Building Safety

Andy Carter Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Actually, the Government acted decisively in the immediate aftermath of Grenfell Tower. Expert opinion has evolved over time. The first expert advice that the Government received was, as I said earlier, to focus on ACM cladding—the type of cladding on Grenfell Tower—and on those buildings over 18 metres. We put in place the funding to do that where the building owners and the industry were not able to, or would not, pay themselves. The expert advice then said that there were other materials that were somewhat less unsafe but which, none the less, still could be unsafe. That work is under way, and the Chancellor gave an extra £1 billion to do that at the Budget a year ago. Now, we have brought forward this very substantial intervention today. We are working intensively and extensively to tackle the issue, and I hope that today’s intervention will be a permanent and lasting settlement.

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con) [V]]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement on building safety. Warrington does not have any apartments over 18 metres, which would require remediation, but I have heard from a number of parents concerned that their sons and daughters are paying additional charges, levied by landlords, to cover the cost of insurance and waking watches in apartments that they have purchased. What steps are the Government taking to cover these costs, so that the burden does not fall on families in my constituency?

[Robert Jenrick]

The announcement that we have made today and the work that the Chancellor and I have done with each of the major retail banks, which strongly support the intervention, give much greater confidence to lenders, surveyors and insurers to re-enter the market, to bring down those premiums, to lend against these buildings and to enable the market to move forward again. This will take time and there is more to be done, but I think we will see the market moving forward now in a way that it has not done in recent months.