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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, for what reasons non-ACM housing cladding samples received by his Department have not yet been tested.

The immediate priority was to identify the scale of use of Aluminium Composite Material ACM type cladding on buildings over 18 metres. On the advice of the Independent Expert panel, the Government has now commissioned the Building Research Establishment to test different wall cladding systems using three common types of ACM panelling with two commonly used types of insulation. The results will provide further evidence of how some commonly used wall systems using ACM perform in a fire. This evidence will be used to produce further advice to inform building owners’ decisions on whether they need to take any additional action to make their buildings safe.

Advice was provided on 14 July in a note to all building control bodies, which highlighted the key Building Regulation requirements when cladding work on high rise buildings over 18 metres tall is undertaken. That note can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ensure-that-recladding-work-meets-building-regulations-advises-expert-panel