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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the statement on building safety by the Secretary of State for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on 10 January (HC Deb col 288), whether leaseholders who are buy-to-let landlords will be covered by the "protection for leaseholders" referred to.

As set out in our statement to Parliament on Building Safety on 10 January 2022, building owners and industry should make buildings safe without passing on costs to leaseholders, and leaseholders living in their own medium rise buildings should not pay a penny to remediate historic cladding defects that are no fault of their own. We have clarified that we have no intention of excluding leaseholders who have moved out and sublet from the protections that will be in place (including those in shared ownership) for buildings below 18 metres in England. We will explore whether this support should extend to other leaseholders, such as buy-to-let landlords.