Building Safety Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Young of Cookham
Main Page: Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Young of Cookham's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(5 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for the additional information, but can I press her a little further on the key issue raised by the two noble Baronesses: the pace of remediation? I welcome the action taken last year by the Government to compel 50 major developers to sign the developer remediation contract, but it does not have a timescale. One large London-centric developer, Galliard, says that its remediation plan could take another eight years. That will be 15 years after the Grenfell tragedy. Does my noble friend think that is acceptable? Related to that, under the contract, developers are obliged to report their target dates for each building to my noble friend’s department in their quarterly returns data. So far, the department has not published that data, meaning that leaseholders are unaware of what progress is being made. Can she consider publishing that data, which the department has, so that people know the pace agreed by the developer and her department?
I thank my noble friend for that question. To start with the second question first, yes, I shall take that back to the department. Given that transparency is a tool that we are using, it would make sense to make that communication transparent. I shall report back to my noble friend on progress on that.
On whether I personally think that developers taking eight years to fix this is acceptable, absolutely not. These are people’s homes; they need to feel safe. The reason why that new money has become available for regulators is to ensure that enforcement action can happen and to increase the pace of the change that is required, ensuring that remediation takes place as soon as possible. Therefore, I suggest that, if there are specific instances, noble Lords should speak to the department so that we can make sure that pressure is put on.