The Building Safety Bill requires an independent reviewer to consider the effectiveness of the building and construction products regulatory regimes. The Secretary of State can direct the reviewer to consider particular issues, which could include how the historic system went wrong, and whether the new system has resolved the prior issues. The Secretary of State must appoint this person within five years of the Bill receiving Royal Assent and within five years of the previous appointment thereafter.

The clause does not specify with whom the reviewer must consult when conducting the review, allowing them to consult widely around matters connected to the broadly stated terms. The independent reviewer may choose to accept evidence from any interested party.

The Bill is legislating to put right the systemic faults identified in Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review into Fire and Building Safety and will create a more accountable system. The Bill improves protections for leaseholders by legally requiring building owners to prove they have tried all routes to cover the cost of essential safety works before passing them onto leaseholders.

Those responsible for shoddy workmanship that has caused homes to be unsafe, bear the responsibility to put those problems right. While some parts of industry have done the right thing and funded the remediation of serious defects, too many are seeking to avoid their responsibilities. That is why we are taking action to extend legal rights to redress for shoddy workmanship. The changes we are making will enhance the ability of building owners, homeowners, and leaseholders to seek compensation for defective work carried out on their properties.

Through the Bill, we are retrospectively extending the limitation period under section 1 of the Defective Premises Act 1972 from six to 15 years. This change will provide a legal route to redress that previously would not have been possible for many thousands of residents.

The Building Safety Regulator will make buildings safer by enforcing the stringent new regulatory regime for high-rise residential and other in scope buildings, oversee the safety and performance of all buildings, and increase the competence of those working across the built environment.

The Bill also paves the way for a national regulator for construction products with robust enforcement and market surveillance capability to oversee a stronger and clearer construction products regulatory regime which will require construction products to be safe and will introduce more stringent requirements on safety critical products.

We are committing over £5bn to help fund the cost of replacing unsafe cladding for leaseholders in residential buildings 18 metres and over. Of this, we have already allocated almost £1.2bn to make homes safe. £463m has already been allocated to remediate ACM cladding and £734m has been allocated from the non-ACM Building Safety Fund (BSF) so far, with 689 registrations to the Fund proceeding with a full application. Owners of around 65,000 homes within high-rise blocks are covered by eligible BSF applications.

We have targeted public funding at the buildings we know to be at greatest risk if a fire spreads. This is in line with expert advice that the fire risk is lower in buildings under 18m and costly remediation work is usually not needed. The Secretary of State for DLUHC is looking closely at this issue afresh to make sure everything is being done to support leaseholders and has met with cladding groups to further understand their concerns. Further detail on the support offer for leaseholders in residential buildings of 11-18 metres will be released when all options have been fully considered.

We recognise residents’ concerns about the cost of Waking Watch measures. That is why we are providing £35m funding to cover interim safety costs in buildings with unsafe cladding. Common alarm systems will enable costly waking watch measures to be replaced in buildings waiting to have unsafe cladding removed. £24.1m of funding has already been provided or approved, covering 281 buildings. We estimate that over 22,000 leasehold dwellings will benefit from the fund. By fitting an alarm, leaseholders are expected to save on average £144 per month.

We are introducing a new levy and tax to make sure that industry makes a fair contribution to the costs of fixing historical fire safety defects, including unsafe cladding. The building safety levy will be on developers at the building control application stage of design and construction, “Gateway two” of the new building safety regime. A new Residential Property Developer Tax will apply to the largest residential property developers and aims to raise at least £2bn over 10 years.

Given the provisions described as above, the Government does not feel it is necessary to launch a public inquiry at this time.

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

This is a revised response. The Petitions Committee requested a response which more directly addressed the request of the petition. You can find the original response towards the bottom of the petition page (https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/587185)