Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many buildings in Battersea with interim safety measures in place were invited to take part in the Government’s Medium Rise Pilot Scheme.
Answered by Lee Rowley
The Mid-Rise Scheme Pilot has initially focused on a small number of buildings to prove the processes and seek early feedback before being opened to a wider cohort of buildings. No buildings in the Battersea constituency are within the pilot cohort of 73. We anticipate extending eligibility shortly.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many buildings in Battersea constituency have had unsafe cladding removed in the last 12 months.
Answered by Lee Rowley
I refer the Hon Member to the answer to Question UIN 127898, noting that remediation work has started or been completed on nine buildings in the Battersea constituency, identified as having unsafe Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what active remediation work is taking place on buildings with unsafe cladding in Battersea.
Answered by Lee Rowley
As of 31 December 2022, a total of 18 residential buildings over 18 metres in height in the constituency of Battersea have been identified as having unsafe Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding or have been deemed eligible for the Building Safety Fund due to the presence of unsafe non-ACM cladding. Remediation work has started or been completed on 9 of these buildings. The Department does not hold data on the location of mid-rise buildings with unsafe external wall systems.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to tackle damp and mould in social housing.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
I refer the Hon Member to my answer to Question UIN 126650 on 26 January 2023.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many buildings in Battersea have been identified as having unsafe cladding.
Answered by Lee Rowley
As of 31 December 2022, a total of 18 residential buildings over 18 metres in height in the constituency of Battersea have been identified as having unsafe Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding or have been deemed eligible for the Building Safety Fund due to the presence of unsafe non-ACM cladding. Remediation work has started or been completed on 9 of these buildings. The Department does not hold data on the location of mid-rise buildings with unsafe external wall systems.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether a contract has been signed for unsafe cladding remediation work on Sesame apartments in Battersea.
Answered by Lee Rowley
The Department has awarded £6.1 million of funding to remediate unsafe cladding on Sesame Apartments but the building owner is yet to sign and return the grant funding agreement. Building owners have a legal responsibility to make their buildings safe, even where the government is funding the cladding remediation costs. We have engaged with building owners and managing agents on the terms of the funding agreement which are fair, proportionate and accurately reflect the implementation of the Building Safety Act. The owner of Sesame Apartments must act now to fix the buildings and if they do not we will support regulators in taking enforcement action.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to help enfranchised leaseholders in Battersea constituency with uncapped costs of fixing building safety defects.
Answered by Lee Rowley
The leaseholder protection provisions in the Building Safety Act 2022 provided for the transfer of responsibility for the costs of remediating building safety defects from the leaseholder to the freeholder and developer. These provisions do not apply if the building is collectively owned by the leaseholders, for example, buildings where the leaseholders have collectively enfranchised and set up a company to purchase the freehold. This is because the enfranchised company effectively is the freeholder. The department published a call for evidence on leaseholder-owned buildings, which closed on 14 November 2022 and is now collating and analysing the evidence.
We will shortly publish the final remediation contract that we expect developers to sign, committing them to remediate building-safety defects for which they are responsible. Enfranchised leaseholders living in buildings covered by the developer pledge will be protected from the cost of remedying life-critical safety defects arising from the building’s design and/or construction. Furthermore, leaseholders in buildings over 11m tall are protected from the costs of remediating unsafe cladding even where their developer has not signed the contract, as costs can be met from the Building Safety Fund or from the Medium-Rise Fund, which will open to all relevant buildings later this year. This includes enfranchised leaseholders.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to help support leaseholders in low-rise blocks facing uncapped costs to fix cladding and other building safety defects.
Answered by Lee Rowley
The Government has implemented a risk-based and proportionate approach to regulating safety in residential buildings and in remediating cladding and other building safety defects. We have introduced a new regulatory regime for residential buildings over 18 metres tall and extensive protections for leaseholders in buildings over 11 metres or five storeys, ensuring that those who built defective buildings take responsibility for remedying them and leaseholders are protected from the unfair burden of remediation costs to make their home safe.
The Government has retrospectively extended the limitation period under Section 1 of the Defective Premises Act 1972 enabling legal action against developers and contractors where works completed in the last 30 years made a dwelling not 'fit for habitation'.
In general, the risk in lower-rise buildings is low and can be mitigated, for example, by installing fire alarms. We are aware of a very small number of buildings below 11 metres in height where remediation of unsafe cladding and other building safety defects is being proposed.
On 20 April 2022, the Department for Levelling up Housing and Communities committed to examine cases where costly fire safety remediation works have been proposed in buildings below 11 metres, asking leaseholders and Members of Parliament to write to the department.
We have written to freeholders and managing agents in affected buildings to make sure that any proposed works are necessary and proportionate and the rights to redress are being fully utilised.
Leaseholders can also seek free information and advice from The Leasehold Advisory Service, funded by the Department.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what plans he has to bring forward further leasehold reform to simplify the process for buying and extending lease agreements.
Answered by Lee Rowley
We are due to bring forward further leasehold reforms later in this parliament.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of extending the provisions of the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 which prevent landlords charging ground rents for new, qualifying long residential leasehold properties in England and Wales in order to prevent landlords from requiring existing leaseholders to pay ground rent.
Answered by Lee Rowley
The Government has already legislated via the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 to protect future leaseholders and we are due to bring forward further leasehold reforms later in this Parliament.
We understand the difficulties some existing leaseholders face with high and escalating ground rents. This is why we asked the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to investigate potential mis-selling of homes and unfair terms in the leasehold sector, which has resulted in commitments benefitting over 20,000 leaseholders.
The CMA continue to engage with a number of firms and we urge other developers to follow suit.