Housing: Insulation

(asked on 23rd November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

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 Portrait
Christopher Pincher
This question was answered on 30th November 2020

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.

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