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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the letter from his Department cited in the 3 July 2019 InsideHousing article entitled, Check cladding on buildings under 18m - government tells building control, whether his Department is directing building control to check the safety of cladding on all buildings including those already constructed.

On 1 July my Department issued a circular letter to remind building control bodies of considerations relating to assessing compliance with requirement B4 of Schedule 1 to the Building Regulations 2010 with regard to fire spread over the external walls of a building and, in particular, the application of that requirement to low-rise buildings. The letter relates to building work controlled by the building regulations and imposes no new duties on local authorities. The Circular letter is available on the Department's website at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/circular-letter-regarding-the-application-of-requirement-b4-of-the-building-regulations-2010.

For buildings already constructed we have also published a series of Advice Notes for building owners in regard to fire safety at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-building-safety-programme#advice-notes.