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 26 February 2019 to Question 224346 on Buildings: Insulation, what plans his Department has to help ensure the removal of insulation materials that have been deemed unsafe.

The Government has set up a comprehensive programme to oversee the remediation of buildings with unsafe Aluminium Composite Material cladding systems. In addition, my department published an advice note (available here) on external wall systems that do not incorporate Aluminium Composite Material in December 2017 and updated it in December 2018. This advice makes clear to building owners that wall systems on existing buildings may only use materials, including insulation, that are of limited combustibility unless the system has achieved BR135 classification via a BS 8414 test. It reiterates that the clearest way to ensure safety is to remove any unsafe materials.