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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department plans to take steps to monitor the exercise of professional judgement by building designers in decisions on whether to use combustible materials in buildings above 11 metres in height.

The person carrying out the work has to demonstrate compliance with the applicable requirements of the Building Regulations, including Part B on Fire Safety, to the relevant building control body, who check building work compliance. Government does not collect data on these individual decisions. One duty of the Building Safety Regulator, established by the Building Safety Act 2022, will be to facilitate improvement of the competence of industry and building inspectors, as part of meeting its statutory duty of securing the safety of people in or about buildings. Statutory instruments supporting the implementation of the Act will also introduce new requirements on designers to be competent for their role.