Leaseholders and Cladding

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I can tell my hon. Friend that we have written to all those responsible for buildings, including their owners, where remediation has not started to remind them of their responsibilities and our expectation that remediation will begin by the end of the year. My hon. Friend the noble Lord Greenhalgh has convened roundtable meetings with owners and with local authority leaders to address the challenges that they face locally. We have made it clear that, from December, those responsible for buildings where remediation has not started and is not forecast to start by the end of this year will be publicly named. Those are active steps that we are undertaking to remind landlords and owners of their responsibilities.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

In October, more than 1,000 of my constituents—leaseholders, shared owners, tenants and students—were asked to leave the Paragon Estate in Brentford within seven days because the current owners, Notting Hill Genesis, found significant fire safety and structural issues. They were unrelated to flammable cladding, because that had been removed two years ago. In September 2019, Richmond House in Worcester Park, a four-storey block of only 23 leasehold flats, was destroyed by fire in 11 minutes. Both estates were developed by the Barclay Group, and both had the same significant fire safety defects. The week before last, the Sunday Times said that

“the scandal over building safety spreads far beyond dangerously clad tower blocks”

and could affect 4 million people. What are the Government doing right now to protect all those at risk of dying at home because of failures in the building safety regime?

[Christopher Pincher]

The building safety fund was designed specifically to deal with the removal of unsafe non-ACM cladding where the buildings are over 18 metres and where materials, even before the combustible cladding ban was put in place in 2018 under statutory guidance, should not have been used on high-rise buildings. That fund is available, and, as I have described to the House, it is already being disbursed round the country and will be completed by the end of this financial year. We will continue to work with the financial sector, as I have described, using Michael Wade. We will continue to work with developers to make sure that their responsibility is executed, and support for leaseholders is provided. As for the specifics of the case that the hon. Lady raised, I am not aware of it, but I am happy to discuss it with her outwith the Chamber.