Planning: Energy Efficiency and Fire Safety

Question

14:57:00

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government how they intend to work with regional mayors and local authority leaders to ensure that energy efficiency and fire safety measures are central to planning frameworks.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and draw your attention to my register of interests.

My Lords, I welcome my noble friend’s expertise to help with some of these issues as we debate our planning for the future. She raises valid and important points. All new homes must comply with energy-efficiency and fire safety measures as set out in the building regulations, once planning permission has been obtained. While government does not comment on or routinely intervene in local authority decision-making, we trust our local councillors and local authorities to deliver local plans that carefully consider both energy efficiency and fire safety. As we move into the new era of strategic plans, I am sure that our mayors will take carbon reduction in new homes, and fire safety, as seriously as our councillors currently do.

I sincerely thank my noble friend the Minister. Today, millions in the UK still live in buildings with unresolved fire issues, many of which are being targeted for retrofit under decarbonisation plans. For energy efficiency, the cheapest fuel is the fuel you do not use at all. Local leaders and regional mayors need a clear mandate and resources to ensure that fire safety is integrated into renovation and new build. From 2020 to today, there have been over 230 fires related to cladding alone. How will the Government ensure that fire risk assessments are mandatory for retrofit and new build and that planning frameworks are updated accordingly?

I thank my noble friend for making that point so powerfully. We all know how urgent this work is. Retrofit work in support of decarbonisation must comply with building regulations, including those concerning fire safety. As the regulations state, the building’s compliance should be no worse than it was before the work started. No additional measures are needed to ensure that fire safety is integrated into retrofit. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order, a fire risk assessment will be completed for all new builds, other than individual private homes. Building regulations require building control bodies to consult the local fire and rescue authority to ensure compliance with the order. There is a further requirement under the order for a responsible person to review the fire risk assessment for those premises where material changes, such as a significant retrofit, are made to the building in question.

My Lords, the National Audit Office estimated that the work to which the noble Baroness just referred will not be completed until 2035. Is that not far too late a date for people to live in unsafe buildings? What action are the Government going to take to bring that date forward?

I am sure that the noble Lord paid full attention to the remediation action plan that the Government published, and we want to move this forward as quickly as possible as there is a lot of work to be done on remediation. My honourable colleague in the other place, Minister Alex Norris, is moving forward the remediation action plan as quickly as possible, as we have to make sure that we get on with this now. Eight years is far too long not to move this forward, but we are getting on with the job now and cracking on with it as quickly as we can.

My Lords, in light of the Chancellor’s recent announcement of £39 billion to help boost social and affordable housing, will the Government work with local authorities to ensure that all these new homes are built with consideration of energy efficiency and appropriate fire safety measures? Will the Government also consider adapting these homes, or at least some of them, for disabled people, as it is easier and much more cost effective to do this at the construction phase?

My noble friend is quite right. We will bring forward the future homes standard in the autumn—we are consulting on it at the moment—which will ensure that new homes are net-zero ready and that householders benefit from lower energy bills, with high levels of energy efficiency and solar PV. We made an announcement last week that the standard will include solar panels, which we expect to be installed on the majority of new homes. I have spoken to my noble friend on her point about disabled facilities, and we understand the frustrations of, for example, those applying for disabled facilities grants. The more we can make sure that homes are fit for everybody in our community, the better it will be. We are considering this further as we develop our housing strategy, which is due to be published later this year.

My Lords, the cost of cladding remediation is up to £40,000 per flat. Can the Minister tell the House how leaseholders, who are not eligible for grant funding from the Government and contractors, will be able to afford the remediation of homes which insurance companies believe are not safe to live in?

We are working very closely with leaseholder bodies to understand their issues. I understand the difficulties, and we are making sure that those responsible for the buildings are held to account and that they support leaseholders to get the work done. I am still talking to leaseholders, and we will bring forward more action on their general conditions in the leasehold Bill later this year. I know that this is a very difficult issue for them, and we continue to work with them on it.

My Lords, I declare my interest as a councillor in Central Bedfordshire. The building safety regulator has a critical role to play to ensure fire safety, particularly for high-rise buildings. However, it does not currently have the capacity to deliver its role, creating huge delays to many housing projects. Can the Minister give the House a date when the substantial delays of the building safety regulator will be addressed?

I do not know if the noble Lord was in the Chamber when I spoke about this last week, but we are aware of the building safety regulator’s difficulties. We have put in additional funding and are working with the regulator to improve performance, particularly on the gateway issues. It is very important that we get this balance right. We want our buildings to be safe, and the building safety regulator must be able to do its job properly. We also want to move things on for the development industry so that developers can get through the gateways as quickly as they can; both things are important. I will not give the noble Lord an exact date—I do not suppose he would have expected me to—but we are working with the building safety regulator to move this on as quickly as possible.

My Lords, I am absolutely delighted about the solar panels measures, because I have been asking questions of this Government about the fact that locally, in east Devon, there is about to be a new town of 20,000 people with not a single solar panel on any of the buildings. How tough will the Government be in seeing that the solar panels regulations are actually carried out by entrepreneurs who have no desire whatever to put them on roofs.

As this is incorporated into the planning process, it will become part of how planning is done so that it will be put in from the outset. We will accelerate the specific types of infrastructure, including making sure that, as people put planning applications in, we look at them to make sure that buildings are fit for purpose, do not need retrofitting and will have solar panels and, where appropriate, ground source heat pumps. Our commitment is to get to net zero as quickly as we can while making sure the planning system is fit for purpose in delivering that across the country.

My Lords, the issue of sustainable energy concerns us all, particularly with the advent of a large number of applications for solar farms. Is the Minister aware that, on fire safety, there are deep concerns among the population because of the lithium battery plants that have to go with these solar farms? Where other solar farms have been created around the world, there have been considerable dangers, and fires have occurred that have put local populations in some jeopardy. Does the Minister have any comment on that?

I understand the question the noble Lord is asking. I remind the House that 0.1% of the country has solar farms. I understand that that is not the question he was asking, but it is raised very frequently in the House. I will take back the issue of lithium batteries and solar farms and send him a Written Answer.