Building Safety

Debate between Lee Rowley and Roger Gale

Tuesday 26th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety (Lee Rowley)]

With permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the continuing work to fix buildings with unsafe cladding across England, and the Government’s increasing determination to enforce against those who fail to take responsibility.

Since the beginning of 2023, there has been a step change in all aspects of remediation in England, from a limited programme to full coverage of all residential buildings over 11 metres; from developers not taking responsibility to their now being responsible for £3 billion of remediation across more than 1,500 buildings; from just over 1,600 buildings in remediation programmes last year to over 4,000 now; from 783 buildings having started or completed work in February 2023 to over 1,800 now; and from only 461 having completed last February to 863 now. Every month more buildings are identified, and more are beginning and completing works. That means that for some, albeit not all, the end is in sight.

From the start, we have prioritised the remediation of the highest risk buildings. Ninety-eight per cent of high-rise buildings with the most dangerous Grenfell-style aluminium composite material cladding have either started or completed work. Of the 10 occupied buildings remaining, two will start work this month and enforcement is being taken against a further six. Substantial progress can also be seen for buildings over 18 metres, with over half of known buildings having either started or completed work. The much more extensive work required for buildings between 11 metres and 18 metres is well under way. Since the full launch of the cladding safety scheme last July, over 400 buildings in the scheme have live applications. Grant funding agreements have been completed or are being signed for 152 buildings, and works have started on site for the first building. A further 4,000 buildings are being investigated and, where necessary, will be invited to apply to the scheme in the months ahead.

Further transparency is being brought to the social housing sector. Registered providers report that work has started on 525 buildings as of the end of November 2023, up from 394 at the end of August 2023. A further 200 have now been completed. For the first time, last Thursday we published detailed information on a provider-by-provider basis, which will be updated quarterly to ensure that residents can track what their individual provider is doing on remediation. While many buildings are being fixed or, better still, have completed remediation, there remains a reducing core of building owners who continue to hold up remediation. That is unacceptable. The Government continue to do whatever is necessary to change that.

All building owners must step up, do the right thing and fix their buildings without delay, or face the consequences of their inaction. The Government are leading the way on enforcement, with strategic interventions by our recovery strategy unit targeting the most egregious actors who are unwilling to make their buildings safe. The RSU was key to forcing Wallace Estates to agree to four remediation orders, ensuring that 400 leaseholders will be safe in their homes. Our legal action forced Grey GR, a subsidiary of Railpen, to fix building safety defects at Galbraith House within three weeks. The first trial against Grey GR for Vista Tower in Stevenage is imminent. Nine remediation contribution orders were taken out against three further organisations last week, including developers, to recover funds paid out by both taxpayers and leaseholders to fix buildings. We will continue to take action against those who do not step up to their responsibilities.

Colleagues in the fire and rescue services and local councils are critical to the fight to ensure that residents are safe, and we are working with them to increase action. Many councils and fire and rescue services are doing a good job, but some need to do more. Over the last year, the additional funding that we have provided for councils has meant that the pace of enforcement has stepped up markedly. Councils are informing us of enforcement action at a rate of four per week, compared with one per month in 2022, and we expect that to accelerate further. To support that, today we are publishing our first league table, outlining where enforcement is being taken so that residents can see exactly what is happening and where. We will regularly update the league table to ensure that the public remains sighted on their authorities’ enforcement activity.

Our focus now is on more, and more consistent, enforcement. Last week, I met the Building Safety Regulator and sector leaders to discuss how we can build a shared plan to increase the pace of remediation further. Today, I am announcing a number of initiatives to boost enforcement: a further £6 million to council enforcement teams, the development of a new regulatory protocol for greater consistency and a new fund that partners can access for legal support in complex cases.

For a task as big as this, remediation of buildings with issues was always going to take time. There is no doubt that in some parts of the sector it is still taking far too long. Yet already, almost 60,000 homeowners have peace of mind that remediation is complete, and a further 300,000 dwellings are well on the way to the same. Every week that goes by, more is done: there are more starts and more completions and, vitally, more of those who are unwilling to do the right thing are being exposed. We will not stop until we have fixed cladding issues. Today, I hope the House can see the real and accelerating progress that is being made.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the shadow Minister.

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[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I welcome the elements of his remarks that confirm that we are making progress. I will comment on some of the others in a moment. I take it from his reference to the statement being just a “rehashing” of stats that he is pretty content that the stats are moving in the right direction. Indeed, part of the point of today’s statement is to highlight that we have made significant progress in recent months and over the past year, while still recognising, as I did in my opening remarks, that there is much more to do. There are clearly actors who are not doing the right thing, and we are trying to take systematic, consistent and coherent action against them.

I just caution the hon. Gentleman that I did not indicate that the end of the building safety issues is near, despite both of us sharing the desire for that to come as soon as possible. I did, however, say that progress was being made. To get to the end point, we must make progress. I think what the statement demonstrates, just like the written ministerial statement in October, is that we continue as a Government and as a country to make progress.

The hon. Gentleman rightly highlights that this has taken time, but if we look at individual funds, we can see that those that were open the earliest are now coming to a conclusion. For the ACM fund, 98% of known buildings are remediated or on the way to being remediated. That was opened in 2018-19. For the building safety fund for buildings over 18 metres, over half are either completed or on the way to being completed. That was opened in 2020. So, again, there is progress. These things take time. They are often very complicated. Unfortunately, we often have to drag freeholders to do the right thing, for example to encourage owners of buildings between 11 metres and 18 metres to get involved in the fund. We are doing that as actively as we can. There is work to do, but further progress is being made.

The hon. Gentleman raises the specific question of second staircases. The statement is an update on building safety, but I will extend the scope slightly. We have committed, having already provided some information in recent months, to providing further information on second staircases by the end of the month. I can confirm that that will occur this week.

On enforcement, I gently say that it is absolutely incorrect to talk about reactive, piecemeal announcements. If we go down the list of what is being announced in the league table today, we can see clear evidence of progress being made all across the country: London Fire Brigade, 94 statutory enforcement notices; Greater Manchester, 32; East Sussex, 26; West Yorkshire, 14; and Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, 11. I could go on and on and on. There are multiple pages here where we can see progress. The Government are making the information as transparent as possible, so that residents who are impacted can understand where their individual local bodies are and hold them to account where necessary.

Finally, on insurance premiums, the hon. Gentleman and I share a great deal of focus on trying to make things move as quickly as possible. I completely agree with him that progress needs to be made. I am pleased that the industry has announced the launch of its industry-led insurance premium scheme, from 1 April next week. Bluntly, it has taken too long. I have spent an awful lot of time over the past few months encouraging the sector to do that. From the moment it opens, we will monitor extremely carefully what the impact will be on the most affected buildings. I hope we will be able to say more about that in the coming months. I encourage colleagues who have insurance concerns—many Members in the Chamber have already raised them with me—to continue to raise them. Where remediation is under way or has concluded, we would expect some form of accommodation to be made against the premiums in those buildings unless there was a good reason not to do so. If hon. Members have individual examples of where that has not occurred, I would be very grateful to receive them.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

It is some years since our late colleague, David Amess, led a few of us who were interested in fire safety even before Grenfell.

We must remember that in the months after Grenfell, everyone backed away thinking that residential leaseholders would be the only people who would have to bear the £10 billion to £15 billion cost of remediation—and that was before we knew all about the other fire defects, which our building control standards and inspections had allowed to accumulate over the decades. We should all hang our heads.

The Minister rightly talked about needing more transparency. I say in passing, although it is a very serious point, that anyone who looks at page 3 of the Financial Times today, on the possible future policy on ground rents, will see an indication that people who own such buildings—the pension funds, the Long Harbours of this world, the Tchenguizes’ interests and others—ought to be looking at their own social and environmental responsibilities, getting rid of ground rents and spending their money on making buildings safe for everyone to live in.

Cladding groups and leaseholders’ groups deserve praise, as do the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership and the present chair of the Government’s Leasehold Advisory Service, who can point out some of the things that have not yet been done. This is an interim statement and we look forward to hearing more, whether by written or oral statements, but may I say to the Minister that the one group that seems to have been let off is the insurance companies who backed the developers, architects, surveyors, builders and component suppliers?

The Government should find a way to take together the potential claims of all the residents, tenants, leaseholders and owners of properties, and have a roundtable with insurance companies and get the billions of pounds out of them that they would have to pay if it went to court, without paying the lawyers half the money.

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[Lee Rowley]

The first thing we need to do is bring greater transparency to service charges, which is what we are trying to do through the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill. Assuming that progress is made in the other place, I hope that it will be on the statute book as quickly as possible, and then it will be clear exactly where such costs come from.

The second thing that is that our colleagues in the Financial Conduct Authority are bringing in the fair charging regime to make sure there are no inappropriate commissions and that, from an insurance perspective, exchanges are not under way with brokers, which will hopefully reduce the costs.

The third thing is the industry-led insurance scheme, which should hopefully bring down insurance costs for those who are most exposed. However, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we need greater transparency and a greater understanding of where these costs are going, and we need to make sure that freeholders and managing agents are following the law, which is very clear about the kinds of costs that can and cannot be allocated. If there is something specific about the building he mentions that the Government can look at, I will happily talk to him separately.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I thank the Opposition Front Bencher and the Minister for their participation in the statement.

Non-Domestic Rating Bill

Debate between Lee Rowley and Roger Gale

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 25th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Lee Rowley)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments 2 and 3.

[Lee Rowley]

It is a pleasure to return this Bill to this place after its positive reception, both here initially and in the other place more recently. Reforming business rates was a manifesto commitment, and having concluded our review of rates, the Bill seeks to deliver a fairer and more effective business rates system.

The amendments that the Government invite the House to support today are minor and do not change the policy intentions of the Bill, which we have debated before in this place. Two amendments deal with the penalties regime for the new duty on ratepayers in clause 13—they are designed to ensure that the penalties system is fairer—and the third is a minor and technical amendment that removes some obsolete wording as a result of another part of the Bill. I will deal with each amendment briefly.

Lords amendment 1 concerns the civil penalties that the Valuation Office Agency can apply if ratepayers do not provide information under the duty. These include an additional daily penalty of £60, which may only be applied if a ratepayer persistently fails to meet their obligations following an initial penalty notice. The Government have listened to the views of the experts in the other place and agreed to create an additional safeguard for ratepayers by capping the financial value of penalties that can be imposed under this provision. Daily penalties will be capped at £1,800, equivalent to 30 days’ worth of penalties. This change will also bring the valuation duty in line with the separate duty to provide His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs with a taxpayer reference number, for which a cap on penalties is already in place.

Lords amendment 2 concerns the penalty for the criminal offence of knowingly or recklessly making a false statement, an offence that is subject to higher penalties than simply failing to comply. The Bill prescribes that for a higher penalty to be applied, the VOA must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the ratepayer has made the false statement knowingly or recklessly. Having reflected, we have recognised that we need to apply the same burden of proof to the procedure on appeal. The amendment therefore provides that the valuation tribunal must remit a penalty unless it is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the ratepayer has knowingly or recklessly made a false statement. This provides additional protection for ratepayers.

Finally, Lords amendment 3 is a minor and technical change to the Local Government Finance Act 1988, as a consequential effect of the provisions in the Bill concerning business rates multipliers. This is simply a drafting correction to improve the clarity of the statute book, and the Government do not foresee any practical effect.

The Government invite the House to agree to three minor amendments that were unanimously supported in the other place. Lords amendments 1 and 2 refine and improve the compliance framework for the new information duty, and Lords amendment 3 is a minor consequential change to improve the clarity of the statute book. I commend them to the House.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Opposition Front Bencher.