Select committee: Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
Recommendation 15
2nd Report - Cladding: progress of remediation
Published 12 Jun 2020
Paragraph 59
Addressed to Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee Cladding: progress on remediation All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We would support a much more extensive use of Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) powers, to take direct ownership of the freehold of buildings with serious fire safety defects. The Government should give urgent consideration to the setting up of a new national body whose sole purpose is to purchase the freehold and manage the remediation of buildings with serious fire safety defects. This new body should step in where overburdened local authorities are unable or unwilling to act. The valuation of buildings under CPO should consider the cost of remediation and this should be deducted from any financial consideration paid to the building owner. Consideration of legislative changes should be included in the forthcoming Building Safety Bill. Any residential building where works have not commenced by December 2020 should be subject to a CPO by this new body.
From: Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, 2nd Report - Cladding: progress of remediation (HC 172), paragraph 59, 12 June 2020
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 8 September 2020.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response sets out funding, enforcement and legislative measures, mainly through the draft Building Safety Bill, and responds to each of the Committee's recommendations without adopting its calls for a wider fund or fixed deadlines.
- On funding, the government says public money should not be the only means of remediation, and that building owners "should meet the costs without passing them on to leaseholders wherever possible". The £1bn fund is available in 2020/21 and will incentivise pace.
- On timing, it sets an expectation that building owners will have works on site for removal of unsafe ACM cladding "by the end of 2020", with completion "by the end of 2021". It does not adopt the Committee's broader targets.
- On compulsory purchase, it says no local authority has yet seriously considered CPO, but "we have not ruled out any options, including CPOs, if the pace of remediation remains too slow".
- On historic remedial costs not covered by the £1.6 billion, Michael Wade will "accelerate work on identifying options", with an update "before the final Building Safety Bill is introduced to Parliament".