Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent steps her Department has taken to identify buildings affected by (a) dangerous cladding and (b) other fire safety issues.

The Government has been clear that more must be done to accelerate the pace of remediation of unsafe buildings across the country.

After the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the Government prioritised identifying and providing funding for the highest risk buildings with unsafe cladding. Fire and rescue services and local authorities conducted a risk review of high-rise buildings over 18 metres in height, and building owners were required to register high-rise buildings with the department and apply for government funding to remove dangerous cladding.

The Building Safety Act 2022 establishes a new regulatory regime for high-rise buildings, which requires all residential buildings above 18m to be registered with the Building Safety Regulator by October 2023. The regulator has powers to pursue any building owner who fails to comply, including prosecuting for non-compliance.

In 2022, the Cladding Safety Scheme (CSS) was launched, to meet the cost of addressing life safety fire risks associated with cladding in buildings over 11 metres. We estimate that there may be as many as 7,000 buildings that need remediation that have not yet applied for the scheme. Eligible building owners must apply for this scheme, and leaseholders can utilise ‘Tell us tool’ to self-refer their building. Tell us about life-safety fire risks on the external wall system of your building - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The department is working at pace to identify buildings eligible for funding that are not coming forward. We are utilising specialist data sources and AI technology tools, and the CSS is contacting owners of identified buildings to check whether they have been assessed for unsafe cladding.

The Government has pressed the need for urgent action by local regulators to identify and assess buildings for unsafe cladding and other defects. The Government is supporting local authorities to boost their inspection and enforcement action by providing training, guidance and over £14 million in new burdens funding to date. We are writing to all metro mayors in England to ask for their support in driving forward local remediation acceleration plans to ensure buildings are identified and remediated at pace. We will set out further steps on plans to accelerate remediation this autumn.