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Labour has been warned against building poor-quality homes as it races to hit its 1.5 million housing target.
In a letter to Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, a cross-party committee of MPs said it was concerned “mounting pressure on the industry to build new homes at pace” risked a spike in the number of properties with major defects.
The housing committee, which is chaired by Labour MP Florence Eshalomi, said it had been informed of a “steady number of significant issues” in recently built homes by the New Homes Ombudsman Service (NHOS), including faulty fire safety equipment, damp and mould, and overheating.
In some cases, new homes had reached temperatures of “35C or more during summer heatwaves”, it said.
The letter included a series of recommendations to address issues such as a regulatory stress-tests.
Ms Eshalomi said: “We are concerned that new homes are being built that do not sufficiently mitigate the risks of homes overheating.”
She added: “The NHOS told us that new-builds ‘suffer from design choices that exacerbate overheating during extreme weather’.”
The letter recommended that the wider building regulation regime should be stress-tested to understand if homes built to these standards would be able to cope with extreme weather events.
However, James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary, said Labour had “nobody to blame but themselves” for concerns over quality after a struggle to raise housebuilding had left the Government scrambling to hit targets.
He said: “Labour are failing dismally to deliver the 1.5 million homes they promised. They must resist the temptation to flood the country with low-quality new-builds in an attempt to save face.”
