Leasehold: Building and Fire Safety

Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

We recognise that many people are responsible and that the standard of construction products has not been at the level we expect. That is why we have brought in a construction products regulator, situated in the Office for Product Safety and Standards, to oversee that within BEIS. Obviously, we are looking at how best to ensure that this does not happen in future and that those responsible make a contribution.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, is not present, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has just said that he is considering a further levy on developers to enable leaseholders not to have to pay huge bills. One leaseholder I know has a bill of £200,000 landing on their doormat to pay now. Why are the Government so willing to protect developers’ profits while throwing leaseholders to the wolves?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

We continue to have a number of discussions with members of the G15 housing associations, and particularly with local authorities. The hard yards of achieving a situation in which the same cladding as Grenfell—the aluminium composite material—has been got off around 96% of those buildings, much of that during this pandemic, have required work at every level of government. We will continue to engage with them to come up with practical steps to deal with other buildings with unsafe cladding.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked and we now move to the next Question.