Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the Fifth Report of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, Pre-legislative scrutiny of the Building Safety Bill, published on 24 November 2020, HC 466, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding for building remediation works.

In the March 2020 budget, the Government announced that it will provide £1 billion in 2020/21 to support the remediation of unsafe non-ACM cladding systems on residential buildings 18 metres and over, in both the private and social housing sectors. This funding is in addition to the £600 million which Government has already made available to ensure remediation of the highest risk ACM cladding, the type that was in place on Grenfell Tower.

This will go a long way to addressing the most significant safety risks and, in many cases, address the costliest remediation works necessary.

Government’s decision to place the scope of the Building Safety Fund at buildings over 18m reflects the exceptional fire risk that certain cladding products pose at that height, as previously noted by the Independent Expert Advisory Panel and Dame Judith Hackitt.

Government support is focused on cladding because unsafe cladding acts as an accelerant to fire spread, and funding will remove any financial barriers to remediation proceeding.

Our impact assessment also identifies work not related to cladding that will need to be remediated. Michael Wade, senior adviser to?MHCLG, is accelerating work with leaseholders and the financial sector to identify financing solutions that defend leaseholders from unaffordable costs of building safety works while ensuring that taxpayers are protected.