Leaseholders and Cladding

Debate between Meg Hillier and Christopher Pincher

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to my hon. Friend, who I know has been campaigning long and hard on this issue in Watford. As I have said, as a result of some considerable and lengthy negotiations with the financial services sector, we have agreed that EWS1 forms will not be necessary for buildings that are for sale that are not clad in the same way as some buildings that are in grave difficulty. That will help 450,000 people around the country, a number of whom I suspect will be my hon. Friend’s constituents. There is more work to do on this matter and we will continue to undertake it.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I need to declare my interest in that I am a leaseholder in an affected block, but in my case, my developer is paying for the full remediation works. The Minister must acknowledge that this is one of the biggest consumer and safety failures in a generation. For all that I chair the Public Accounts Committee—we have published a report on this issue—and I watch taxpayers’ money very closely, surely the Government need to step up, just as they did when the former Secretary of State signed a ministerial direction sanctioning the expenditure of millions of pounds because he knew that it would take too long to go through the legal process of tracking down the actual owners of buildings for the most dangerous cladding. The Government need to step up. We need 10 times the amount that has been pledged. Surely the Minister must recognise this. Too many leaseholders are trapped and will never be able to move.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, and I know that she is a very considerate and assiduous Chair of the Public Accounts Committee. The Government, though, have stepped up. It is why we put £600 million on the table to remediate ACM-clad buildings, and about 79% of those have now either completed or begun their remediation. Ninety-seven per cent. of social housing buildings have had that remediation completed. It is why we stepped up again with £1 billion through the building safety fund to remediate buildings that have other non-ACM-style dangerous cladding, but we must not absolve the developers and the owners of their responsibility to make sure that remediation takes place in the buildings for which they are responsible. We work with them to make sure that happens while we keep the general situation under review.

Flammable Cladding Removal

Debate between Meg Hillier and Christopher Pincher

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I will not dwell on any particular tower block or issue, but let me simply say that our intention is to make sure that leaseholders should not have to foot the bill; building owners and building managers and their agents should be looking after their buildings. That is why the Government have intervened with funding and specialist support, and we will not tolerate any further delays. Where building owners are failing to make acceptable progress, those responsible should expect local authorities and fire and rescue services to take tougher enforcement action.

By the end of May, of the 455 identified high-rise buildings with ACM cladding, 209 had either completed remediation or had their ACM cladding systems removed, while a further 86 had started remediation but not yet had ACM cladding removed. However, although there has been progress, there is much more to be done. We are under no illusion about that. For the removal of unsafe ACM cladding, we are aiming for all building owners to have works on site by the end of 2020, with completion of remedial works by the end of 2021. It is a challenge, but one that we are determined to meet.

Even with public funding available, the pace has been much too slow. We recognise that remediation is a complex undertaking and that every building is different; we also understand that building owners do not always have the requisite expertise or experience to advance the work. We have therefore recently appointed Faithful+Gould as specialist construction consultants to help responsible entities to increase capacity and capability and to support them directly through the remediation process. F+G is currently working with those buildings identified as most at risk of missing the end-of-year date. It is examining project plans and seeking ways to reduce timescales to mobilise projects.

Overall, the Government have set aside £1.6 billion in funding for the remediation of ACM and other types of unsafe cladding from high-rise residential buildings in the private and social housing sectors. We made that money available to support the remediation of unsafe cladding, and a large proportion of that support will protect leaseholders from costs. We recognise that there are wider remediation costs that will need to be met to ensure the safety of existing blocks of flats, but the public funding does not absolve the industry from taking responsibility for any failures that led to unsafe cladding materials being put on those buildings in the first place. We expect developers, investors and building owners who have the means to pay to take responsibility and cover the cost of remediation themselves, without passing on costs to leaseholders.

The Government have committed £600 million to remediate buildings in the public, social and private sectors and speed up the pace of remediation of ACM cladding. In the private sector, although some developers said that they would meet the costs, it became clear that a significant number of building owners could not or would not do so, and therefore funding needed to be made available to enable progress. That is why in May 2019 we announced that £200 million of funding would be available for ACM remediation in private sector buildings, and the fund was opened for applications in September that year. As of May 2020, the Department expects to pay for 94 projects in the private sector where the developer or building owner has not agreed to fund remediation work themselves. The owners of 84 private sector residential buildings have committed to funding the remediation works themselves, with a further 23 self- funded through accepted warranty claims. We are working with a handful of other buildings where a funding route has yet to be agreed. The availability of funding and a direct package of support for building owners means that there can be no excuses for further delays. For those who fail to make acceptable progress, tougher sanctions are coming, first through our Fire Safety Bill, currently before Parliament, and subsequently when our new building safety regime comes into place.

We have always acknowledged that there are materials other than ACM cladding that are of concern. We have been providing advice on their removal to building owners since 2017. The highest priority has been the removal of the type of ACM used on Grenfell Tower because it poses the most severe safety risk, but there are other unsafe cladding materials that must also be removed. That is why in March this year we announced an additional £1 billion of funding for the remediation of unsafe non-ACM cladding in the social and private residential sectors. We expect this funding to be fully committed by the end of March 2021. The new building safety fund will cover high-rise buildings with unsafe non-ACM cladding, such as some types of high-pressure laminate.

The issue of waking watch was raised by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow and by other hon. and right hon. Members. I know that leaseholders have concerns about costs of interim measures—costs that have been heightened due to the covid-19 emergency. These interim measures include waking watches. Waking watch is meant to be a short-term tool: it is no substitute for remediation. But the only way to remove the need for interim measures is to remove unsafe cladding as quickly as possible. That is why we are prioritising £1.6 billion of public subsidy on remediation of unsafe cladding. That said, my noble Friend Lord Greenhalgh, the Minister with responsibility for building safety, is investigating what we can do to reduce the cost of waking watch. This includes publishing data on the costs of waking watch to ensure greater transparency on costs. Moreover, the National Fire Chiefs Council is updating its guidance. We have asked the fire protection boards to advise fire and rescue services on how best to operationalise the revised guidance, including looking to measures such as installing building-wide fire alarm systems.

[Meg Hillier]

Will the Minister commit to looking at the issue of professional indemnity insurance? This does need a good political fix at the top.

Business and Planning Bill

Debate between Meg Hillier and Christopher Pincher

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point. I will address it, if I may, when I come to new clause 6, which the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) mentioned. To speak partly to his point, and in conclusion on this, the powers are subject to the affirmative procedure for draft regulations, which will enable Parliament to scrutinise thoroughly any relevant use of the powers, because the approval of both Houses will be needed. I therefore do not think that there is a need for new clause 4, and I would invite the Opposition to withdraw it.

With respect to new clause 5, again I thank the hon. Member for Weaver Vale for its tabling, because it provides an opportunity to give reassurance that local authorities will not be overburdened by the proposals in the Bill. This new clause would require the Secretary of State, following consultation with local planning authorities, to publish a report to provide an assessment of the costs to be incurred by local authorities as part of our proposed planning measures in the context of the covid-19 epidemic.

The applications relate to both the provision allowing for applications to extend construction working hours under clause 16 and the additional environmental approval process under clauses 17 and 18. Both the new forms of application will be free of charge to the applicant, which is to encourage developers to take advantage of the provisions in order to start or resume development as quickly as possible.

For three reasons, we do not consider the cost burden of either route to be particularly onerous on local planning authorities. First, each route deals with a single issue, and the onus is on the applicant to provide sufficient information. If insufficient information is provided by the developer, in the case of an additional environmental approval application or of an application for an extension to construction site working hours, the application will not count as having been made at all.

Secondly, as I said, the measures are temporary. This will therefore only be a short-term administrative burden over the course of this financial year. Thirdly, we do not expect individual authorities to face a deluge of applications under each route. For example, our analysis shows that by 1 August 546 planning permissions for major residential developments across the country would have lapsed since 23 March, an average of 1.5 permissions per authority. Cumulatively, it is important to the economy to see those progress, but for individual local planning authorities we do not believe that the effect will be particularly onerous. Again, I invite the Opposition to withdraw the clause.

I will speak briefly to new clause 6, as many Members are watching. I appreciate that some Members are concerned about the need to ensure that any changes made under the fast-track legislation are restricted to what is proportionate and necessary. Ensuring that measures are time-limited can be an effective way to do that, but a rolling review provision across the whole of Act is not the best approach in this case.

The first reason is that two provisions in the Bill are permanent; they would be jeopardised by a rolling review of the entire Bill. The second is that part of the reason for these measures is to give the business community, local authorities and Government agencies certainty about what they need to do with certain planning activities. A cliff edge 90-day end to the processes that they are undertaking would remove any chance of the certainty that they are looking for.

The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch has many ways in which she can advance her concerns. She can use Standing Orders, in which she is a seasoned expert, to look at SO 24 debates; she can encourage her Front Benchers to undertake Opposition debates, and she can use the Public Accounts Committee to undertake inquiries. There are many ways in which she can progress her concerns other than through new clause 6.

[Meg Hillier]

My drafting may not have been perfect; the Bill has been very rushed, so it was difficult to get it right. Can the Minister give me any comfort that, in his mind or the Government’s, there is scope to allow a three-month review point on the licensing element so that there is simply a review? Given the Government’s majority, they would have to agree to any change anyway, but a review point seems a sensible, proportionate measure so that we can all reflect on how this is working and pick up any issues. If he could give me an indication of whether that is something the Government might consider as the Bill goes through the other place, that would be very helpful.

[Christopher Pincher]

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s concern and I understand why she raises those points. However, I simply reiterate that introducing a rolling review would kill certain aspects of the Bill and reduce the certainty and clarity that businesses and planners are looking for. It may also jeopardise the conclusion of the Bill before the summer recess, and we need to get it on the statute book so that businesses around our country can benefit from its provisions over the summer months.

Let me reiterate the importance of this Bill for our economy in these extraordinary times. As we emerge from this pandemic, we need to do all we can to support our economic recovery and help businesses adjust to a new and safe way of working. I therefore encourage the House to support amendment 3 tabled by the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), and I encourage the proponents of all other amendments to withdraw them.