On 2nd September, Angela Rayner, the new Secretary of State for Housing, will answer questions from MPs in the House of Commons for the first time, alongside other ministers in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).
If you want to make sure that the building safety scandal stays high on the Government’s agenda, please contact your MP and ask them to raise a question. The deadline to submit questions is 12.30pm on 27th August so please do this as soon as you can. You can find your MP’s contact details at WriteToThem.
Any opposition MP or any backbench MP from the party of government can table a question (as long as they do not hold a ministerial or government role themselves).
What should I ask?
You can help your MP to help you, by being specific about the question you want them to ask. Your MP will want to raise a question that is relevant to their constituent’s situation, but you can also frame your question in a more general way that illustrates a wider building safety issue which needs a solution.
A good question is not over-complicated, and it might focus on a single practical action that you want the government to take.
For example, your MP could press ministers about whether they plan to introduce a firm deadline for all homes to be made safe, or ask when an independent dispute resolution process, promised by the last government, will finally be introduced – so that the leaseholders in your building can robustly challenge a developer’s decision not to remediate. Or they might ask what actions the Department can take if a developer has breached the self-remediation contract in relation to your specific building.
Perhaps you want your MP to ask if ministers have assessed the effectiveness of the Fire Safety Reinsurance Facility in bringing down extortionate insurance costs in buildings affected by fire safety defects, and how many buildings have actually benefited so far? Or to probe ministers about when they will release the results of the Call for Evidence on leaseholder-owned buildings, which closed in November 2022?
Or you might want to know what steps they will take – and when – to protect every leaseholder across the country from 100% of the costs of fixing historic building safety defects.
You may not get a minister to commit to immediately transforming a government policy or process on the spot. But your question can help to keep the issue regularly on ministers’ lips; and it can highlight the problem in a new way to ministers, officials, backbench and opposition MPs, and other stakeholders. Your question might elicit the promise of a future announcement, or a follow-up letter from a minister with more detail, or a meeting about your specific case with your MP. It could also get noticed by journalists.
This all helps in the ongoing battle to end the building safety scandal and to get our lives back.
How does it work?
Oral Questions operate on a rota system between different government departments, so the opportunity to question MHCLG ministers will only happen about 6 times per year. After 2nd September, the next chance for your MP to question MHCLG ministers will not be until 28th October. The rota is published online so you are always able to plan ahead to the next session. The deadline for your MP to submit a question is about a week in advance, so please contact them as early as you can.
You can watch past examples of Oral Questions on our Youtube channel, including the most recent Oral Questions answered by the former Housing Minister, in April 2024.
Written parliamentary questions
Your MP can also table written questions at any time during the year (whenever parliament is in session), and this is another great way to ensure the topic of the building safety crisis is landing regularly in the in-trays of ministers and officials.
During the last year, MPs and Peers tabled almost 2,500 written parliamentary questions for ministers in MHCLG or its predecessor, the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). Based on our analysis, just over 300 questions were related to building safety (12% of the total).
Around half of those questions were raised by the former shadow minister for building safety, Mike Amesbury – which highlights why it is so essential to have strong supporters of the campaign in parliament, who can consistently keep ministers focused on the issues.
However, last year’s written questions came from a total of 60 different MPs and peers, from all parties, who typically raised a few questions each on behalf of their constituents. Many of those MPs are no longer in parliament, so it is very helpful to the campaign if we can widen the pool of MPs who are raising questions about building safety. Asking your MP to table a question can also be a good first step to get your MP more actively engaged in supporting your particular case.
Questions have to be unique in order to be accepted, so take a look at the format of past questions or download a copy of the topics that were raised. If you are able to provide your MP with suggested wording for a question, that would be a great starting point and make it easier for them to help you, but your MP’s office will be able to adapt your question to fit the required format in any case.
The End Our Cladding Scandal campaign calls on the Government to lead an urgent, national effort to fix the building safety crisis.
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