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 5 March 2019 to Question 227110 on Buildings: Insulation, when the BS 8414 test will take place; and whether combustible insulation behind that cladding will be tested.

The date for the test will be dependent on the availability of test rigs. It is proposed that the test should be carried out with an HPL panel and stone wool insulation. The advice of the Department’s Independent Expert Advisory Panel, set out in a Departmental advice note to building owners issued in December 2017 and revised in December 2018, is clear that combustible insulation or cladding presents a risk of fire spread on existing high rise buildings unless installed as part of a system that has passed the BS 8414 test. Their advice to building owners is that unsafe materials should be replaced with materials that are non-combustible or of limited combustibility.