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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether she has had discussions with the Building Safety Regulator on (a) the adequacy of the (i) resources and (ii) technical capacity available to enable it to make timely determinations of Gateway applications and (b) its operational efficiency.

We recognise that there are delays to the Gateways process and that processing times need to improve. Delays have the potential to slow the delivery of new homes and may impact on investment decisions in high-rise projects. MHCLG are working urgently with the BSR to address the current challenges. This includes direct ministerial-level involvement to accelerate progress.

We continue to work closely with the BSR to understand their resource requirements, technical capacity and how processes can be improved. We have provided funding to the BSR to recruit an extra 30 frontline staff to bolster its capacity. On 14 May, BSR also launched a campaign to directly recruit Registered Building Inspectors (RBIs), with further recruitment planned in June 2025. We expect the impact of these new recruits on processing times to scale up in the coming months.

Whilst BSR and MHCLG are exploring all possible opportunities to strengthen the new Gateway process and guidance to industry, it is important to recognise that a significant volume of applications continue to be invalidated or rejected for not meeting the legislative requirements. These are buildings that, had they been constructed, might have placed residents at risk and/or living in housing that did not meet long-standing requirements. It is also important to note that additional information requests for missing details in applications can add between at least 4-6 weeks onto the process.

BSR continues to carry out extensive stakeholder engagement to support applicants to better understand and meet the new requirements. Since July 2024, BSR has held weekly meetings with the Construction Leadership Council and other industry bodies including the Home Builders Federation to address knowledge gaps and share lessons learned. BSR also issued new guidance in collaboration with the sector in March 2025 based on the findings of research with organisations submitting building control applications. BSR continues work to improve the way it interacts with applicants before and during the process.

BSR officials have provided Gateway 2 application data from October 2023 to date:

Many of the applications that remain undetermined have proved to be of poor quality and the BSR continues to work with applicants to ensure that applications properly demonstrate compliance with the minimum safety standards set out in the Building Regulations.