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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what additional fire safety arrangements will be put in place in tall residential tower blocks which may have flammable cladding; and what central Government funding is available to finance such arrangements.

The Department wrote to local authority and housing association landlords on 18 June, setting out immediate actions that should be taken to identify residential tower blocks over 18 metres in height with aluminium type external cladding. The Department wrote again on 19 June to set out the process they should follow to submit samples of Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding for testing.

On 30 June, we published a note at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/explanatory-note-on-safety-checks-and-testing. This note confirms the advice in those letters to local authorities, with further specific information about the tests being carried out.

On 6 July we published details of further tests to be carried out as the next step in helping landlords to ensure the safety of their buildings. These large scale tests will help establish how different types of ACM panels in combination with different types of insulation behave in a fire. Further detail about the next testing stage can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/expert-panel-recommends-further-tests-on-cladding-and-insulation.

Where work is necessary to ensure the fire safety of social housing, we will ensure that lack of financial resources will not prevent it going ahead.