Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has made an estimate of the number of leaseholders in England who have been asked to pay for fire safety remediation works other than cladding remediation.
MHCLG does not hold comprehensive data on leaseholders who have been asked to pay for fire safety remediation works. The Government has made it clear that building owners should protect leaseholders from bearing the costs of remediation.
Government intervention to provide funding for the removal of unsafe Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding is wholly exceptional. It is based on the unparalleled fire risk ACM poses, very real public safety concerns and the abject failure of many building owners to do the right thing by their residents.
Government intervention does not remove responsibility for overall building safety from the building owner and if other fire safety risks are uncovered, they must remedy them, or potentially face enforcement action from the local authority.