Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to his Department's quarterly release of EWS1 (or equivalent) lender data on mortgage valuations for flats, published on 21 March 2024, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his Department's policies of the fact that one in six EWS1 requests for mortgage valuations from October to December 2023 were for low rise buildings (1-4 storeys).
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The EWS1 form is not a Government process, and we do not support its use in the mortgage process.
To aid transparency, the department does provide data during the process so that people can see how the use of EWS1 forms has changed over time.
We continue to press the industry to accept other forms of assurance other than EWS1s, such as a comprehensive fire risk assessment including the external wall systems, which building owners are mandated to carry out, under the Fire Safety Act 2021.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the research entitled EWS1 or equivalent lender data on mortgage valuations for flats: October 2023 to December 2023, published by his Department on 21 March 2024, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of the proportion of mortgage valuations on high rise flats that required an EWS1 form or equivalent in 2023.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The EWS1 form is not a Government process, and we do not support its use in the mortgage process.
To aid transparency, the department does provide data during the process so that people can see how the use of EWS1 forms has changed over time.
We continue to press the industry to accept other forms of assurance other than EWS1s, such as a comprehensive fire risk assessment including the external wall systems, which building owners are mandated to carry out, under the Fire Safety Act 2021.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if his Department will make an estimate of the number of leaseholders who purchased leases between 14 February and 20 July 2022.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
For information on land purchases I would encourage you to contact HM Land Registry.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that when a building owner enters administration, qualifying leaseholders remain protected from non-cladding remediation costs under the Building Safety Act.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The costs of remediation will only fall on leaseholders in the event some or all of the leaseholders choose to buy the freehold collectively and take over the rights and responsibilities of being the freeholder. Otherwise, the responsibilities will remain with the freeholder or, following the conclusion of any insolvency proceedings, with the party who acquires the freehold following termination of the insolvency. In which case, the leaseholder protections will apply.
As a result, qualifying leaseholders under the leaseholder protections in the Building Safety Act 2022 will remain protected in law from the costs of non-cladding historical safety defects being passed on to them through the service charge (under the terms of the protections).
Should a building owner become insolvent and enter administration, interested parties including leaseholders can also potentially look to pursue a previous freeholder, developer and any associated company or person for remediation costs through a Remediation Contribution Order and also have the potential to pursue developers, contractors or manufacturers where they are liable for defects which meant one or more dwellings in the building was not fit for habitation when the relevant works were completed.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what information his Department holds on the average time taken between a building entering the Cladding Safety Scheme pipeline for investigation and entering the pre-application stage of the scheme.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The time taken to enter the pre-application stage depends on the speed of the applicant providing the necessary information. On average, applicants who enter the pre-application stage of the scheme do so two months after receiving the initial communication from Homes England which requires them to provide information about the status of their building.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of reallocating any underspend from the (a) Waking Watch Relief Fund and (b) Waking Watch Replacement Funds to support (i) sprinkler installation and (ii) other relevant steps where professional risk assessments deem them to be essential to mitigate life safety risks.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The department regularly engages with all fund applicants, local and regional authorities, where they are responsible for administering awarded grant funding, and local Fire and Rescue Services following a successful application to the fund, to drive pace on the installation of fire alarms and the subsequent standing down of a waking watch.
Over £80 million has been made available to applications to install alarms. The schemes have operated on a first come first served basis, and all successful applications have been awarded grant funding.
Of the 25 residential buildings that have received funding under the Waking Watch Relief Fund that are yet to install alarms, all of these are being administered by Greater Manchester Combined Authority and they have the lead responsibility for resolving these issues. On 17 of these 25, we have been advised by Greater Manchester Combined Authority that installations have been completed but we are awaiting further assurance before we can formally update the application status. For a further seven, we are waiting updates of the exact status despite departmental officials seeking an update. On the final case, we are working alongside the Authority to resolve a specific situation.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the Building Safety Remediation data published by his Department on 22 February 2024, whether he has taken steps in relation to the 25 residential buildings that received Government funding under the (a) Waking Watch Relief Fund in 2021 and (b) Waking Watch Replacement Fund in 2022 that have not yet installed alarm systems.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The department regularly engages with all fund applicants, local and regional authorities, where they are responsible for administering awarded grant funding, and local Fire and Rescue Services following a successful application to the fund, to drive pace on the installation of fire alarms and the subsequent standing down of a waking watch.
Over £80 million has been made available to applications to install alarms. The schemes have operated on a first come first served basis, and all successful applications have been awarded grant funding.
Of the 25 residential buildings that have received funding under the Waking Watch Relief Fund that are yet to install alarms, all of these are being administered by Greater Manchester Combined Authority and they have the lead responsibility for resolving these issues. On 17 of these 25, we have been advised by Greater Manchester Combined Authority that installations have been completed but we are awaiting further assurance before we can formally update the application status. For a further seven, we are waiting updates of the exact status despite departmental officials seeking an update. On the final case, we are working alongside the Authority to resolve a specific situation.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how much and what proportion of funding is un-allocated from the (a) the Waking Watch Relief Fund 2021, (b) Waking Watch Replacement Fund 2022 and (c) Waking Watch Replacement Fund 2023, as of 12 April 2024.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The department regularly engages with all fund applicants, local and regional authorities, where they are responsible for administering awarded grant funding, and local Fire and Rescue Services following a successful application to the fund, to drive pace on the installation of fire alarms and the subsequent standing down of a waking watch.
Over £80 million has been made available to applications to install alarms. The schemes have operated on a first come first served basis, and all successful applications have been awarded grant funding.
Of the 25 residential buildings that have received funding under the Waking Watch Relief Fund that are yet to install alarms, all of these are being administered by Greater Manchester Combined Authority and they have the lead responsibility for resolving these issues. On 17 of these 25, we have been advised by Greater Manchester Combined Authority that installations have been completed but we are awaiting further assurance before we can formally update the application status. For a further seven, we are waiting updates of the exact status despite departmental officials seeking an update. On the final case, we are working alongside the Authority to resolve a specific situation.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, in relation to historic building safety defects, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of protecting (a) leaseholders and (b) non-qualifying leaseholders from a landlord's legal costs being recovered through the service change.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Building Safety Act 2022 sets out a number of protections for leaseholders relating to the cost of remediation of relevant defects.
Under paragraph 9 of Schedule 8 to the Act qualifying leaseholders are protected from the costs of legal or other professional services relating to the liability (or potential liability) incurred as a result of a relevant defect.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the oral contribution of 26 March 2024 by the Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety, Official Report, column 1414, how many building owners his Department has identified in the reducing core of building owners who continue to hold up remediation; and how many buildings such owners own.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
We track the progress of buildings and make this publicly available here: Building Safety Remediation: monthly data release - February 2024 - GOV.UK.
We have also made public the corporate entities responsible for the remaining buildings with the most dangerous cladding that have yet to start on site at: Aluminium composite material cladding - GOV.UK , and update this list periodically.
It is important that building owners fulfil their building safety responsibilities and where they do not that they are held to account. As I reiterated to the house on 26th March, and in a joint statement with building safety bodies, where building owners are stalling, they can expect to be subject to enforcement action by a local authority, fire and rescue service or the Building Safety Regulator.