Sarah Jones comments on statistics showing hundreds of tower blocks are still wrapped in Grenfell-style cladding

Sarah Jones MP, Labour’s Shadow Housing Minister, commenting on statistics showing hundreds of tower blocks are still wrapped in flammable Grenfell-style cladding, said:

“Yet again we are seeing the human impact of government failure post-Grenfell. Tens of thousands of people are going to sleep in flammable buildings and hundreds of thousands still do not know if their home is safe to live in. And with deadly tower blocks still being discovered two and a half years after Grenfell, there are serious questions about the government's ability and willingness to fix this crisis.

"It shames Conservative ministers that after promising to pay for flammable cladding removal nine months ago, the government has only funded a single private block, leaving hundreds still covered."

Ends

Notes to editors

• The government’s ’Building Safety Programme: Monthly Data Release’ today confirms that 266 residential tower blocks are still covered in flammable, Grenfell-style ACM cladding. The figures show over the past three months an additional 16 private blocks have been discovered with ACM cladding.
• Today’s figures show that of 82 private buildings which have applied to the government’s £200m cladding removal fund – announced in May 2019 -  just one block has so far had an application for full costs accepted by government:

• Research from Labour published before the General Election revealed that up to 600,000 people across England face being trapped in unsafe or unsellable high-rise properties due to lack of government action and unclear guidance over cladding safety.
• After repeated Labour pressure, the Tory government finally set targets in summer 2019, to see social blocks made safe by the end of 2019 and private blocks by June 2020. But at the current rate, the social sector will not be made safe until October 2022 and private blocks until October 2033.
• Labour has set out an updated five-point plan to force the pace of re-cladding on private tower blocks, involving:

1.   Naming and shaming owners of blocks fitted with dangerous cladding;

2.   Giving councils powers to impose tougher fines on owners who don’t have a plan to remove dangerous cladding;

3.   Empowering councils to take over blocks whose owners refuse to make them safe, in order to get the works done and make buildings safe;

4.   Immediately making funds available to councils who take over blocks with dangerous cladding;

5.   Immediately directing officials to widen the government-sponsored testing regime to comprehensively test non-ACM, as well as ACM cladding, including on private blocks.