Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc) Bill (Second sitting)

Noah Law Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)]

Q Part 3 of the Bill deals with building ownership information, which has often been a cause of delay in trying to establish where ownership lies. To what extent do you think what is in the Bill at the moment will unblock some of those delays that a lot of your members, activists and people you work with have experienced?

Giles Grover: It will probably help but, again, it should have been in the Building Safety Act in the first place. Everything should have been effective from 14 February 2022. We were told at that point that freeholders would not be able to sell and pass on their liabilities, but they could; we saw that happen at a number of buildings. It might help to clarify a little bit, but it should have been there a long time ago—and what does that clarity mean? It will just mean that they carry on with this remediation that will leave us in the homes that we are trapped in, which are not fully safe and sellable, or they will force us to pay huge costs as well. Yes, we need to get to that point, but ultimately it is the gaps and issues that we need to address, so that when we get to that point we are not suffering the costs and effects.

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

Q Sophie, you mentioned the financial incentive to minimise remediation costs as much as possible and broadening the scope to cover more things. Which organisations, including perhaps yours, have you seen make the economic case for broadening the scope of the Bill and ensuring that remediation is done in a much broader sense and that we use the opportunity and this moment that we have?

Sophie Bichener: Do you mean—

[Noah Law]

What is the economic case for not just narrowing the measures to external wall cladding?

Giles Grover: We have been trying to get that economic case made for quite a long time. We hope that MHCLG officials will make it to the all-powerful Treasury. It is about fixing the first rung of the housing ladder, which would be helpful for making sure that the housing market functions. It is giving people certainty to make sure that they can move on with their lives. It is the opportunity cost as well and the impact on growth. People cannot sell. We are trying to build 1.5 million homes, but what about the number of homes that cannot actually be sold right now, but can still be rented out? You have shared owners, and housing associations, which are meant to be charitable organisations, are refusing buyback from vulnerable shared owners whose homes are not fit for purpose. Quite simply, something that is a financial and moral imperative is not being done.

There are a number of organisations; in Greater Manchester, we have been doing this for so long that we get it, we know what we are doing and we can see all the gaps—I did not see what Kate Green said, but hopefully she raised all those. Andy and Charlie coming into the BSR was a breath of fresh air after three years of awful back and forth between MHCLG and the BSR. On Homes England, ultimately, we need the leadership we have seen there to be in place over all of this. We need proper leadership, and unfortunately that has to be non-civil servants.

[Noah Law]

Q That is good to hear on the Homes England side. On incentives, is it an issue that building owners are the ones appointing and paying fire risk assessors?

Giles Grover: There is so much self-interest throughout the system. That is how it has been built. As Grenfell United said, it

“isn’t broken, it was built this way.”

It allows too many parties to have control when they should have that control taken away from them, at least to a point where we have a consistent approach to a national standard. A lot of this is doable and we should be there by now.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions, on behalf of the Committee, I thank the witnesses for their evidence.

Examination of witnesses

Sam Dumitriu and Ben Hopkinson gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Mr Law, you have one quick question; we have not got very long.

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

Q Can I push back on that? My understanding is that much of cladding material is imported. Given the global market for building products and materials, I wonder whether you would reassert the point that what happens in the UK jurisdiction has an impact on manufacturers’ willingness to provide materials that ultimately deliver the homes we all want.

[The Chair]

You have less than a minute.

Ben Hopkinson: If they are running the risk of still having excessive liabilities even if they follow all the rules in place at a time, they might not choose to sell to or invest in the UK at all. We do have to be careful there. If they are engaged in malpractice or mis-selling, we should absolutely go after them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sean Woodcock]

My feeling at the time of the Grenfell disaster was that the view from the top down—from industry, Government, local authorities and so on—was that everything would be done, whatever the trade-offs, to ensure that this was sorted, the remediation happened and so on. As we get further away, there is a danger that the consensus and impetus have broken down slightly. Do you have any worries on that? Am I wrong to worry about that? Is it driving some of the issues?

Dame Judith Hackitt: You are absolutely right to worry about it, because we can look at many other industry sectors and see that, with the passage of time, the sense of urgency that follows a disaster tends to decay as you get further and further away from it. What we must never forget in this case is that we have no guarantee that this will not happen again.

The area where we are most at risk is with existing buildings because, as I have said, we have moved a long way. We have a new regime in place for new build, which I am confident sets new standards, and we have new rigour in place to ensure that buildings are built properly. We always knew that going back and addressing existing stock would be the challenge, but it would be unforgivable not to do that. Those are the buildings that affect existing residents the most, and they have been living with this for nearly 10 years.

[Noah Law]

Q I come back to the definition of “tolerable” and whether that should be written into the statute book. Is it your view that that should be the case?

Dame Judith Hackitt: Yes.

[Noah Law]

Q If so, are there no other means through which it could be enabled to be more flexible, more dynamic and more up to date while still providing the coherence and clarity that you seek?

Dame Judith Hackitt: One of your colleagues spoke a moment ago about the need for trade-offs. I would not advocate prescription and fixed, inflexible definitions in relation to new build, where there is the opportunity to be creative and to innovate in the way we build, and where new things will come along that will enable us to do things in different ways. In the case of existing stock, where speed and the reassurance of residents are of paramount importance, having a very clear, non-disputable standard is really important.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions from Members, I thank you for your evidence, Dame Judith. Thank you very much.

Examination of witness

Dr David Crowder gave evidence.