Written questions by Coyle.

Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the impact of delays in processing business rates relief applications on affected businesses; and what steps he is taking to speed up processing times.

Local authorities are responsible for the administration of business rates including the calculation and issuing of rates bills. This includes the assessment for and application of any reliefs that a business may be eligible for. If ratepayers have any questions about their bill, or believe they are eligible for a relief, they should contact their local authority. The government has worked closely with local authorities to support them in their role as billing authorities as they implemented the changes to the business rates system as announced at Budget 2025.

Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the freeze in Housing Benefit subsidy rates for temporary accommodation since January 2011 on local authority finances in London; and whether he will take steps to uprate subsidy levels to reflect current housing costs.

Awaiting answer.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the freeze in Housing Benefit subsidy rates for temporary accommodation since January 2011 on local authority finances in London; and if he will take steps to uprate subsidy levels to reflect current housing costs.

Awaiting answer.

Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has considered, in the context of current and future regulatory frameworks, introducing measures to ensure that leaseholders are able to access the full details of heating and energy supply contracts, and that managing agents or freeholders are required to provide a comprehensive and transparent breakdown of all associated costs.

On 4 July 2025, the government published a consultation, jointly with the Welsh Government, on strengthening leaseholder protections over charges and services. The consultation included proposals to increase transparency over service charges and enhance access to redress through the relevant provisions in the Act. It also proposed new reforms to the section 20 ‘major works’ procedure. The consultation can be found on gov.uk here. It closed on 26 September 2025, and we are analysing responses with a view to bringing the relevant measures into force as quickly as possible.

Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that new towns are built with adequate mobile connectivity infrastructure.

I refer the hon. Member to the public consultation on the proposed New Towns Programme and its environmental implications launched on 23 March 2026. This can be found on gov.uk here.

Communities and Local Government, whether he plans to make it a requirement for local planning authorities to take into account the need to replace or upgrade existing rooftop telecommunications equipment when determining planning applications.

Between 18 December 2025 and 26 February 2026, the government undertook a call for evidence in respect of reforming planning rules to accelerate deployment of digital infrastructure. It can be found on gov.uk here. We are currently analysing the feedback received with a view to determining next steps, which may include consulting on draft measures and, where appropriate, bringing forward necessary legislation.

Communities and Local Government, whether he has plans to ban UK politicians accepting cryptocurrency donations.

We have introduced the Representation of the People Bill which brings forward a package of reforms to deliver on our manifesto commitment to tighten the rules on political donations. It introduces a ‘Know your Donor’ scheme requiring enhanced checks on larger donations, to prevent the risk of foreign interference. It introduces tighter eligibility rules on donations from companies to ensure a genuine connection to the UK, and stricter rules and checks by unincorporated associations on the gifts they receive and donations they make. The Rycroft Review on foreign interference in UK politics will focus on the effectiveness of the UK’s political finance laws, as well as the safeguards in place to protect our democracy from illicit money from abroad, including cryptoassets. The terms of reference for the review can be found here: Independent review: countering foreign financial influence and interference in UK politics: Terms of Reference - GOV.UK. Review findings will be delivered to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Security Minister by the end of March 2026. We will take any steps necessary to ensure the integrity of our system.

Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the answer of 28 November 2025 to question 92574, if his Department will support the wider utilisation of UPRNs in the property industry and make them a standard piece of data recorded for property transactions.

On 6 October, my Department published two consultations outlining reform proposals to transform home buying and selling. They can be found on gov.uk here and here. As part of those consultations, we highlighted our interest in ensuring that data is consistent, trusted, and shareable across the market. We also proposed to explore mandating a standardised core data set for digital logbooks and sales packs linked to the Unique Property Reference Number and Land Registry records. Both consultations closed on 29 December. We are now reviewing the feedback received and will set out details of next steps later this year.

Communities and Local Government, if he will take legislative steps to ensure that no future election in the UK will be subject to outside interference.

The Government takes any attempts to intervene in democratic processes very seriously. It is, and always will be, an absolute priority to protect our democratic and electoral processes, including from foreign interference. On the 16th of December, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government announced an independent review into countering foreign financial influence and interference in UK politics. The review will report at the end of March and will inform the forthcoming Elections Bill. This builds on the major reforms announced in the Elections Strategy in July, and the launch last month of the Counter Political Interference and Espionage Action Plan to disrupt and deter spying from states. The Government’s strategy for modern, secure and inclusive elections, published in July, sets out our plan to strengthen oversight of and safeguards against known and emerging threats, including foreign interference through covert political funding. We will deliver a robust and proportionate response to known risks, protecting the integrity of our system and reinforcing public trust in democracy. This sits alongside the government’s robust toolkit of measures to investigate and disrupt the threat from foreign interference in UK politics. This includes the National Security Act 2023, the Defending Democracy Taskforce, which coordinates work to protect UK political parties, elected officials and the electoral infrastructure, and the Joint Election Security and Preparedness unit, which coordinates work across government to protect UK elections and referendums, and the Online Safety Act which requires services to take steps to remove illegal disinformation content including illegal state-sponsored disinformation in scope of the Foreign Interference Offence.

Communities and Local Government, whether he has met with his French counterparts to consider parallel legislation to prevent outside interference in domestic elections.

The Government takes any attempts to intervene in democratic processes very seriously. It is, and always will be, an absolute priority to protect our democratic and electoral processes, including from foreign interference. We have a robust toolkit of measures including the foreign interference offence and foreign influence registration scheme introduced under the National Security Act 2023, the Defending Democracy Taskforce, which coordinates work to protect UK political parties, elected officials and electoral infrastructure from threats including foreign interference, the Joint Election Security and Preparedness unit, which coordinates work to protect UK elections and referendums, and the Counter Political Interference and Espionage Action Plan launched last month to disrupt and deter spying from states. Additionally, on 16 December the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government announced an independent review into countering foreign financial influence and interference in UK politics, led by Philip Rycroft. We will consider how to take forward any recommendations from the review, including through the upcoming Elections Bill.

Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of making unique property reference numbers a requisite field in the private rented sector database.

My government already intends to record unique property reference numbers on the Private Rented Sector Database in all instances where they are available.

Communities and Local Government, how many properties with EPC ratings of (a) F and (b) G rating are let by (i) Local Authorities and (ii) Housing Associations

Information on the EPC ratings of social housing let by local authorities and housing associations, as well as other tenures, can be found in the latest English Housing Survey on gov.uk here. In the 2023-24 survey, 0.3% of homes let by local authorities and 0.4% of homes let by housing associations have an EPC rating of band F or G.

Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department plans to take to help reduce the number of children living in temporary accommodation.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 83747 on 27 October 2025.

Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that the Building Safety Regulator works within its intended timeframes to process applications.

We recognise there have been operational challenges within the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), which is why we announced a series of reforms to strengthen it in June. Improvements to ensure applications are processed within the intended timeframes are already underway. These include: An Innovation Unit which assembles multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs) in house to accelerate the processing of new build applications. The Innovation Unit is already demonstrating progress, with the majority of applications currently meeting or exceeding the 12-week service level agreement (SLA).A new ‘batching’ process for allowing applications from the same developer or organisation to be grouped. This consolidates the multi-disciplinary teams used to review applications into one organisation, significantly reducing processing delays while retaining BSR as the regulatory lead;Freeing up Class 3 Registered Building Inspectors to focus on new builds and remediation by enabling Class 2 Registered Building Inspectors to take on reviews of less complex building work;Improved communication with applicants, recruiting 100 additional staff, and greater use of staged and approvals with requirements to allow construction to begin safely. The BSR previously committed to improving operations by December, with faster processing of new build applications and decisions on most of the existing new-build caseload. To increase transparency and accountability, the BSR published performance data on 16 October and will continue to do so on a monthly basis to track progress against this commitment.

Communities and Local Government, if he will take steps to require short-term holiday lets to (a) provide a fire extinguisher and (b) meet the same minimum fire safety standards as other rental accommodation.

Article 13 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requiresthose responsible for fire safety in their premises to, where necessary, ensure it is equipped with appropriate fire-fighting equipment. We published guidance for short term lets in April 2023 titled A Guide to making your small paying-guest-accommodation safe from fire which expands on this requirement and states the following: In the event of a fire, evacuating the premises is the safest thing to do and guests should not be expected to use firefighting equipment. If you have staff on the premises, or if they regularly visit the premises, firefighting equipment should be provided, and staff should be trained on how to use the equipment. You should make sure that the instructions on how to use any firefighting equipment are clear, that there is a warning that evacuation is preferable, and that staff should not put themselves at risk or tackle anything other than a very small fire. In self-catering accommodation, although guests are not expected to use fire-fighting equipment, you may wish to provide a small fire extinguisher and/or fire blanket in the kitchen area. We also published an update in 2024, which provides more detail on application of the Fire Safety Order to short term lets and expected fire safety standards in such premises.

Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has appointed a lead official to cover the issues (a) raised by and (b) that affect the British Chinese community.

As a part of my Department’s ongoing work to understand, hear from and support communities, including to drive cohesion, officials engage with a range of ethnically and religiously diverse communities. There are no plans for specific engagement with British Chinese communities at this time.

Communities and Local Government, how many applications have waited longer than the 12-week timeframe that the Building Safety Regulator says it will take to complete its process in the last 12 months.

The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has reported that 930 Gateway 2 applications decided in the last 12 months (between 24 October 2024 and 23 October 2025) took longer than 12 weeks to reach a decision.The BSR is already making operational and policy changes to speed up decision making, particularly on building control approval, including through the introduction of an Innovation Unit and batching process. Early signs are positive with all applications in the Innovation Unit so far on track to exceed or meet the 12-week SLA target.

Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking with the (a) financial sector and (b) regulators to help ensure that mortgage lenders provide loans to leaseholders affected by building safety issues in the period after the Grenfell Tower fire.

Officials in my department have regular engagement with financial sector stakeholders. A product of this is the lenders’ statement on cladding which has signatories from ten major banks and building societies. These lenders have committed to consider mortgage applications, even if a property has building safety issues, provided either the building has funding for works from government or the developer, or the property is protected by the leaseholder protections in the Building Safety Act, and the leaseholder has completed a ‘Leaseholder Deed of Certificate’ to evidence it. Officials have well-established relationships with regulators should the need arise to discuss a particular issue.

Communities and Local Government, if he will encourage the Building Safety Regulator to provide a timeline for decision on the 338 social homes intended for the former Bermondsey Biscuit Factory development site.

The Building Safety Regulator has received three Building Control Applications for new higher risk buildings to be built on the Biscuit Factory site. Progress on each application is set out in the following table. Please note that assessment of applications is a dynamic process, and timetables can change dependent on the information provided by the applicant: Application Name Application Number Current status Number of homes When decision is expected Block OPQBCA03545Z1N7Statutory fire consultation has completed.  Final stages of assessment underway187 over 14 floorsNovember 2025Block WBCA04254L1T8Assessment is continuing. Statutory fire consultation will start once all fire matters within the application have been resolved69 over 18 floorsJanuary 2026Block VBCA05762F2G7Assessment is continuing. Statutory fire consultation will start once all fire matters within the application have been resolved82 over 10 floorsJanuary 2026

Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking with the Secretary of State for Transport to (a) expand electricity capacity and (b) ensure the adequacy of the number of EV charging stations in new housing developments.

The National Planning Policy Framework makes clear that strategic policies set out in development plans should make sufficient provision for energy. The government recently amended the existing permitted development rights for electric vehicle charging points to support homeowners through the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) (Amendment) Order 2025. We continue to keep the regulations under review.