Leaseholders and Cladding: Greenwich and Woolwich — House of Commons, 2020-11-16
Topic: Housing
Christopher John Pincher (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) on securing this important debate on a matter of significant importance not only to him and his constituency but, as we have heard, to the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) and my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn), and to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) and many other Members across the House. It is a national concern, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich for his remarks and his doughty campaign on behalf of his constituents, and I will try to address the points he raised during the course of my remarks First, however, I will provide some context. We established the building safety programme within days of the Grenfell Tower fire, and its aim has always been to ensure that residents of high-rise blocks are safe now and in the future. Our intention has been clear from the outset: that unsafe aluminium composite material of the type found on Grenfell Tower and other dangerous cladding must be removed from high-rise residential buildings. It is therefore our priority to ensure unsafe ACM cladding is removed and replaced swiftly, protecting leaseholders from unaffordable costs We want to see the completion of remedial works by the end of 2021, as the Select Committee report recommends. While many responsible building owners and developers—including Pemberstone, Barratt Developments, Legal & General, Mace, Peabody and Aberdeen Standard Investments—have taken action to remediate and fund the remediation of their buildings, some have not. Too many building owners and managing agents in the private sector have been too slow in getting remediation work started, and that is why the Government have intervened with the funding and the specialist support that we have provided. We will not tolerate any further delays. Where building owners are failing to make acceptable progress, those responsible should expect local authorities and fire and rescue services to take tougher enforcement action At the end of October, of the 460 identified high-rise buildings with ACM cladding, 363 buildings—that is 79% —have either completed remediation or had their ACM cladding systems removed. If we include the social housing sector, that figure rises to 97% We recognise that in London there is a disproportionate number of unsafe cladded high-rise buildings, so we have convened two London summits since September, bringing together the Mayor, key local authorities—including Greenwich—and the London Fire Brigade, to agree an action plan for accelerating the remediation of buildings, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh have been instrumental in that process Overall, the Government have set aside, as the House will know, £1.6 billion in funding. That covers the remediation not only of ACM cladding but of other types of unsafe cladding from high-rise residential buildings in the private and social housing sectors, and we have been guided in our approach by the recommendations of the Hackitt report. We made this money available to support the remediation of unsafe cladding, and a large proportion of that support will protect leaseholders from those costs We recognise that wider remediation costs will need to be met to ensure the safety of existing blocks of flats. However, as I am sure the House will accept, public funding does not absolve the industry from taking responsibility for any failures that led to unsafe cladding materials being put on these buildings in the first place. That is why we expect developers, investors and building owners who have the means to pay to take responsibility and cover the costs of remediation themselves, without passing on costs to leaseholders. We have heard that some are doing that, and they are to be commended, and others must follow their lead. That is the case for more than 50% of privately owned high-rise residential buildings with unsafe ACM cladding, and we expect developers and owners to step up in similar ways for other kinds of unsafe cladding We have always acknowledged that materials other than ACM are of concern, and we have been providing advice on their removal to building owners since 2017. The highest priority has, as we have heard, been the removal of the type of ACM cladding used on Grenfell Tower, because it poses the most severe safety risk, but other unsafe cladding materials must also be removed. As such, and for those cases where costs present a financial barrier to the pace of remediation, we have taken action. In March, we announced that additional £1 billion of funding, through the building safety fund, for the remediation of unsafe non-ACM cladding in the social and private residential sectors. The building safety fund is available for high-rise buildings with unsafe non-ACM cladding, such as those types of high-pressure laminate. We are already working to advance eligible applications to the fund to the next stage so that we can begin the remediation process as quickly as possible. The hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich suggested that there were very few processed applications, but I can assure him that there are many more than just a few. I look forward to presenting a fuller report, so that by the end of March 2021 we will see that that funding has been allocated in full, as we promised Although this funding is a much-needed step to make homes safer, we still expect a significant proportion of the remediation of unsafe non-ACM cladding to be provided by those responsible for the original work.