Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will identify the 17 buildings in Suffolk affected by unsafe cladding; and what steps he is taking to ensure tenants in those buildings are aware that their homes have unsafe cladding.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government does not disclose the names and locations of individual buildings with unsafe cladding out of concerns for public safety. It should be noted that the owners of each of the affected buildings have been informed, who we expect will ensure that their residents are kept fully informed as part of their responsibilities.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what progress his Department has made on identifying solutions to support leaseholders with (a) the incidental costs of waking watches and (b) other incidental costs with the exception of remediation incurred as a result of dangerous cladding having been installed on their leasehold properties.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The most effective way to make buildings with unsafe cladding safe and eliminate the need for interim measures and associated costs is to have the unsafe cladding removed as quickly as possible. That is why we are prioritising £1.6 billion public subsidy on remediation of unsafe cladding. However, we recognise residents’ concerns about the cost of waking watch measures and the lack of transparency of these costs. That is why we have collected and published information on waking watch costs. This will enable those that have commissioned it to make comparisons and challenge providers on unreasonable costs. The data is available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-safety-programme-waking-watch-costs.
The Government also welcomes the National Fire Chiefs Council's update to its guidance on Simultaneous Evacuation published in October (available at: www.nationalfirechiefs.org.uk/Simultaneous-evacuation-guidance). We have asked the Fire Protection Board to advise Fire and Rescue Services on how best to operationalise the revised guidance including looking into other measures such as installing building-wide fire alarm systems to reduce the dependency on waking watches wherever possible.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a funding mechanism whereby the Government (a) covers the up front cost of all urgent remediation works for dangerous cladding and (b) subsequently recovers the cost of that work over a period of time from those responsible for installing the cladding.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government is making £1.6 billion available to support the remediation of unsafe cladding but this does not absolve building owners of their responsibility to ensure their buildings are safe. The remediation of over 50 per cent of privately owned high-rise residential buildings with unsafe Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding will be paid for by building owners and developers, or through warranty or insurance claims - without passing the cost to residents and leaseholders. We expect building owners and developers to step up in a similar way for other kinds of unsafe cladding.
The Government has asked Michael Wade to accelerate work with leaseholders and the financial sector to develop proposals to protect leaseholders from unaffordable costs of remediating historic defects. The Government is determined to remove barriers to fixing historic defects and identify financing solutions that protect leaseholders from unaffordable costs; but we must also ensure that the bill does not fall on taxpayer. It?is likely?our solution will?be a combination of options as there is no one quick fix.?We will update leaseholders as soon as we can, and before the Building Safety Bill returns to Parliament.
For both the Private Sector ACM Fund and the Building Safety Fund applicants are required to demonstrate that they have taken all reasonable steps to recover the costs of replacing the unsafe cladding from those responsible through insurance claims, warranties and/or legal action. Where they are able to successfully recover damages relating to the removal and replacement of unsafe non-ACM cladding, Government will require building owners to repay any amounts recovered which relate to the removal and replacement of the unsafe cladding up to the amount provided through the funding.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the potential benefits of implementing the recommendations in the Law Commission’s Commonhold Report on (a) flat owners’ ability to make key decisions about the management and costs of their building and (b) preventing the exploitation of leaseholders by landlords.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government wants to see commonhold reinvigorated as an alternative tenure to leasehold for flats, which is why we asked the Law Commission to look at how this could be done and what changes to legislation are required to support a wider take up of the tenure in the future.
The Law Commission report on commonhold was published in July, alongside reports on enfranchisement and Right to Manage. They are comprehensive and thorough reports and we will now take the time to consider these in detail and set out our preferred way forward in due course.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what support his Department is providing to local homeless charities during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Charities, and the thousands of people who volunteer with them, make a real difference to vulnerable people’s lives. We all need to work together to break the homelessness cycle and we are committed to drawing on as much expertise and experience as we can. Many of the projects we fund involve joint working with voluntary organisations as delivery partners, and in response to Covid-19 we have worked in partnership with the voluntary sector and faith and community groups.
MHCLG announced £6 million of emergency funding to provide relief for frontline homelessness charitable organisations who are directly affected by the Covid-19 outbreak. This is part of a £750 million package of government support for UK charities who may have been impacted by the pandemic. This Covid-19 Homelessness Response Fund was delivered by Homeless Link and applications closed on Wednesday 27 May.
Following a successful bidding process, over 130 charities across England benefitted from the £6 million emergency Fund. Further detail regarding the organisations who have been funded can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/charities-to-benefit-from-support-for-rough-sleepers-during-pandemic.
The Department also funds work to support a wide range of the homelessness sector – including voluntary organisations and independent providers of learning: