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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 31 January 2020 to Question 8382 on Buildings: Fire Prevention, for what reasons it took the Government more than two years to open the ACM remediation fund after the Grenfell Tower fire.

In May 2018, the Government made £400 million available to social sector landlords to fund the removal and replacement of unsafe ACM cladding on high-rise residential social housing buildings.

It became clear that too many private sector building owners were failing to take responsibility to ensure their buildings were made permanently safe, and at no cost to leaseholders. Therefore, the Government committed £200 million for the removal and replacement of unsafe ACM cladding on private sector residential high-rise buildings.

This funding will remove that barrier. Government intervention to provide funding for the removal of unsafe ACM cladding is wholly exceptional. It is based on the unparalleled fire risk ACM poses, the very real public safety concerns and the abject failure of many building owners to do the right thing by their residents.