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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will make it his policy to (a) require building owners to cover costs for (i) remedial work related to fire safety and building cladding (ii) fire insurance and (iii) waking watches and (b) increase support for leaseholders to meet those costs.

a) i) It is unacceptable for leaseholders to have to worry about the cost of fixing historic safety defects in their buildings that they did not cause. Government has repeatedly said that building owners should step up and not pass these costs on to leaseholders, where possible.

Where developers or building owners have been unable or unwilling to pay, we have introduced funding schemes providing £1.6 billion to accelerate the pace of work and meet the costs of remediating the highest risk and most expensive defects – ACM cladding and other unsafe cladding systems like High Pressure Laminates.

ii)The Department is aware that obtaining affordable building insurance for some multi storey, multi occupied buildings can be challenging. The Department is working to consider any potential resolutions.

iii) The new £30 million Waking Watch Relief Fund will pay for the installation of fire alarm systems in high-rise buildings with unsafe cladding, which will enable costly interim safety measures such as waking watch to be replaced.

b) The Government is accelerating its work to identify financing solutions that help to protect leaseholders whilst also helping to protect the taxpayer.