Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the cost to the public purse of electrical fires in the home.

The number of accidental primary fires in England where the fire and rescue service recorded the ignition power source for the fire as electric decreased from 34,431 in 2010/11 to 30,136 in 2015/16. There are no plans to commission research on this topic.

The number of accidental dwelling fires where the ignition power source was ‘electric’ decreased from 19,603 in 2010/11 to 18,288 in 2014/15. The Home Department has not estimated the costs of these fires.

See fire statistics table FIRE0605. (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/fire-statistics-data-tables#cause-of-fire)