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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what financial support is available towards the cost of (a) waking watches and (b) other interim fire safety measures for leaseholders living in blocks under 18 metres while they wait for remediation work to be completed.

The Waking Watch Relief Fund is a £30 million fund to install alarms in high rise residential buildings. Common alarm systems will enable costly waking watch measures to be replaced in buildings waiting to have unsafe cladding removed. The National Fire Chief’s Council (NFCC) have welcomed the Fund and guidance published by the NFCC is clear that alarms are preferable to waking watches.

The Fund is targeted at buildings which are at the greatest risk and where cost to leaseholders is highest. However, the Government is also providing a long-term, low interest financing scheme to help pay for remediation costs in buildings between 11-18 metres. This will speed up the pace of remediation and remove the need for costly interim measures.

However, the Government expects building owners, who are responsible for their buildings, to meet 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.

Interim measures such as waking watch should only be used as a short-term option to mitigate an immediate risk. They are not an alternative to remediation. Building owners are responsible for the safety of their buildings, which includes remediating their buildings as swiftly as possible.