Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc) Bill

Gideon Amos Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 27th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

As we remember the 72 victims of Grenfell and the many who are still waiting for justice, I know the Secretary of State and Members from across the whole House share the same commitment to do right by them, to ensure such a calamity never happens again, and to do better for all the leaseholders and residents living with unsafe cladding through no fault of their own.

We need a Bill that will, once and for all, make people’s homes not just safer but as safe as their residents have a right to expect them to be. The Liberal Democrats remain committed to getting the removal of unsafe cladding urgently and by a statutory deadline, to getting remediation to the right safety standard—the one that building regulations were uprated to post-Grenfell—and to residents not having to pay a penny towards fixing a crisis not of their own making. We will look at the amendments that have just been outlined, and we look forward studying them when they come forward. Sadly, as the Bill stands it does none of those things and, because of that, it is substandard and needs radical improvement.

On the plus side, let me be clear about the positive aspects of the Bill that we support. We support the legal duty for responsible entities to remediate, including the important extension of the duty in relation to buildings of 11 to 18 metres in height. We support the stronger intervention powers for housing authorities and the regulator against the blockers, such as through remediation management orders. We support making it easier to bring claims against cladding manufacturers, and we support requirements to have fire risk assessments of external walls and associated registers.

For those reasons, we have not gone as far as tabling a fatal amendment, despite the very serious flaws, as we see them. It would be wrong to deny support to any leaseholders or residents who without this Bill would get less help, but I call on the Government to consider seriously the degree to which the Bill is lacking. While I do not doubt the sincerity of the Secretary of State or the Bill, the Government need to think harder and bring forward amendments that are urgently needed to strengthen the Bill. In the stages that follow Second Reading, we will be suggesting and proposing changes, and working with the Government as constructively as we can to get the improvements that we believe are necessary.

Where does the Bill fall short? First and foremost, it enshrines into law the discredited publicly available specification 9980—PAS 9980—approach. As shown in clause 44, that will allow cladding of “tolerable” risk of combustion to remain on homes after they have been remediated. One may expect “tolerable” risk to be no more than the level of risk allowed in new buildings under the building regulations, as tightened up after Grenfell, but as the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) has already alluded to, it is not that standard. In this Bill, remediation will be only to a standard that a fire risk assessor decides is “tolerable”. We are talking about fire risk assessors paid by building owners, who are more likely than not to have commercial interests in doing as few works as possible to their building. While I am sure that most assessors are reliable professionals, given that the Grenfell inquiry report chaired by judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick cited “commercial interests” in this area of work as one of the contributory factors to the fire, is retaining commercial interests in the system of fire risk assessment, assessors and building inspectors a risk worth taking?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The hon. Gentleman and I have common cause in this respect, and I rely on the expertise of my constituents in this matter. The PAS 9980 approach was not reassuring for insurers. There was a big problem with insurance anyway, but PAS 9980 does not solve it, because it does not give insurers the certainty they need to do the risk assessment. I am not here as an apologist for the insurance industry—in fact, there are many issues that we will be taking up with that industry—but this approach is not the answer. Given his level of deep expertise in this matter before he came to the place, what would the hon. Gentleman propose instead? Is there an amendment to the Bill that he and the Government could coalesce around and reach agreement on?

[Gideon Amos]

The hon. Member is very kind—I am sure my experience is as great as many other Members of the House. I am coming to what we believe would be a preferable standard. Our approach is that these issues of “commercial interests” should be expunged from the Bill, and that the tolerability approach should be removed. We believe that existing homes and buildings should be remediated to meet the standard of fire safety required in the building regulations that were uprated in 2018, after Grenfell.

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

Although this Bill is specifically about the remediation of cladding, this issue goes further. Building control is typically undertaken or at least instructed by the local planning authority, and is now instructed and employed by the developers. When my constituents Trisha and Ray moved into their new build in Wimborne, they found that the structural issues in their property had not been independently signed off. They have now found that no one has access to the structural drawings of their building other than the inspector, so when they had problems with their roof, the council had no details, they could not access details and they could not check compliance. Does my hon. Friend agree that, for the protection of residents, an ethical wall needs to be created between developers and inspectors, with proper enforcement and mandatory Housing Ombudsman Service membership for developers?

[Gideon Amos]

I certainly support my hon. Friend’s plea. I will come to the issue of the independence of building inspectors, which is very important.

Let me return to standards. The building regulations are the standard that the Government have set; they are needed for newly built homes to be safe, so the same standard therefore has to apply to the homes that people already live in. I have visited high-rise apartments in London and elsewhere, and seen them covered in scaffolding and being remediated under the developer scheme, but many of them are being left with so much cladding breaching building regulations and fire safety standards that residents cannot get insurance.

It is the insurance that really gives the game away. If the building really was safe, why would the insurance premiums be so high? We have increases in insurance costs of 56% and higher. For that reason, many owners cannot sell or get a new mortgage, so they sink into negative equity and become mortgage prisoners in their own home.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Member is making a very important point. Does he agree that the high insurance costs are in no way caused by any action taken by the residents who are forced to pay them? In all honesty, they deserve compensation.

[Gideon Amos]

Absolutely. The right hon. Gentleman almost read the next line of my speech—I do not know how he did that from his seat over there.

Leaseholders and residents should not have to pay a penny for defects that were not their fault. Thousands of pounds extra in insurance are being paid by completely innocent homeowners to compensate for a safety standard that, while of course is better than nothing, is quite frankly not the standard that it should be—and that is after remediation to the standard has been carried out through this Bill. Meeting the established building regulations standard would perhaps cost more, but why should residents be condemned to live in buildings remediated to a lesser standard than the one that we consider safe for new homes?

The profit motive needs to be expunged from building inspector services generally, and the Bill fails to do that. We need to remove commercial interests from building inspectors and fire risk assessors by placing them all under a publicly controlled, non-profit making authority. There is still no statutory certification requirement for a competent person to become a fire risk assessor. When will those measures be brought forward, as has been promised in previous legislation?

The second big omission is that this Bill provides no more funding for those in buildings under 11 metres in height now that the funding window has closed. While medium-rise buildings come more firmly into scope, which is welcome, why should any residents be forced to pay to put right bad practice that was not their fault? Leaseholders in Taunton and Wellington and across the country are already paying ground rents that are too high to absentee landlords for nothing in return, as abolishing residential leasehold seems to recede further and further into the future.

The Bill fails to give residents the right to see their building’s fire risk assessment and to give local authorities the resources to deliver the new enforcement duties. It also fails to commit the Government to making manufacturers—those that make unsafe products that cause fire—pay. That leaves the onus on others to pursue them through slow and costly court action. It is our position that, in those ways, the Bill fails to fully implement the Grenfell Tower inquiry recommendations. Finally, there is no deadline in the Bill by which all the defects revealed by Grenfell across the tall buildings estate will be put right.

The fire safety of all homes needs to meet the standard that we require for new homes. Existing residents are no less worthy of that than the residents of future homes, who will benefit from the building regulations standard. The commercial interests that ran rife in building safety inspections in the lead-up to Grenfell need to be rooted out once and for all, and residents and leaseholders must not be expected to pay a penny towards repairing a crisis they are completely innocent of causing. We must make homes fully safe under building regulations revised for that purpose; make oversight and inspection independent, not profit-dependent; hold developers and manufacturers to account by pursuing them for the costs; protect leaseholders, including those in buildings under 11 metres; and put residents at the heart of remediation, so that they can see the assessments of their homes and have a real, statutory deadline. That is the Bill that the House needed to see today, and it is the Bill we will work hard to shape through its remaining stages.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn (Leeds South) (Lab)]

I unreservedly welcome the Bill. The story of the cladding crisis arose out of the appalling tragedy at Grenfell on that night over nine years ago, when all those people died in the place they should have felt most safe—their home. They died because of a series of catastrophic failures.

The first and most obvious failure was that cladding was allowed to be put in combinations on the sides of buildings when no one had actually tested what would happen if those combinations caught fire. It is astonishing, when one looks back at it, that architects were able to specify combinations. We now know that when some of those combinations had been put on rigs and set fire to—boom!—they had gone up very quickly.

The second thing—my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) spoke so well—is that we are here, over nine years after the event, and we still have not sorted it out. I am much struck by the example that he quoted from Australia; he is right. Many of my constituents have been affected by the cladding scandal. For most of them, it is fair to say, their homes have now been dealt with, but there are still far too many people whose homes have not been. The reaction of the Government at the time was, “Well, it’s not really our responsibility.” They had to be forced by stages, over the years, to do more and more.

There was also a failure to build the blocks in line with the building regulations at the time. It is one thing to look at the cladding—people said, “Oh, I didn’t know that was a problem”—but as it was pulled off buildings, one after another, what did we find? We found that the fire-stopping measures, the firebreaks, were missing—even though that was a requirement of the building regulations at the time. This is a story of a load of jerry-built buildings that people lived in for many years, as one Member said, with no idea that they were living in a fire trap. I make that point because, on occasion, I have heard Members in this Chamber lambast Britain as an over-regulated society. I mean, give us a break! This story is a monumental failure of regulation. People died as a result, and many other people’s lives have been put on hold, as we have heard.

I join others in paying tribute to the End Our Cladding Scandal group, Leeds Cladding Scandal, and the many constituents who have raised cases with me and who have worked so hard to try to change the circumstances in which they find themselves. Time and again, people have said to me, as they have to all other hon. Members, “I thought I’d bought the home of my dreams, and I find I’m living in a nightmare that I don’t seem able to get out of.” Many Members have referred to people’s lives being put on hold. That is absolutely true: they cannot get on with things, whether having a family or moving to another part of the country where they have been offered a good job, because they cannot sell their flat. There appears to be no escape. The bills go up, the waking watches are costly, insurance is expensive and service charges go up. I remember the first constituent who told me, “I’ve had to move out of my flat.” I said, “You’ve moved out of your flat?” He said, “Yes, I couldn’t afford the bills, so I moved out of my flat; I’m now renting it, so I can pay the bills that I can’t afford in the flat that I thought was the home of my dreams.”

Each block, particularly the ones that have not yet been remediated, is a very complex story—changing ownership, developers disappearing or going bust, the legal pass the parcel, which was mentioned in a previous speech, and mortgage lenders refusing to lend. The hard truth is that no legislation is going to require a mortgage lender to lend on a property it does not want to lend on. The mortgage lenders therefore have to have confidence.

[Gideon Amos]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a typically cogent, sensible speech. Is not the logical conclusion of what he is driving at that buildings should be remediated to a standard such that they can be insured at reasonable levels and will get mortgages, and that that is the building regulation standard we require for new buildings?

[Hilary Benn]

I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but is he arguing that a mortgage lender should be required by law—

[Gideon Amos]

indicated dissent.

[Hilary Benn]

No, the hon. Gentleman is not; I did not think that he was. That is a fundamental problem. It is about confidence in the system and in the property. Too many of my constituents still worry that they could be landed with bills they simply cannot afford. Someone said to me, “Thirty thousand quid? It might as well be 30 million quid, because I can’t afford thirty thousand.”

I want to raise three specific issues. First, I very much welcome what the Secretary of State said in her opening speech about those who have bought non-qualifying flats. As I was reflecting on the question I put to her about making the measure retrospective, I realised that that probably is not an issue here. The sole owner of a flat that was deemed to be non-qualifying will be relieved of the requirement to meet the costs themselves and will be eligible for the support that other leaseholders have.

The second issue relates to blocks below 11 metres. I echo the point made by the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer). There is a development in Leeds called the Chandlers; some of the blocks are over 11 metres and some are below 11 metres. Applications have been made to the new fund that was opened—from memory, the closing day was 17 August. There will be lots of applications, and we do not know who will be successful and who will not. I seek clarity from the Minister. As I understand it, under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, a “responsible person” is required to carry out fire risk assessments on all buildings and put in place measures to address fire risks they identify. A House of Commons Library briefing note states:

“Since 2022, this risk assessment duty has included assessing the structure and external walls of the building, including cladding”.

Although the Government generally argue that most buildings under 11 metres do not present a risk, what is the situation in cases where there is a risk in those buildings? For example, a PAS 9980 assessment was done for the Chandlers. The residents were first told that the blocks under 11 metres were a high risk; they were then told that those blocks were a medium risk. But hey—a medium risk is still a risk. Would you want to live in a block that has a medium risk of catching fire, putting your life at risk? I have read the Bill and the explanatory memorandum on this point quite hurriedly, and it appears that these particular powers apply to buildings of over 11 metres. However, since the Government have said, “We are prepared to provide funding for buildings under 11 metres,” can the Minister tell me whether any of the powers in the legislation as it is currently drafted apply to blocks of under 11 metres and the people responsible for them? If not, if such a block has got a PAS 9980 assessment that says, “This is a risk”, then why, logically, would we not extend these powers to ensure the remediation of blocks under 11 metres?

Finally, I join my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) in making a plea about people who really, really, really need to move. Could the Government think creatively about developers buying back flats or, as was said a moment ago, the local authority purchasing them? We want more social housing, and each one would be one more unit. I wonder whether we could see what might be done to help people who really needed to move—for example, if their mother were extremely ill and they needed to move in order to look after her.

Having said that, our constituents who still live in unsafe flats have waited far too long to have them made safe, and I look forward to the Bill making very speedy passage through both Houses.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith (Florence Eshalomi)]

I thank Members from across the House for their contributions. As the Secretary of State, the shadow Minister and many hon. and right hon. Members outlined, next June will mark a decade since the Grenfell fire disaster took the lives of 72 people, including 18 children. None of us can imagine the horror that survivors, families and friends suffered that day, and the community will continue to carry that trauma, anguish and suffering throughout their lives.

It is a tragedy that should never have happened, and one that must never happen again, but we must be honest and say that it is unacceptable that far too many people in this country still do not have the safety and security of a safe roof over their heads, nine years after Grenfell. This is not just about building safety; it is about giving everyone the peace of mind that a safe, decent and affordable home brings. We must ask ourselves how we can expect anyone to sleep soundly, and get on in life, if the building they sleep in every night is covered in dangerous and flammable cladding. The building safety crisis must be resolved, homes must be made safe, and residents must be allowed to live their lives.

This Government were elected on a manifesto that made commitments to accelerate remediation, better protect leaseholders and make those responsible for the building safety crisis pay to put it right. Our remediation acceleration plan and this Bill deliver on that pledge. By introducing a register of 11 to 18 metre buildings and a national standard for assessing buildings, the Bill will finally bring certainty on the scale of the problem and the work required to fix it. By creating a new legal duty to remediate, backed up by substantial new penalties for inaction, we will compel those responsible to fix their buildings without delay.

[Gideon Amos]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for giving way during a very serious and measured speech. She referred to the standard of remediation. A number of Members, including myself, raised use of the standard of tolerability instead of building regulations. Are the Government willing to review the standard of remediation so that after remediation, buildings are not left, as they are now, with flammable cladding on the outside?

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. A number of Members have raised the matter of remediation standards. I know that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton), who is sitting next to him, also raised it in a recent Westminster Hall debate that I responded to.

Many right hon. and hon. Members will be aware that the Bill will make independent auditing of fire risk appraisals of external walls mandatory. We are confident that PAS 9980 has a robust and appropriate methodology for assessing the risk of fire spreading throughout the building. The Bill will also look at the independent auditing and the statutory requirement, ensuring that additional checks on those assessments have been carried out properly. To reassure Members, Homes England will also audit all assessments that recommend mitigation and remediation and will have the power to audit other assessments.

By delivering the remediation backstop, we will ensure that no building and no resident is left behind, even if the person responsible for the building is determined to ignore the risks it presents to residents. By creating stronger avenues for redress against construction product manufacturers, we will ensure that those responsible for the cladding safety crisis pay towards the cost of fixing it.

I thank the Secretary of State and the Building Safety Minister, Baroness Blake, for bringing the Bill forward. I also thank all the Ministers who came before me for the work they did to make this Bill a reality, including the Lord Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed) and my hon. Friends the Members for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon) and for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Rushanara Ali).