Leaseholders and Cladding

Roger Gale Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that 2,704 applications were received. A significant number of them, I regret to tell the House, were not sufficient to allow an immediate assessment, but more than 100 have been assessed successfully to move on to the next stage. The first tender for payment has been agreed, and I am confident that by the end of the financial year for which this money was set aside, it will have been fully allocated, and remediation work will have begun.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con) [V]]

In his opening remarks, my right hon. Friend said that people should not be required to pay for faults that they did not cause, and he is absolutely right. Further to the point raised by the Father of the House, I have in my constituency one block that has social housing, private rented accommodation and full and shared leaseholders; will my right hon. Friend assure the House that the leaseholder element will not ever be faced with a disproportionate bill that will in effect pay for those who do not pay at all?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to my right hon. Friend for his question. As I said earlier, I cannot say that there will not be some cost that may occur at some point to leaseholders for historical defects work that may be undertaken, but we do want to make sure that, as a result of the work that Michael Wade is doing with the financial services and others, any such costs are fair and reasonable and can be carried. That is why we have put aside that £1.6 billion to make sure that the cost of cladding remediation for cladding such as ACM and high-pressure laminate can be funded by the taxpayer when the developers are not able to fund it, so that the cost does not fall on the leaseholder.