Tower Blocks: Cladding

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, all I can say is that we are making great progress in dispensing our funding. We continue to recognise the urgency of removing the unsafe cladding, and we have made a commitment whereby costs will not be a factor in removing it from high-rises.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is the basic duty of government to protect its citizens from harm? That includes having building and other regulations and having the necessary means of enforcing them to deliver this; these are all within the Government’s control. This debate on blame will go on for years, but now it is surely time for the Government to commit to funding all the works to replace all substandard and non-compliant materials, and ensure that the owners, tenants and leaseholders are not asked to contribute.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we recognise the duty of government to do something about the regulatory system failure that we saw, but also the very poor practices that we have seen from construction companies, through the Grenfell inquiry. That is why we are bringing forward the building safety Bill to bring about a revolution in how we regulate high-risk buildings and establishing the building safety regulator in statute. We have made very clear our commitment, by putting forward an unprecedented sum to ensure that remediation of unsafe cladding can be carried out.