Fire Safety and Sprinkler Systems — [James Gray in the Chair]

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 10:45 am on 12 March 2019.

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Photo of Kit Malthouse Kit Malthouse Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government) 10:45, 12 March 2019

It is a great pleasure to appear before you once again, Mr Gray. I congratulate Jim Fitzpatrick on securing this debate, and my hon. Friend Sir David Amess, and other Members, on the formidable platoon of people who they marshal on this issue on a regular basis. As our call for evidence on the technical review of building regulations fire safety guidance is closing, I welcome this opportunity to respond to the debate.

I hope hon. Members recognise that ensuring that people are and feel safe in their homes is a priority for the Government, and that includes all parts of the Government, both elected and non-elected. Notwithstanding remarks by a number of Members about the official advice that Ministers receive, I hope people recognise that officials in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government are as dedicated to the cause of fire safety as everyone else, and that their views and the advice they give are drawn from as wide a range of experts in the field as possible. As the former member of the London Assembly responsible for the constituency that contains Grenfell Tower, it is of particular importance to me that we reach a resolution on this issue quickly.

Before coming to sprinklers, I wish to update hon. Members about wider work that is under way on fire safety. In the immediate aftermath of the terrible Grenfell fire we acted quickly to establish the building safety programme, which worked tirelessly to identify and remediate buildings with unsafe cladding. Thanks to the testing and hard work of local authorities, we are confident that we have identified all social housing with unsafe ACM cladding systems in England, and we have made good progress in making those buildings permanently safe. Of the 158 social sector buildings, 125 have either started or completed remediation, and plans and commitments are in place to remediate the remaining 33 buildings. To help ensure swift progress, we have made £400 million available to social sector landlords to fund that remediation. I regret, however, that remediation in the private sector has been more challenging, with negotiations in some instances disappointingly slow.

Since Grenfell, we have worked intensively with local authorities to identify high-rise buildings with ACM cladding, and we have provided £1.3 million to assist them. Local authorities across England have assessed around 6,000 private sector high-rise buildings. They needed to take samples to test, and in some cases legal action was required to get owners to co-operate in that testing. We have taken strong action to give local authorities the support they need to enforce the removal and replacement of unsafe cladding. We have established a taskforce to oversee the remediation of private sector buildings, as well as a joint inspection team to support local authorities in pursuing enforcement action.

On 29 November, the Government went further and announced that we will back local authorities to take emergency action, including financial support, where building owners are not co-operating with remediation. As a result, we have made progress with commitments from owners to replace unsafe cladding. By the end of December 2018, 218 out of 266 privately owned buildings had either started, completed, or committed to remediation. Forty-eight private residential buildings remain where the owners are not currently co-operating, and that number has fallen from more than 200 buildings in June last year. We remain concerned about and engaged with leaseholders who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in a difficult and stressful situation. I recently met the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse to discuss the New Providence Wharf development in his constituency.