Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of new fire safety regulations on the workload of fire and rescue services.

The Fire Safety Act 2021 and the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 are the main changes made to fire safety legislation in recent years, and both were subject to impact assessments which were published at the time of their introduction.

We are providing £10 million Protection Uplift Grant to Fire and Rescue Services for 2025/26, with £5 million allocated for the first six months and a further £5 million to be confirmed later in the year. The Protection Uplift grant is ringfenced to fire protection and is used to bolster capability and capacity in protection departments.

Decisions on future funding to Fire and Rescue Services to support the work of the Building Safety Regulator are under consideration and yet to be confirmed.

Additionally, MHCLG’s Remediation Acceleration Plan sets out the Government’s intent to legislate to place stronger duties on landlords, including creating a legal duty on those responsible for buildings 11m and over to remediate their buildings within clear timescales, supplemented by further powers for regulators, including Fire and Rescue Authorities, to enforce. An impact assessment of any new legislation will be produced and published alongside this to capture the likely impact of the change including regulatory burden.