Planning: Energy Efficiency and Fire Safety

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I do not know if the noble Lord was in the Chamber when I spoke about this last week, but we are aware of the building safety regulator’s difficulties. We have put in additional funding and are working with the regulator to improve performance, particularly on the gateway issues. It is very important that we get this balance right. We want our buildings to be safe, and the building safety regulator must be able to do its job properly. We also want to move things on for the development industry so that developers can get through the gateways as quickly as they can; both things are important. I will not give the noble Lord an exact date—I do not suppose he would have expected me to—but we are working with the building safety regulator to move this on as quickly as possible.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I am absolutely delighted about the solar panels measures, because I have been asking questions of this Government about the fact that locally, in east Devon, there is about to be a new town of 20,000 people with not a single solar panel on any of the buildings. How tough will the Government be in seeing that the solar panels regulations are actually carried out by entrepreneurs who have no desire whatever to put them on roofs.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As this is incorporated into the planning process, it will become part of how planning is done so that it will be put in from the outset. We will accelerate the specific types of infrastructure, including making sure that, as people put planning applications in, we look at them to make sure that buildings are fit for purpose, do not need retrofitting and will have solar panels and, where appropriate, ground source heat pumps. Our commitment is to get to net zero as quickly as we can while making sure the planning system is fit for purpose in delivering that across the country.