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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to identify buildings with dangerous cladding.

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 18 metres or seven storeys 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. Eligible building owners can apply for this scheme, and leaseholders can utilise the ‘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 knowledge from local regulators to identify buildings eligible for funding.

The Deputy Prime Minister wrote to mayoral authorities on the 13 September to support and empower them to deliver plans, which use their convening powers, relationships and local knowledge to accelerate where buildings are not remediating quickly. The identification of buildings with unsafe cladding falls within the remit of this initiative. The Deputy Prime Minister will set out further steps to increase the pace of remediation this Autumn.