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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps, if any, they plan to take to protect leaseholders from being required by freeholders to pay excessively large sums for remedial work to ensure the safety of multi-storey housing accommodation.

The Secretary of State announced on 4 December that the department is providing additional funding to the Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE), an arm’s length body which provides free initial legal advice to leaseholders, to advise on fire safety issues.

Just as social landlords are not seeking to pass on costs for cladding remediation, in the private sector we believe that the morally right thing to do is for landlords to not pass these costs onto leaseholders.

The Department is keeping the situation under review.