Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many and what proportion of high rise residential towers over 60 metres have gas pipes supplying all floors.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The department does not currently hold this information.
The new Building Safety Regulator will make buildings safer by enforcing a new regulatory regime for high-rise residential and other in scope buildings and overseeing the safety and performance of all buildings.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of requiring installers of appliances powered by (a) coal, (b) wood and (c) other carbon-based fuels to be registered in the same way as gas appliance installers.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The safe installation of fixed combustion appliances, irrespective of fuel used, is controlled by the Building Regulations, and must meet the relevant requirements of these regulations. Installation must be carried out by installers registered with a government authorised competent person scheme or notified to the local authority.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he is taking steps to help tackle the potential loss of university business support and enterprise activity following the transition of local funding from EU programmes to the UK Shared Prosperity Fund
Answered by Dehenna Davison
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is not a direct replacement for EU structural funds. It focuses on UK priorities by giving more direct accountability to elected local leaders.
The UKSPF will enable local decision making and better target the priorities of places within the UK, with investment priorities focused on community and place, supporting local businesses and people and skills. The UKSPF prospectus is available here.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of hempcrete buildings on levels of indoor air pollution.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
I am not aware of government research carried out to specifically measure the effects of hempcrete on indoor air pollution levels.
To comply with the Building Regulations, new buildings must meet minimum ventilation requirements. Statutory guidance for the Building Regulations ventilation requirements is given in Approved Document F. Approved Document F gives guidance on the maximum levels of indoor air pollutants in buildings. The regulations are technology neutral, and alternative approaches to meeting the requirement for adequate ventilation can be used so long as it can be demonstrated to the Building Control Body that the building meets all relevant parts of the regulations.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how much his Department has spent on social media advertising in (a) 2019, (b) 2020, (c) 2021 and (d) 2022 up to and including 28 February; and on which platforms that money was spent.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
Our publicly available transparency data includes the spend information requested. Social media is a cost effective way of ensuring the public benefit from the policies and programmes of department and all spend represents value of money:
DLUHC: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dluhc-departmental-spending-over-250
MHCLG: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/mhclg-departmental-spending-over-250
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the Climate Change Committee’s UK Health Expert Advisory Group’s report entitled Sustainable Health Equity: Achieving a Net Zero UK, published on 6 November 2020, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of the four recommendations of that report including setting a target date to eliminate home installations of wood burning and gas stoves and prioritising elimination in urban areas.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
I welcome the Climate Change Committee’s report on Sustainable Health Equity: Achieving a Net Zero UK. My Department works closely with other government departments to deliver homes that are energy efficient, climate resilient and healthy.
On 15 December 2021 the Department published the government response to the Future Buildings Standard consultation, brought in the 2021 uplift to the Building Regulations and published a range of accompanying new statutory guidance.
The uplift is an important stepping stone on our way to implementation of the Future Homes Standard and the Future Buildings Standard from 2025. Together, the policy set out in the government response to the Future Buildings Standard consultation, and the Future Homes Standard consultation (published in January 2021) will ensure that new homes and buildings are highly efficient, with significantly lower carbon emissions. From June 2022, when the new regulations come into force, new homes will be expected to produce around 30% fewer carbon emissions and new non-domestic buildings will be expected to produce 27% fewer carbon emissions, becoming zero-carbon over time as the electricity grid continues to decarbonise. The consultation, uplift and new statutory guidance also delivered improvements to ventilation, and a new requirement to mitigate overheating in new-build residential buildings, particularly important for adapting to an increasingly warm climate.
We are considering how the planning system can further support our commitment to reaching net zero. As set out in the Net Zero Strategy, we will make sure that the reformed planning system supports our efforts to combat climate change and help bring greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.
The Government Response to the Committee on Climate Change’s 2020 Progress Report to Parliament sets out the further action they are taking across all sectors of the economy to reduce emissions and deliver net zero.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the implications for his Department's policies of the Climate Change Committee’s UK Health Expert Advisory Group’s report, Sustainable Health Equity: Achieving a Net Zero UK, published 6 November 2020.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
I welcome the Climate Change Committee’s report on Sustainable Health Equity: Achieving a Net Zero UK. My Department works closely with other government departments to deliver homes that are energy efficient, climate resilient and healthy.
On 15 December 2021 the Department published the government response to the Future Buildings Standard consultation, brought in the 2021 uplift to the Building Regulations and published a range of accompanying new statutory guidance.
The uplift is an important stepping stone on our way to implementation of the Future Homes Standard and the Future Buildings Standard from 2025. Together, the policy set out in the government response to the Future Buildings Standard consultation, and the Future Homes Standard consultation (published in January 2021) will ensure that new homes and buildings are highly efficient, with significantly lower carbon emissions. From June 2022, when the new regulations come into force, new homes will be expected to produce around 30% fewer carbon emissions and new non-domestic buildings will be expected to produce 27% fewer carbon emissions, becoming zero-carbon over time as the electricity grid continues to decarbonise. The consultation, uplift and new statutory guidance also delivered improvements to ventilation, and a new requirement to mitigate overheating in new-build residential buildings, particularly important for adapting to an increasingly warm climate.
We are considering how the planning system can further support our commitment to reaching net zero. As set out in the Net Zero Strategy, we will make sure that the reformed planning system supports our efforts to combat climate change and help bring greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.
The Government Response to the Committee on Climate Change’s 2020 Progress Report to Parliament sets out the further action they are taking across all sectors of the economy to reduce emissions and deliver net zero.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies on future building standards to protect occupants from infection with covid-19, including the omicron variant, of the study entitled The removal of airborne SARS-CoV-2 and other bioaerosols by air filtration on COVID-19 surge units, by Andrew Conway Morris an others, published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America on 30 October 2021.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
It is through Part F of the Building Regulations that we set minimum ventilation standards for new buildings, or when work is done to an existing building. We have recently published our response to the Future Buildings Standard Consultation which sets out new guidance on Part F, to come into force in June 2022. COVID-19 has shown the importance of ventilation in reducing the spread of infection. The new guidance includes measures to mitigate the risks of airborne infection in new buildings, including CO2 monitoring and updated specifications for systems that recirculate air between rooms.
The study by Andrew Conway Morris and others is among extensive recent and ongoing research carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic on the effect of ventilation on airborne transmission of infectious agents. This is a rapidly developing area of knowledge and understanding. We intend to continue to monitor and review the available evidence and research in the context of any future changes to Part F.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether any social events took place between three or more people within his Departmental buildings between (a) 5 November 2020 and 1 December 2020 and (b) 16 December 2020 and 22 February 2021.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
This information is not collected. At the time, staff were expected to work from home and undertake meetings remotely, wherever possible.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has made an assessment of how the planning process can support the creation of properly ventilated indoor environments.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
There are strong protections in place in national planning policy to safeguard people from unacceptable risks from air pollution. These will be material considerations for a local council when determining a planning application, as will the planning concerns of the local community.
The National Planning Policy Framework is clear that planning policies and decisions should aim to promote healthy places, including by identifying opportunities to improve air quality. The planning guidance which supports the National Planning Policy Framework sets out further detail on how new development should take account of risks relating to air quality, including by using appropriate means of filtration and ventilation.
It is through the Part F of the Building Regulations that we set the minimum ventilation standards for new buildings or when work is done to an existing building. In the Government's Clean Air Strategy 2019, we committed to consulting on changes to standards in Part F (ventilation) of the Building Regulations. These consultations took place in the form of the Future Homes Standard and Future Buildings Standard consultations. We have reviewed the ventilation standards of the Building Regulations for new homes using the latest scientific evidence from Public Health England (PHE), details of which can be found in the Future Homes Standard consultation response.
We also consulted on ventilation standards for non-domestic buildings and for existing homes, the details of which can be found in the Future Buildings Standard consultation. The Future Buildings Standard consultation was launched on 19 January 2021 and closed on 13 April 2021. We will carefully consider the responses we receive in advance of regulating later this year.