Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent progress his Department has made on increasing the number of new homes built; and what steps his Department is taking to ensure that these homes are affordable for young people to rent or buy.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
We are committed to helping to make the dream of homeownership a reality, and operate a range of schemes which aim to make home ownership more affordable. Since spring 2010, over 822,000 households have been helped to purchase a home through Government-backed schemes including Help to Buy and Right to Buy.
We are committed to increasing the supply of affordable housing which is why, through our £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme, we will deliver tens of thousands of affordable homes for both sale and rent, right across the country.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he is taking steps to protect leaseholders from remediation costs related to structural building defects that are not considered a "relevant defect" under the Building Safety Act, but which are discovered during cladding remediation works.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Building Safety Act 2022 sets out the broad range of defects to which the leaseholder protections apply. The core principle is that the historical defect puts people's safety at risk from the spread of fire, or structural collapse.
The Building Safety Act 2022 also provides a toolkit of measures to enable those responsible for defective work to be pursued. These include retrospectively extending the limitation period under section 1 of the Defective Premises Act 1972 from six to 30 years where claims can be made for defective work relating to the construction of dwellings where the work rendered the dwelling unfit for habitation at the time of completion
Additionally, civil claims can now be brought against manufacturers of, or those who have supplied, defective or mis-sold construction products, or those who have supplied or marketed in breach of regulations, where these products have been incorporated in a dwelling and that has caused or contributed to a dwelling being unfit for habitation.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of Mount Anvil Group Ltd’s performance in remediating life critical fire safety works in buildings over 11 metres that they (a) developed and (b) refurbished in the last 30 years in Putney constituency.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The building safety pledge has been signed by 49 of the largest developers and the Government will shortly publish a contract that makes the commitments in the pledge legally binding, and includes requirements to provide information about the progress of building safety work. Mount Anvil Group Limited is not a signatory to the building safety pledge.
The Government expects all developers to do the right thing, irrespective of whether they signed the pledge. The Building Safety Act 2022 put in place legal protections for leaseholders from historical building safety costs and created new avenues to seek redress through the courts. In August, we made commencement regulations under the Act that pave the way for giving Ministers powers to stop developers that fail to do the right thing from commencing developments for which they have planning permission, and from being granted building control sign-off for their projects.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the signing of the building safety repairs pledge by Bellway plc, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of that company's performance in remediating life critical fire safety works in buildings over 11 metres that they (a) developed and (b) refurbished in the last 30 years in Putney constituency.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
49 of the largest developers have signed a pledge to take responsibility for all necessary work to address life-critical fire-safety defects on buildings 11 metres and over in height that they had a role in developing or refurbishing. Signatories include Taylor Wimpey, Crest Nicholson, Barratt, Bellway, Persimmon and Berkeley.
We will shortly publish a contract that will make the pledge commitments legally binding, and which we will expect developers to sign as soon as possible. The contract will contain provisions enabling us to monitor and audit the progress being made by developers to meet their remediation commitments.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the signing of the building safety repairs pledge by Berkeley Group Holdings plc, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of that company's performance in remediating life critical fire safety works in buildings over 11 metres that they (a) developed and (b) refurbished in the last 30 years in Putney constituency.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
49 of the largest developers have signed a pledge to take responsibility for all necessary work to address life-critical fire-safety defects on buildings 11 metres and over in height that they had a role in developing or refurbishing. Signatories include Taylor Wimpey, Crest Nicholson, Barratt, Bellway, Persimmon and Berkeley.
We will shortly publish a contract that will make the pledge commitments legally binding, and which we will expect developers to sign as soon as possible. The contract will contain provisions enabling us to monitor and audit the progress being made by developers to meet their remediation commitments.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the signing of the building safety repairs pledge by Taylor Wimpey, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of that company's performance in remediating life critical fire safety works in buildings over 11 metres that they (a) developed and (b) refurbished in the last 30 years in Putney constituency.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
49 of the largest developers have signed a pledge to take responsibility for all necessary work to address life-critical fire-safety defects on buildings 11 metres and over in height that they had a role in developing or refurbishing. Signatories include Taylor Wimpey, Crest Nicholson, Barratt, Bellway, Persimmon and Berkeley.
We will shortly publish a contract that will make the pledge commitments legally binding, and which we will expect developers to sign as soon as possible. The contract will contain provisions enabling us to monitor and audit the progress being made by developers to meet their remediation commitments.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the signing of the building safety repairs pledge by Persimmon, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of that company's performance in remediating life critical fire safety works in buildings over 11 metres that they (a) developed and (b) refurbished in the last 30 years in Putney constituency.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
49 of the largest developers have signed a pledge to take responsibility for all necessary work to address life-critical fire-safety defects on buildings 11 metres and over in height that they had a role in developing or refurbishing. Signatories include Taylor Wimpey, Crest Nicholson, Barratt, Bellway, Persimmon and Berkeley.
We will shortly publish a contract that will make the pledge commitments legally binding, and which we will expect developers to sign as soon as possible. The contract will contain provisions enabling us to monitor and audit the progress being made by developers to meet their remediation commitments.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the signing of the building safety repairs pledge by Barratt Developments plc, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of that company's performance in remediating life critical fire safety works in buildings over 11 metres that they (a) developed and (b) refurbished in the last 30 years in Putney constituency.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
49 of the largest developers have signed a pledge to take responsibility for all necessary work to address life-critical fire-safety defects on buildings 11 metres and over in height that they had a role in developing or refurbishing. Signatories include Taylor Wimpey, Crest Nicholson, Barratt, Bellway, Persimmon and Berkeley.
We will shortly publish a contract that will make the pledge commitments legally binding, and which we will expect developers to sign as soon as possible. The contract will contain provisions enabling us to monitor and audit the progress being made by developers to meet their remediation commitments.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the signing of the building safety repairs pledge by Crest Nicholson, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of that company's performance in remediating life critical fire safety works in buildings over 11 metres that they (a) developed and (b) refurbished in the last 30 years in Putney constituency.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
49 of the largest developers have signed a pledge to take responsibility for all necessary work to address life-critical fire-safety defects on buildings 11 metres and over in height that they had a role in developing or refurbishing. Signatories include Taylor Wimpey, Crest Nicholson, Barratt, Bellway, Persimmon and Berkeley.
We will shortly publish a contract that will make the pledge commitments legally binding, and which we will expect developers to sign as soon as possible. The contract will contain provisions enabling us to monitor and audit the progress being made by developers to meet their remediation commitments.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what provisions there are within the Building Safety Act 2022 to hold cladding remediation companies who installed defective and unsafe cladding to account.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
We have brought forward an ambitious toolkit of measures under the Building Safety Act 2022, which enables those responsible for defective work to be pursued. Civil claims can now be brought against manufacturers of, or those who have supplied, defective or mis-sold construction products, or those who have supplied or marketed in breach of regulations, where these products have been incorporated in a dwelling and that has caused or contributed to a dwelling being unfit for habitation. This provision, which applies to all dwellings, has retrospective effect for cladding products with a limitation period of 30 years and prospective effect for all construction products with a limitation period of 15 years.
The Act retrospectively extends the limitation period under section 1 of the Defective Premises Act 1972 from six to 30 years and extends the reach of civil liability to associated companies of developers, including trusts, to ensure that those businesses in the sector who have used shell companies and other complex corporate structures can be pursued for contributions towards the remediation of historical safety defects. These provisions will help to ensure that all parties that play a part in creating building safety defects are in line for costs to rectify them.
The Act gives the Secretary of State the power to establish a statutory scheme to distinguish between industry actors that have committed to take responsibility for making buildings safe, including by remedying defective buildings, and those that fail to do so. The Act also gives the Secretary of State powers to prevent those that have failed to take responsibility from carrying out development for which planning permission has been granted, and to prevent them from receiving building control approval on their developments. This means that those that take responsibility and do the right thing can continue to go about their business freely and with confidence, while those that don't may suffer commercial and reputational consequences.
Additionally, anti-avoidance and enforcement provisions - including remediation orders and remediation contributions orders - are included in the Act to ensure that those who are liable to pay under leaseholder protections actually do so. Relevant authorities now have the power to compel responsible entities to fund and undertake the necessary remediation work. Where firms are repeatedly refusing to pay to fix these buildings, the government's new Recovery Strategy Unit will pursue these firms, working closely with other enforcement authorities.