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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he plans to amend the (a) Building Safety Act 2022 and (b) Building Regulations to ensure (i) building owners and (ii) nominated building design professionals can access Building Control records when required.

Provisions already exist within section 53 of the Building Act 1984 (as amended by the Building Safety Act 2022) to ensure relevant building control information is made available to both local authorities and those carrying out building work when changing building control body.

When a building control body can no longer provider services, they are required to provide the local authority any information it would have obtained had it been performing building control functions itself, and any additional information reasonably required to enable it to do so within 21 days. The building control body must also provide the person carrying out the work, typically the building owner or their nominated building design professional, any such information and other records necessary to allow another building control body to perform those functions.

The Department is considering how best to invest in building control digitalisation to improve the openness, accessibility, interoperability and reusability of building control data and deliver better outcomes for regulators, developers, built environment professionals and members of the public.