Labelling on electrical equipment sold by DIY stores must be used to warn that it is illegal for an unregistered person to carry out most electrical works in the home. In addition, public awareness about the risk of the odourless, invisible and potentially lethal carbon monoxide fumes must be raised to increase safety in the home. When it comes to gas and electrical safety, the Committee concludes that far too many homeowners do not appreciate either the dangers of using sub-standard engineers or their own liability when it comes to faulty gas and electrical work. The Government must co-ordinate a concerted effort by key industry organisations to raise public awareness levels on these crucial issues. To that end the Committee recommends that sockets and other electrical equipment sold by DIY stores for electrical installations should carry a health warning that it is illegal for an unregistered person to carry out most electrical works in the home without checks being completed meeting the requirements of the Building Control service. The Committee will be writing to all the big electrical/DIY stores to highlight this key recommendation. In its current consultation exercise into Building Regulations, the Government has examined further deregulation of Part P, which focuses on electrical installation and repair. The Committee highlights how evidence gathered since the introduction of these rules demonstrated that deaths and injuries due to electrical faults have decreased. De-regulation can only be supported if there was clear evidence that safety standards would not suffer, but such evidence has not been provided by the Government.

The Communities and Local Government Committee note that the quality of domestic electrical work has improved since some of it was brought within building control eight years ago. But much more needs to be done to protect people in their homes. The main mechanism for checking electrical work covered by Part P of the building regulations is satisfactory is certification by a qualified supervisor operating under a Government-approved competent persons scheme. As long as the qualified supervisor meets competence standards, the person carrying out the work does not necessarily have to be a qualified electrician. The report calls for competence requirements to be rolled out within five years for all those actually doing electrical work to which Part P applies. In the interim, it is recommended that there be a limit on the number of notifications that a single qualified supervisor can authorise in a year in order to ensure that they devote enough time to checking each job. The Government should aim to double public awareness of Part P within two years and aim for an awareness level similar to that of Gas Safe within five years (45%). Additionally, the report calls for more proactive enforcement against those who breach Part P.

The purpose of the report is to distil experience from this parliament and to assist the new committee in the next parliament. It considers how the Committee approached its work, the way it has used research and how this might be strengthened, and its own assessment of performance against the core tasks set by the Liaison Committee. It then suggests some matters the new committee might consider examining in the next Parliament. These include both 'unfinished business', topics the Committee looked at over the Parliament to which the successors might wish to return, and new developments, which the Committee considers will emerge as major issues over the next five years.

While it is recognised that there are some good park home site operators, the vast majority of the evidence received suggests that malpractice is widespread across the sector. The most widespread problems identified include: 'sale blocking' - withholding 'approval' of prospective sales possibly forcing vendors to sell their homes at a reduced price and before selling at a profit; harassment by site owners; a licensing regime which allows site owners to breach licence conditions with a maximum fine of only £2,500; and confusion over contractual obligations which leaves residents with little or no ability to take action if the site is not properly maintained. The Committee recommends legislation to remove a site owner's existing 'right to approve' buyers. To compensate for this, sellers would have to make buyers aware of their obligations towards a site and its owner in writing before sale transactions take place. Pending this legislation, clearer powers for the Residential Property Tribunal to award damages is needed. The licensing regime must be modernised. New legislation is needed to make site owner obligations clear and to require the deposit of site rules with local authorities. The Committee welcomes the Government's consultation A Better Deal for Mobile Home Owners, but warns that more needs to be done. If the expected improvements do not happen, then the new legislation must provide a power for the Government to allow local authorities to withdraw and withhold licences from site owners found not to be 'fit and proper'. This provision should be activated if problems are persisting.

This report concludes that the Government must employ a basket of measures, covering all tenures of housing, if sufficient finance is ever to be available to tackle the country's housing crisis. For decades, successive Governments have failed to deliver sufficient homes to meet demand. The country faces a significant housing shortfall, and the financial crisis has amplified the problem. 232,000 new households are forming each year in England, and yet in 2011 fewer than 110,000 new homes were completed. The Committee sets out four key areas for action, which, taken together, could go a long way to raising the finance needed to meet the housing shortfall: large-scale investment from institutions and pension funds; changes to the financing of housing associations, including a new role for the historic grant on their balance sheets; greater financial freedoms for local authorities; new and innovative models, including a massive expansion of self build housing.

On cover and title page: House, committees of the whole House, general committees and select committees. On title page: Returns to orders of the House of Commons dated 14 May 2013 (the Chairman of Ways and Means)

The Government's policy of empowering people through Community Rights to save local assets from closure, build community housing, take over local authority services and bring public land back into use has in its first two years had mixed results. The Rights - to Bid, to Build, to Challenge and to Reclaim Land - have generated some successes, with a small number of community groups being able, for example, to use the Community Right to Bid to stop valued local assets such as the local pub being sold for redevelopment. But limitations have also been exposed. The Community Right to Build is too complicated; the Community Right to Challenge, which triggers a tendering exercise to run a local service, risks damaging relations between communities and local government and is a gamble for groups wanting to run a local service as they may be outbid; and the Community Right to Reclaim Land has hardly been used. The Committee wants to see the Rights improved so that local people have more say over what happens to the land, buildings and services in their area. The Government should: enhance the Community Right to Bid by increasing from six to nine months the time people have to bid to buy a local asset; make it easier to remove or restrict the "permitted development" exemption from planning control when an asset has been listed as having Community Value; and make an asset's status as an Asset of Community Value a material consideration in all but minor planning applications.