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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the provision of additional funds to local authorities to improve the fire safety of their housing stock in the 2018-19 financial year.

The Government has been clear that local authorities, as the responsible body, will need to fund the costs of fire safety work in their own buildings. However, Government will consider financial flexibilities for local authorities to enable essential works to go ahead. This would not include general improvements or enhancements to buildings which go beyond works needed to make a building safe.

If a local authority building owner considers any of their buildings to be unsafe, they will need to determine what measures are essential to make each building fire safe. This will need to be done as part of a whole fire safety strategy for each individual building, taking into account expert advice, any directions or advice from local fire and rescue service, and other fire safety measures present.