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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what estimate he has made of the costs to building safety managers of establishing a golden thread of information.

Through the Building Safety Bill, we are introducing a requirement as part of the new more stringent regulatory regime to create and maintain a golden thread of information for high rise residential buildings. It will be the duty of the people responsible for a building in scope to put in place and maintain a golden thread of information. In occupation this will be the Accountable Person.

We estimate there will be additional annual costs to industry due to implementing the golden thread. These will vary depending on whether the people responsible for the building have already put in place good digital information management systems and practices. The impact assessment sets out our current estimate of the costs to industry of the golden thread.

The costs of the Golden Thread may be included in the Building Safety Charge, payable by leaseholders, which covers the ongoing day-to-day costs of managing building safety. The Building Safety Charge covers a defined list of activities and there are powers in the Bill that will enable Government to limit the building safety costs that can be recharged to leaseholders.