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2230 SUNDAY 4th JULY
Ahead of the publication of the Building Safety Bill on Monday
5th July, Labour is demanding that the government legislate to
ensure leaseholders cannot be billed for fire and building safety
remediation works, or potentially face defeat on crucial clauses
of the Bill.
There is a cross Party consensus that leaseholders should not
pay, illustrated in the Fire Safety Act votes, which saw one of
the biggest rebellions in this Parliament on this issue
previously.
Labour’s Shadow Housing Secretary said:
“Hundreds of thousands of innocent homeowners and tenants are
suffering unbelievable pressure as a result of the government’s
failure on cladding. Their approach so far has been marked by
inertia and spiralling costs, with people trapped in unsafe,
unsellable homes, facing unaffordable, unjust costs through no
fault of their own.
“If Ministers do not legislate to safeguard leaseholders
livelihoods, we will build on the big cross-Party consensus from
the Fire Safety Act rebellions to defeat the government and
protect homeowners from colossal costs. We’ll also work to
establish a Building Works Agency – a crack team of experts that
will go block by block, assessing risk, commissioning and funding
necessary works, signing off buildings as safe, so that people
can go on with their lives, and ensure the BWA has powers to go
after those that caused this crisis in the first place for
costs.”
Ends
Notes to editor
On 17 occasions Ministers have promised that leaseholders will
not bear the costs of remediation works, yet their loans scheme
set out in Clauses 88 and 89 of the draft Building Safety Bill
goes against these plans.
The cross-Party Housing, Communities and Local Government Select
Committee said:
It would be unacceptable and an abdication of responsibility
to make them contribute a single penny towards the cost of
remediating defects for which they were not responsible.
The Government must recommit to the principle that
leaseholders should not pay
anything towards the cost of remediating historical building
safety defects, and, in
order to provide leaseholders with the peace of mind they
deserve, amend the Bill to
explicitly exclude historical costs from the building safety
charge.
https://committees.parliament.uk/work/361/prelegislative-scrutiny-of-the-building-safety-bill/publications/
Labour’s solution
We have called for a National Cladding Taskforce
to establish the extent of dangerous cladding, prioritise works
according to risk and ensure there is enforcement against those
who refuse to undertake works.
Labour is now calling for this taskforce to be further beefed up,
given the failure of the government to adopt this approach, and
safeguard lives and livelihoods.
Labour is calling on the government to establish a new
Building Works Agency. This single body, accountable to
Ministers would decide what works are necessary, commission and
pay for them, and then sign the building off as safe at the end
of the process. The Building Works Agency would work
closely with local authorities and fire chiefs, who have been
gathering data and are well placed to know how to manage projects
locally. They would also have the legal powers to pursue those
responsible through the courts.
Labour’s Building Works Agency follows
the model in Victoria, Australia. The big lesson from them is
that the Government needs to be interventionist, or the work will
never get done.
- They carried out a full-scale audit, proactively going to
every building over 2 stories, rather than waiting for building
owners to self-report
- Cladding Safety Victoria is the body with powers to fix the
buildings. There is a dedicated officer for each building. They
appoint a project manager directly. They use their own set of
fire engineers to assess the works that will be necessary. They
organise the PII, which is otherwise too hard to get on the
market. CSV releases funds according to milestones and
inspections. The same fire engineers sign off the building as
safe at the end.
- Meanwhile, owners can sell because they have a certificate
saying – the works will be done and paid for.
