The Climate Change Committee finds no single department owns residential overheating. Building Regulations Part O covers only new-build, is weakly enforced and is misaligned with the energy-efficiency Part L. Nothing addresses the existing stock, and no support scheme serves heat-vulnerable, low-income households. MHCLG owns building standards, DHSC and UKHSA own heat-health alerts, and DESNZ owns retrofit, and none owns the outcome. 2025 was the UK's hottest year on record.
The CCC projects a majority of homes at risk of overheating by 2050 and heat mortality rising sharply. Most heat deaths happen indoors, and split responsibility means no one is accountable for keeping people alive there during heatwaves.
A named lead department for heat resilience, a passive-cooling retrofit programme for existing and social housing, Part O enforced across all tenures, and targeted cooling support for heat-vulnerable low-income households.
// State-led: Instrument: machinery-of-government designation of a lead department, Part O regulatory extension and funded retrofit programme.
Nobody owns residential overheating after the hottest year on record, and naming a lead department is easy with no dated policy trigger forcing it.