Housing: Cladding

Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Donaghy

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend should rest assured that we are focused on the pace of remediation. The Secretary of State or I will be speaking to building owners, local authorities and fire and rescue services to press them to accelerate this pace. We are also looking at the interventions that we may need to take as a Government to deal with this blight. We will obviously continue our engagement with all the stakeholders he mentioned in the course of that endeavour.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister must be quite daunted to have two respected former Ministers on this Oral Question. The National Audit Office has said that the department has a long way to go to make all the high-rise buildings safe. The slowest to change has been the private sector. Councils have difficulty in checking these buildings, as the owner may well be a shell company registered abroad. The Housing Act gives councils the right to investigate, but the procedures are slow, costly and subject to a high legal bar. What practical steps will the Government take to overcome these challenges so that they keep their promises?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we recognise that there are a number of enforcement approaches, both through the Housing Act but also through the fire safety order, which is being updated and will be debated in this House next week. We continue to use a joint inspection team to look at the best way of enforcing against those building owners that are not moving to remediate unsafe cladding.