Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, when officials in his Department were made aware of the presence of flammable cladding on buildings in the Defence Estate.

Ministry of Defence Officials were first made aware that one Single Living Accommodation block at HMS Nelson was not compliant with Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government guidance on cladding in July 2019.

The Grenfell Tower fire occurred on 14 June 2017. In response to the concerns about building cladding and following advice from MHCLG, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) surveyed the defence estate to establish if any MOD-owned sleeping accommodation blocks over 18m in height were clad with Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) during July-August 2017. This found that MOD had no buildings that met the criteria or that were clad with ACM.

In December 2018, the MHCLG issued an updated Advice Note which changed and extended the requirement, recommending that all buildings with any external cladding at a height in excess of 18m and containing residential accommodation should be assessed to ascertain the type of cladding used.

All relevant buildings on the Defence Estate were re-surveyed (surveys completed in July 2019), which identified 28 buildings (subsequently reduced to 27 buildings) which had cladding and required further investigation as there was no evidence to confirm the external wall systems had a BR135 classification that was required under MHCLG Advice Note 14 to determine that the external wall system is safe.

As part of this process Ministry of Defence Officials were first made aware that one Single Living Accommodation block at HMS Nelson was not compliant with MHCLG guidance on cladding in July 2019.

In November 2019, Defence Fire and Rescue (DFR), the Defence Fire Safety Regulator (DFSR) and Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) agreed that the 28 buildings identified should have the cladding removed, and letters notifying of the risk and need for removal were sent to the relevant Heads of Establishments in December 2019. DFR provided advice on how to operate the buildings to enable them to be safe to occupy. DFR, DFSR and DIO agreed that occupation of the buildings could continue until the appropriate measures were implemented subject to maintaining and adhering to the conditions within the buildings Fire Risk Assessments. Subsequent advice from Fire Engineering Specialists confirmed that the buildings and cladding could be assessed to determine if the cladding needed to be removed.

In Jan 2020 a consolidated advice note was issued by MHCLG, which advised all buildings containing sleeping accommodation (at any height) with external cladding should be assessed.