Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to their research paper Adapting historic homes for energy efficiency: a review of the barriers published on 3 January, what targets they have for training, recruiting, and retaining specialist local authority conservation officers; and what plans they have for achieving any such targets.

The Government has no specific targets relating to specialist local authority conservation officers. I refer the noble lady to the answer given to PQ 16501 on 5 December 2024 set out details of the Government’s investment to support capacity and capability in local authorities more generally. This will be further underpinned by increases in planning fees that will help improve the resourcing of planning application services, so that local planning authorities can fund the skills they need, including conservation officers.