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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 23 April 2019 to Question 244107 on Buildings: Insulation, whether the guidance in paragraph 12.7 (now paragraph 12.6) of Volume 2 of Approved Document B read in the context of paragraph 12.5 of the Approved Document and the overall requirement for external walls to adequately resist the spread of fire means that the whole external wall system is required to be of limited combustibility.

The guidance in paragraph 12.6 (previously paragraph 12.7) of Volume 2 of Approved Document B states the following “In a building with a storey 18m or more in height (see Diagram C6) any insulation product, filler material (not including gaskets, sealants and similar) etc. used in the construction of an external wall should be of limited combustibility or better” . Those in control of building work need to give consideration to the choice of material used for any parts of an external wall or attachments to the wall which could impact on the risk of fire spread over the wall.