I recently met with Lord Greenhalgh, Minister of State for Building Safety and Fire, along with a resident of Saxon House to discuss the Building Safety Bill.
The meeting was extremely useful, and gave my constituent the opportunity to share his experience of living in a building with cladding with the Minister. Lord Greenhalgh agreed to visit both Saxon House in Hackbridge and Canon Court in Wallington to meet with residents, as well as take away my constituent's concerns to discuss with his Department.
On Monday 10th January, the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP made an announcement regarding the Government’s new approach to Building Safety, and set out 4 key principles that will underpin their new approach to building safety as part of ongoing reform to the building safety regulatory system, and you can read more here (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-sets-out-new-plan-to-protect-leaseholders-and-make-industry-pay-for-the-cladding-crisis).
I am pleased that the Government is introducing an entirely new regulatory regime for high-rise buildings, that will take a proportionate, safety-first approach, and I welcome the intentions behind the Building Safety Bill.
I will be keeping a close eye on developments, and will continue to push for progress, to ensure that the changes announced go far enough, that clarity is offered where required, and that the changes offer the protection to leaseholders that they rightly deserve.
It is my firm belief that protecting leaseholders from extortionate costs must continue to be an absolute priority. I therefore take heart in and echo the words of the Secretary of State that it is morally wrong that leaseholders – who are blameless – should be asked to pay the price of remedying failures.
Decisive steps have been taken to ensure that those who manufactured dangerous products, developed unsafe buildings, or profited from the crisis pay to make it right. The Secretary of State has been clear that developers will have until early March to agree to a fully funded plan of action to remediate dangerous cladding on medium-rise buildings (11 to 18 metres) in England.
Ministers assure me that all steps necessary will be taken to make this happen.
Therefore, I do welcome the announcement that the Building Safety Bill will be amended to include statutory protection for leaseholders. This will extend to all the work required to make buildings safe. I am told that work is taking place across government to provide the most robust legal protection.
These measures will help to provide leaseholders with greater certainty and protection, for example through zero-rating VAT on building safety remedial work and crediting any subsequent VAT refunds to the leaseholder. I have, however, been assured that the Department is aware of arguments surrounding VAT on remediation works and is looking into this issue.
I supported calls set out in the McPartland-Smith amendments to extend leaseholders' access to redress. It is therefore encouraging to see that the Government is doing just that by amending the Building Safety Bill to offer residents 30 years to make claims retrospectively under the Defective Premise Act.
I have no doubt that the Government will continue to take all proposed amendments to the Building Safety Bill under full consideration. Please be assured that I will continue to monitor developments in this area closely to ensure the Bill is sufficiently amended to tackle the issues that I, residents and cladding campaigners, have been asking for.
If you live in an affected building, and you would like me to raise your specific situation with the Minister, please do not hesitate to ask, and I will update you further when appropriate.