamental changes to the building regulatory regime through the Building Safety Bill. This includes establishing a new regulator which will have oversight of the whole built environment; and improve building and fire safety, so that people will be, and will feel, safer in their homes.