Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend about the role that post offices play across our country. They have a vital role in supporting high streets, and keeping them a social and vibrant place in which to live, shop and work, and I thank him for bringing that case to my attention. The management of the post office is the responsibility of Post Office Ltd. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend and colleagues from BEIS, raise the issue with the Post Office directly, and discuss the matter in more detail.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab) [V]]

Many of the buildings in my constituency that have been found to have cladding defects, including Norfolk House, St Peters Gardens and Leeward Court, are under 18 metres and therefore ineligible for the building safety fund. The only offer made to impacted leaseholders is a loan scheme, with no clarity about how it will work and when it will be made available. When will the Secretary of State’s Department finally step up and extend funding to those blocks under 18 metres that are in need of remediation?

[Robert Jenrick]

In terms of buildings with the most dangerous form of cladding, there are five that I am aware of in Lewisham. One has completed work and is awaiting building control sign-off, three have had their unsafe aluminium composite material cladding removed altogether, and the other one has works under way, so we are making good progress there, as we are elsewhere in the country. On buildings below 18 metres, we need to take a more proportionate approach. There are leaseholders who are being asked to pay bills for those buildings that are unconscionable and likely to be unnecessary. I am working intensively with lenders, insurers and building safety experts to change that, because we have to adopt a more proportionate and sensible regime than the one we are experiencing right now.