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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of (a) the adequacy of processes for alerting the Recovery Strategy Unit of cases where firms are repeatedly refusing to carry out remediation works to buildings and (b) the potential merits of enabling (i) leaseholders and (ii) tenants to contact the Recovery Strategy Unit [directly?] in order to receive its support in those cases.

It is the responsibility of local authorities and fire and rescue services to ensure that building owners are complying with their legal obligations to keep their buildings safe, and from April 2024 the Building Safety Regulator will enforce fire safety in buildings above 18 metres or seven storeys. Where building owners are stalling remediation progress, the Government expects regulators to take appropriate action. The Building Safety Act 2022 grants regulators additional enforcement powers in the form of remediation orders and remediation contribution orders, which allow them to apply to the First-tier Tribunal for an order requiring a building owner to fix, and pay to fix, their unsafe building.