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 effectiveness of local authorities allocating funding to waking watches in tower blocks.

The Waking Watch Relief Fund was launched in January 2021 and the Waking Watch Replacement Fund was launched in January 2022. The funds covered the cost of installing a fire alarm to replace waking watch measures in buildings where a waking watch was in place and where those costs were being passed on to leaseholders.

As of 30 November 2022, 237 applications across both funds have been approved which will enable Waking Watch measures to be replaced with an alarm system in 368 buildings. Of the 368 buildings approved for funding, 314 have completed alarm installations.

The department publishes a monthly data release which includes information on the Waking Watch Relief and Replacement Funds which can be found here.

We continue to monitor the use of waking watches and welcome comments and feedback on the properties with experience of them.