Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 7 December 2020 to Question 123639 on Buildings: Insulation, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of refining the definition of what constitutes cladding.

Analysis and definitions relating to estimates of EWS1 requirements on residential buildings in England can be found in this release: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-safety-programme-estimates-of-ews1-requirements-on-residential-buildings-in-england/building-safety-programme-estimates-of-ews1-requirements-on-residential-buildings-in-england.

There is no regulatory definition of cladding. Definitions of cladding have been formed and applied for the purposes of this analysis only and are based on materials collected for data collection purposes on external wall systems in use on high-rise buildings.

The purpose of this analysis is to provide information on the estimated effects of policy refinements and assurances from major lenders and wider industry, including the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), that residential buildings with no cladding will no longer need to undergo an external wall survey (EWS1) process before dwellings can be sold or re-mortgages offered.