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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to crack down on developers found to have improperly installed cladding in breach of building regulations at the time of construction.

The powers to enforce contraventions of the building regulations lie with local authorities. Under Sections 35, 35A and 36 of the Building Act the local authority has the power to take enforcement action and can take action against the building owner and those carrying out the works (for example the builder, installer or main contractor).

The Government is providing £5 billion of funding to protect leaseholders living in residential buildings over 18 metres with unsafe cladding from the costs of remediation, but this does not absolve building owners or developers of their responsibilities. Building owners should meet the remediation costs without passing them on to leaseholders wherever possible, through their own resources or by recovering costs from applicable warranty schemes or from the developers or contractors who were responsible for the installation of unsafe cladding, as is happening with more than half of the private sector buildings with ACM cladding. Applicants to the Building Safety Fund and the Private Sector ACM Remediation Fund are also required to demonstrate that they have taken all reasonable steps to recover the costs of replacing the unsafe cladding from those responsible.

Furthermore, as announced on 10 February 2021, we are going to introduce a developer levy through the Building Safety Bill to be targeted and applied when developers seek permission to develop certain high-rise buildings in England. In addition, we will introduce a new tax for the UK residential property development sector in 2022. The levy and tax will ensure that the largest property developers make a fair contribution to the remediation programme. The Government will consult on the policy design of the tax.