Tom Symonds
BBC News correspondent
Getty Images
Dangerous cladding being removed from flats in Slough, Berkshire
The government still does not know how many buildings in England have dangerous cladding, the costs of removing it, or the length of time it will take, according to a committee of MPs.
In a report, the Public Accounts Committee, which scrutinises the use of taxpayers’ money, cast doubt on whether the government would hit its own target of resolving the building safety crisis by 2029.
It concluded that a new plan aimed at speeding up progress was “insufficiently ambitious and at risk of not delivering what is promised”.
The housing ministry said it had been taking “tough and decisive action after years of dither and delay” which would speed up the “unacceptably slow” pace of work.
The committee predicted the cost of making buildings safe could reach £22.4bn and prevent the government meeting another of its key targets: to build 1.5 million homes.
Ministers have set aside £5.1bn to resolve the cladding crisis, expecting developers, building owners and social housing providers to pay the rest.
This figure did not rise when Labour announced a plan in December to speed up the work.
The safety crisis, triggered by the discovery of dangerous materials at Grenfell Tower after the fire in 2017, continues to grow.
While thousands of buildings have been made safe, including the majority of high-rise buildings with dangerous aluminium and plastic cladding, by December remediation had yet to start on a quarter of the 1,323 tall buildings requiring attention.
Up to 12,000 buildings, and three million people could be affected.
Homes England will review 720,000 building records to create registers of those which may need attention
Comparing the crisis to the Post Office and infected blood scandals, the Conservative chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said he was “utterly appalled” that there were no immediate solutions at hand for people living in affected properties.
“It would have been the committee’s wish that this report carried better news for all affected.
“Unfortunately, we are united with campaigners in deeply regrettable scepticism that current remediation plans are capable of delivering on what’s promised.”
The government has passed the Building Safety Act with the aim of moving the cost of resolving safety issues from leaseholders who live in affected buildings to developers.
However, some home-owners cannot sell their flats because the new owners would be liable for thousands of pounds to pay for remediation work. Others have seen building insurance premiums shoot up due to the risk of a fire.
Setting out its concerns, the report found:
- Targets for remediating unsafe buildings are “unconvincing”.
- Resolving the crisis relied partly on new laws which could take an unpredictable amount of time to pass.
- The Building Safety Levy which is designed to make developers and owners of buildings pay, may need to last longer than previously anticipated.
- There were concerns about a lack of cladding and fire risk experts.
- Tackling the crisis could make it hard to build new homes. The National Housing Federation said the need to make buildings safe had resulted in a 90 per cent fall in new construction in London last year.
To increase the amount of funding available the Public Accounts Committee called for the manufacturers of materials implicated in the Grenfell Tower Fire to also face a levy.
This could include Arconic, which manufactured the cladding panels used to cover the tower, or companies involved in supplying insulation.
Arconic has always argued that it was for architects and designers to use its products safely.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said in a statement: “We continue to work closely with industry, local authorities, and residents to accelerate remediation efforts while ensuring those responsible for unsafe buildings cover the costs, with new penalties and criminal sanctions on building owners who refuse to take action.”
The government has been asked by the committee to give updates on its progress later this year.
