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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to his Department's data release entitled Building Safety Programme: Monthly Data Release for August 2019 published on 12 September 2019, how many of the 1,494 non-ACM cladding samples held at the Building Research Establishment contain combustible materials.

The screening programme set up after the Grenfell fire tragedy was focussed on identifying and the types of aluminium composite materials received. 1,421 samples of other materials were also submitted but these were not suitable for the screening tests. A detailed explanation of the screening tests is set out in this note published in June 2017. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/explanatory-note-on-safety-checks-and-testing.

The non-Aluminuim Composite Materials (ACM) samples were catalogued but it is not possible given their size and condition to reliably identify and classify each sample. These samples would not provide reliable or representative indication of the materials currently present on the existing building stock, this is because only those buildings with ACM cladding systems were asked to submit samples.

I refer also to my answer of 24 January to question UIN 210599.