Building and Fire Safety: Leaseholders

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure leaseholders and others who have building and fire safety issues for which they are not responsible are not excluded from any measures or funding intended to solve such issues.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and in doing so I refer the House to my interests as set out in the register.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

Leaseholders living in their own properties in buildings over 11 metres will be protected from all cladding remediation costs. The Building Safety Bill will require developers to pay to fix historical building safety defects in buildings they own above 11 metres. We will legislate to make sure that other building owners who can afford to pay cannot pass historical building safety defect costs on to leaseholders. Leaseholders who are liable to pay for some non-cladding costs will have those capped in a way similar to Florrie’s law.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his response and for the progress made, and I accept that good progress has been made. However, the situation remains that there are general building safety issues and some of these leaseholders are still left in appalling situations. Does the noble Lord accept the principle that if you are not responsible for the poor workmanship, you never signed it off as satisfactory and you did not insure it, you cannot be expected to pay for what is now deemed not fit for purpose? If he accepts that, he is the one person who can do something about it. He is the Minister responsible and has the ear of the Prime Minister, so what are we going to do?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for putting me in the hot seat. We have done an awful lot. It is fair to say that through regulation we can ensure that we protect leaseholders, who are very much the victims, from bearing anything apart from, I hope, very minimal costs. Those have been capped at £15,000 over five years in London and £10,000 outside London. That is for the narrowest shoulders, particularly shared owners, who are protected as well. We can always do more, and I appreciate that that campaign reckons that we should take this down to zero. However, we continue to ensure that we protect leaseholders wherever we possibly can.