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 4 March 2021 to Question 160570, whether his Department has made an assessment of the number of leaseholders likely to (a) lose their home and (b) declare bankruptcy as a result of the costs of resolving fire safety issues relating to (i) cladding removal, (ii) balcony remediation, (iii) replacing combustible insulation, (iv) replacing missing fire breaks, (v) increased insurance premiums and (vi) waking watches.

The information requested is not held.

The Government has announced over £5 billion in grant funding towards the removal of unsafe cladding on buildings over 18 metres in height. This unprecedented investment in building safety will help hundreds of thousands of leaseholders, who will be protected from the cost of replacing unsafe cladding on their homes. Alongside this a generous finance scheme will also provide for remediation of unsafe cladding on buildings of 11-18 metres in height. Leaseholders will pay no more than £50 a month towards this scheme. We will publish more details on how these schemes will work soon.

These schemes will also ultimately help to end interim measures and reduce building insurance costs. They build on steps already taken to support leaseholders, including the £30 million Waking Watch Relief Fund to incentivise the purchase of alarm systems in buildings where there is currently a waking watch in place and there is no common alarm system.