Planning: Energy Efficiency and Fire Safety

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for making that point so powerfully. We all know how urgent this work is. Retrofit work in support of decarbonisation must comply with building regulations, including those concerning fire safety. As the regulations state, the building’s compliance should be no worse than it was before the work started. No additional measures are needed to ensure that fire safety is integrated into retrofit. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order, a fire risk assessment will be completed for all new builds, other than individual private homes. Building regulations require building control bodies to consult the local fire and rescue authority to ensure compliance with the order. There is a further requirement under the order for a responsible person to review the fire risk assessment for those premises where material changes, such as a significant retrofit, are made to the building in question.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the National Audit Office estimated that the work to which the noble Baroness just referred will not be completed until 2035. Is that not far too late a date for people to live in unsafe buildings? What action are the Government going to take to bring that date forward?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am sure that the noble Lord paid full attention to the remediation action plan that the Government published, and we want to move this forward as quickly as possible as there is a lot of work to be done on remediation. My honourable colleague in the other place, Minister Alex Norris, is moving forward the remediation action plan as quickly as possible, as we have to make sure that we get on with this now. Eight years is far too long not to move this forward, but we are getting on with the job now and cracking on with it as quickly as we can.