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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 17 January 2019 to Question 208362 on Buildings: Insulation, what assessment his Department has made of the compatibility with building regulations of the 1,421 non-aluminium composite material cladding samples submitted to the Building Research Establishment.

It is the responsibility of the person undertaking building work to ensure that the requirements of Building Regulations are met. Samples of cladding panels were sent to the Building Research Establishment in response to the Government setting up its programme of screening tests of Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) panels. Those who sent in non-ACM samples were informed of this by the Building Research Establishment and that, as they were not ACM samples, these samples would not be subject to the screening test. The Department has made no assessment of these individual samples but has put in place with the Building Research Establishment a programme to research the fire performance of types of non-ACM cladding.