Cladding Crisis - government STILL doing too little, say cross-party MPs

Too many leaseholders will fall through the cracks of the government’s “piecemeal measures” to combat the cladding crisis. 

That’s the view of the cross-party Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee of MPs, in a new report called Building Safety: Remediation and Funding.

This is the MPs’ independent response to plans outlined by Housing Secretary Michael Gove in the New Year. 

The MPs’ report features a series of recommendations including calls to:

- Scrap the proposed cap on non-cladding costs for leaseholders;

- Implement a Comprehensive Building Safety Fund to cover the costs of remediating all building safety defects on any buildings of any height where the original “polluter” cannot be traced;

- Compensate leaseholders for costs already paid out, including for interim measures and for rises in insurance premiums;

- Require all relevant parties who played a role in the building safety crisis to contribute to funds for remediation;

- Ensure the Affordable Homes Programme is protected at its current level and that social housing tenants do not pay the price through costs or diversion of funds away from maintaining their homes or other vital services .

Clive Betts, chair of the LUHC Select Committee, says: “Leaseholders should not be paying a penny to rectify faults not of their doing in order to make their homes safe. 

“Nearly five years after the tragic Grenfell fire, it is shameful this situation is yet to be properly resolved. While we welcome Michael Gove’s commitment to fixing these issues, we are concerned there are gaps in the Secretary of State’s proposals which risk leaving leaseholders to pick up the bill.

“Leaseholders are no more to blame for non-cladding defects than they are for faulty cladding on homes they bought in good faith. 

“The government should bring forward a Comprehensive Building Safety Fund, or upgrade their existing funding plans, to ensure that the costs of remediating all building safety defects on buildings where the original ‘polluter’ cannot be traced are covered and that leaseholders are also compensated for costs they have already paid out.

“The government should be looking beyond developers and manufacturers to contribute to the costs of fixing the building safety crisis. 

“We recommend the government identify all relevant parties who played a role in this crisis, such as product suppliers, installers, contractors and sub-contractors, and legally require them to pay towards fixing individual faults and ensure that they also contribute to collective funding for building safety remediation. Insurers should also be required to contribute to funds for remediation.”

And as has already been reported on our sister publication Landlord Today, the MPs’ report disagrees with the government that only buy to let landlords with one other property should be included in the statutory protections for leaseholders, arguing there are other options to exclude wealthy property tycoons without making landlords of more modest means liable, and calls on the government to publish an impact assessment before undertaking action.