Written questions by Dillon.

Communities and Local Government, whether her Department plans to allow social landlords to access the (a) Building Safety Fund and (b) Cladding Safety Scheme.

Social landlords can already apply to the Cladding Safety Scheme and the Building Safety Fund (BSF) where the cost of remediating a building would threaten the financial viability of the landlord or to cover costs which - without the protections of the Building Safety Act - could have been passed on to leaseholders and shared owners.Under the BSF, the Government has committed £239 million to date to support social landlords to remove and replace unsafe cladding on buildings over 18 metres.The Cladding Safety Scheme for buildings between 11 and 18 metres is open to providers of social housing on the same basis as the BSF.The budget on 30 October 2024 committed to new investment to begin to speed up remediation of social housing. We will shortly publish a strategy to accelerate remediation in all buildings, including social housing.

Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that private homes are safe for elderly people.

The Government provides the Disabled Facilities Grant, a capital grant administered by local authorities that can help pay the cost of adapting eligible disabled and older people’s homes, regardless of tenure, to allow them to live safely and independently. Local authorities have a statutory duty to provide adaptations for people who satisfy a needs assessment, eligibility criteria and a means test. An additional £86 million for the DFG for 2025-26 was announced in the Budget, bringing the total to £711 million.We are also taking action to improve standards within the private rented sector in England through the Renters’ Rights Bill, including through introducing the Decent Homes Standard to the sector for the first time. We are also applying ‘Awaab’s Law’ to the sector which will set clear legal expectations about the timeframes within which landlords in the private rented sector must make homes safe where they contain serious hazards. All elderly people should be able to live in a safe and decent home and these changes will have a positive impact on improving the health and wellbeing of older tenants.

Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to help improve the (a) quality and (b) safety of homes.

The Building Regulations set standards for the design and construction of new building work covering safety, security, accessibility, water and energy use. They are intended to protect people’s health and welfare and may apply when somebody is putting up a new building, making material changes to a building, extending an existing building or altering building services. The Regulations apply to new building work and are supported by guidance set out in Approved Documents. Recent significant updates to the Building Regulations and fire safety guidance in Approved Document B have included the ban on combustible materials in and on the external walls of new residential buildings higher than 18 metres; setting a threshold for provision of sprinklers in new blocks of flats taller than 11 metres; making provision for wayfinding signage for fire fighters in residential buildings above 11 metres; and providing additional guidance on evacuation alert systems in new residential buildings over 18 metres in height. An 18-metre threshold height for second staircases in new residential buildings has been introduced from March 2024. The Building Safety Act 2022 requires the safety and standard of buildings to be kept under review; Building Regulations can then be updated as needed. This mechanism offers Government a source of evidence if Regulations or guidance need amendment or to reflect advances in building safety knowledge and technologies.

Communities and Local Government, how many and what proportion of the homes her Department aims to build during this Parliament will be affordable; and what steps she plans to take to ensure that these homes meet the needs of communities.

The Government has committed to delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation and we will update Parliament on our progress. Our proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework aim to ensure that decisions about what to build and where are based on delivering the housing an area needs.

Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to help improve voter turnout in national elections; and what assessment she has made of the impact of voter ID on the 2024 general election.

To encourage participation in our democracy, the Government will improve voter registration and address the inconsistencies in voter ID rules. We will be bringing forward firm proposals in due course.In September the Electoral Commission published its interim report on voter ID at the 2024 UK Parliamentary General Election. The Elections Act 2022 included a requirement for the Secretary of State to publish an evaluation of the implementation and impact of the voter ID policy on the next local and next two UK Parliamentary General Elections. Work has already begun on the evaluation of the July 2024 election, and we expect the report in the spring of 2025. Both of these reports will inform the wider work officials are doing to thoroughly review voter ID.