Leaseholders: Properties with Cladding

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, that is a very pertinent question and I thank my noble friend for raising it. There are ways to deal with that. Frankly, they have made large sums of money in the last few years and their profits are often publicly available. There is a soft power aspect: developers want to continue to build if they are in business, and they can afford £60,000 for a fire alarm and to pay for remediation costs. They do the right thing. We saw with the aluminium composite material programme that around half of building owners did the right thing and did not to have to resort to payment and subsidy by the taxpayer.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I refer the House to my relevant interests as set out in the register. Does the Minister agree that it is important for all building owners and managers to be open, honest and transparent with leaseholders about the fire safety defects and other risks in their buildings as part of dealing with the cladding and fire safety scandal and future problems? Will he agree to look at what specific legislative measures could be included in the building safety Bill, including serious criminal sanctions for those who fail to do so?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, there will be a lot of legislative work in the next calendar year on the building safety Bill, and we still have the Fire Safety Bill to play ping-pong with. I will ensure that we consider the noble Lord’s proposals very closely indeed to ensure that we hold building owners to account. That is the whole idea of the building safety Bill: that there is an accountable person.