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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking in the data collection exercise on high-rise residential buildings to ensure the accuracy of results.

Local authorities and housing associations have been asked to undertake a data collection exercise on residential buildings 18 metre and over in height to identify their external wall systems. The responsibility for collecting and providing information for the data collection lies with local authorities and housing associations. Local authorities have powers under Section 235 of the Housing Act 2004 to require building owners to provide documentation. This may be used to require information on the external wall system of a building. New burdens funding has been provided to local authorities to offer support for the completion of the External Wall Systems data collection.