Building Safety

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we have spoken to lenders and there were positive statements by Barclays and the chief executive of Nationwide in the announcements. They welcomed this and recognised that the additional £3.5 billion helps to provide certainty, admittedly in high rises. The financing scheme remains open to all, both social sector and private sector leaseholders, to ensure that they would not have to pay more than £50 a month towards the remediation of unsafe cladding. In the round, the announcements we have made will give confidence to the market to be more sensible on valuation in future, I hope.

[Lord Moynihan (Con) [V]]

My Lords, this Statement is welcome as an important contribution to the absolute priority of safety in our housing stock and building back better. Will my noble friend consider expanding the remit of the building safety regulator to whom he has just referred to take into consideration the need to continue to upgrade the least efficient social housing stock, reduce carbon emissions and bills, tackle fuel poverty and save the budget to help 600,000 households reduce carbon emissions by subsidising the costs of energy efficiency? All these have an impact on safety.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for raising the issue of how we can ensure that we achieve our zero-carbon commitment. The building safety regulator has oversight of building control bodies and monitors their performance. We hope that oversight will improve the efficacy of building regulations across the board. I point out that climate change mitigation and adaptation are intrinsic components of building regulations and will remain so.