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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Greenhalgh on 5 January (HL Deb, col 567) that "an announcement will be happening very soon" regarding £3.5 billion being made available for replacing the cladding on buildings over 18 metres, when will (1) applications be invited, and (2) payments start to be processed.

To make sure that every remaining dangerous high-rise building has the necessary cladding remediation to make it safe, we will open up the next phase of the Building Safety Fund early this year and focus relentlessly on making sure it is risk driven and delivered more quickly.