Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what the fail rate for the competency assessment for registration to be a class (a) two, (b) three and (c) four building inspector was in each of the last three years.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
There are currently three independent schemes that provide validation assessments for building control inspectors, which are now needed to register with the Building Safety Regulator for classes 2 to 4. The validation schemes run by the Building Safety Competence Foundation opened in 2022, while the other two schemes (run by Total Training and CABE) have been operational since 2023. All of the three schemes are independent of Government, and as the requirement to register with the BSR and undertake validation assessments only commenced on 6 April 2024, the department does not hold data that allows for comparison of fail rates over the past three years.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, in relation to historic building safety defects, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of protecting (a) leaseholders and (b) non-qualifying leaseholders from a landlord's legal costs being recovered through the service change.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Building Safety Act 2022 sets out a number of protections for leaseholders relating to the cost of remediation of relevant defects.
Under paragraph 9 of Schedule 8 to the Act qualifying leaseholders are protected from the costs of legal or other professional services relating to the liability (or potential liability) incurred as a result of a relevant defect.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he plans to announce the outcome of Northwich Station’s Access for All funding bid.
Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
As part of our recent Network North announcement, the Government confirmed £350m will be made available to improve the accessibility of our train stations. We are assessing over 300 nominations for Access for All, including a nomination for Northwich railway station. If successful, the funding will create an obstacle free, accessible route from the station entrance to platforms. Successful nominations will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, pursuant to the Answer of 2 April 2024 to Question 19958 on Flats: Fire Prevention, if he will make it his policy to commit to quality assurance measures equivalent to the Self Remediation Terms including a post-remediation Qualifying Assessment.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
As the answer provided on 2 April indicates, only three buildings under 11m have been found to require some form of remediation to date. The Department expects the developers of any unsafe buildings under 11m to take responsibility for remediating them in accordance with the appropriate standard and deal with the risks identified in the Fire Risk Assessment and Fire Risk Appraisal of External Walls as soon as reasonably practicable.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of publishing guidance for leaseholders on how they can access the dispute resolution process under the Developer Self Remediation Terms.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
If a dispute arises and leaseholders are unable to make contact with their developer, they should follow the published guidance in the Developer remediation contract: resident factsheet - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department has provided specific guidance to Right to Manage directors on their responsibilities under the developer remediation contract.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
If a dispute arises and leaseholders are unable to make contact with their developer, they should follow the published guidance in the Developer remediation contract: resident factsheet - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what criteria a company must meet in order to be included on the Homes England Fire Risk Assessor Panel and authorised to carry out FRAEWs for buildings in the Cladding Safety Scheme.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
To join the Fire Risk Assessor Panel firms must sign a participation agreement which sets out the terms for the panel and eligibility criteria. Along with agreeing to follow Homes England processes set out in the scheme guidance and use the correct scheme documents, firms must have:
Membership is renewed annually with firms having to provide evidence of their PII insurance and self-certification of qualifications and experience of firm assessors. The use of PAS 9980 and proportionality is assured by sample audit.
Since the scheme went live, four firms have left the panel through their own accord. Two pulled out due to resourcing issues and their inability to commit to meeting service level agreements and two others left due to them not receiving any business from being on the panel.
To date, Homes England have not had to remove any firms due to performance however Homes England can exercise this option should they need to.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether any companies have been removed from the Homes England Fire Risk Assessor Panel for the Cladding Safety Scheme.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
To join the Fire Risk Assessor Panel firms must sign a participation agreement which sets out the terms for the panel and eligibility criteria. Along with agreeing to follow Homes England processes set out in the scheme guidance and use the correct scheme documents, firms must have:
Membership is renewed annually with firms having to provide evidence of their PII insurance and self-certification of qualifications and experience of firm assessors. The use of PAS 9980 and proportionality is assured by sample audit.
Since the scheme went live, four firms have left the panel through their own accord. Two pulled out due to resourcing issues and their inability to commit to meeting service level agreements and two others left due to them not receiving any business from being on the panel.
To date, Homes England have not had to remove any firms due to performance however Homes England can exercise this option should they need to.