Buildings: Cladding

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Pinnock]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure the removal of dangerous cladding from buildings identified as high-risk.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I draw attention to my relevant interests in the register.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

We have provided £5.1 billion to remediate cladding in high-rise residential buildings, targeting funding at buildings we know to be at greatest risk of fire spread.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

Despite the Minister trying to blind us again with statistics, the hard fact is that thousands of leaseholders are living in limbo, suffering anxiety and in despair. Some are even being held to ransom; they are being asked to sign a commitment to pay many tens of thousands of pounds for the remediation of building safety defects that are exposed when cladding is removed. No cladding work is done until they sign that bit of paper. Leaseholders are being held to ransom; they cannot move and they cannot get anything done. Surely the Minister will agree with me that this cannot be right. What is he going to do about it?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I mentioned only one statistic; I do not think that one statistic or one figure—£5.1 billion—is blinding anybody. I point to the progress: despite a pandemic, the ACM funding of some £600 million has seen around 16,500 homes being fully remediated. That is an increase of 4,700 since the end of last year. The new building safety fund, topped up so that the total remediation amounts to £5 billion, is estimated to cover around 65,000 homes in high-rise blocks. So there are many tens of thousands of leaseholders who are benefiting from government funding.