Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans he has to increase building standards for glazing in line with improvements in modern glazing technology for (a) new and (b) existing homes.

The Government will introduce a Future Homes Standard for new homes by 2025. Homes built to the Future Homes Standard will be future-proofed with low carbon heating and high levels of energy efficiency. To help industry prepare for that, in 2021 we will introduce an interim uplift in Part L standards that delivers a meaningful reduction in carbon emissions and provides a stepping stone to the Future Homes Standard in 2025. Within the 2021 standard, there is an increase in the performance of windows. The draft specification for the Future Homes Standard includes a further increase in the performance of windows, which will be further developed over the next couple of years and consulted on in 2023

We also recently consulted on proposals for changes to requirements when work is done in existing buildings. That consultation opened on the 19 January 2021 and closed on the 13 April 2021. For this consultation we have reviewed the standards for windows in order to identify improvements. The proposal we put forward is the highest standard for replacement windows in existing homes which is still cost-effective using a simple measure of payback for investment over the life of the product. We are currently analysing responses to this consultation and will be responding to it.