Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 29
17th Report - The Remediation of Dangerous Cladding
Published 21 Mar 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee The Remediation of Dangerous Cladding All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Home Builders Federation (HBF) raised concerns that insurance companies were seeking to profit from the building safety crisis. The Shared Owners Network similarly wrote that many shared owners were struggling to pay housing-related costs such as insurance. End Our Cladding Scandal (EOCS) raised exorbitant insurance as one of the many costs that risked putting residents “at risk of life-changing debt or forfeiture”.49 MHCLG’s Plan acknowledged that as well as needing to find thousands of pounds to pay for insurance, high insurance can make it difficult for people to sell their properties. We asked what efforts had been made to discuss the issue with insurance companies. MHCLG recognised that this was “a very serious problem”. It told us that it had asked the Financial Conduct Authority to undertake research into the high-rise buildings market in 2022. This found that the price of insurance premiums in high-rise buildings had doubled between 2016 and 2021. In its plan, MHCLG noted and that some individuals were facing annual bills of over £3,000.50 47 Q 117; MHCLG, Building Safety Remediation: monthly data release - December 2024, 23 January 2025 48 Committee of Public Accounts, Progress in remediating dangerous cladding, Sixteenth Report of Session 2019-21, HC 406, 16 September 2020, recommendation 4 49 RDC0006, Written evidence submitted by the Home Builders Federation; RDC0143, Written evidence submitted by the Shared Owners’ Network; RDC0145, Written evidence submitted by End Our Cladding Scandal 50 Q 50; Financial Conduct Authority, Report on insurance for multi-occupancy buildings, September 2022 para 1.16; MHCLG Remediation Acceleration Plan 20
From: Public Accounts Committee, 17th Report - The Remediation of Dangerous Cladding (HC 362), 21 March 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Seventeenth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026.
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Seventeenth report from Session 2024-25
Published 16 May 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with most of the Committee's recommendations on the remediation of dangerous cladding, with target dates between summer and December 2025, but disagrees with the recommendation on construction manufacturers paying a share of remediation costs.
- On the Remediation Acceleration Plan, the government agrees to update the Committee in Autumn 2025. It says it "has not seen significant evidence that non-cladding defects are slowing down remediation" but is committed to removing blockers.
- On construction manufacturers paying a share of remediation costs, the government disagrees. It says it is consulting on redress routes in the Construction Products Reform Green Paper and that leaseholders and tenants are protected from the cost of cladding remediation.
- The government will publish latest building number estimates "by the summer", but the timing of cost and completion date estimates "will depend on the outcome of the forthcoming Spending Review".
- On insurance, the government agrees and will share an update on progress by the end of 2025. It is gathering data on premiums and is considering whether government "might support industry to reduce fire related liabilities".