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Labour slams government’s ‘toothless’ ACM remediation enforcement
Labour has accused the government of a “toothless” approach to enforcing building owners’ failures to fix unsafe aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding, as the Building Safety Bill reaches its final day at committee stage.
On Tuesday the Building Safety Bill committee will discuss 11 Labour amendments to the piece of legislation in its last session of scrutiny, before the bill returns to the Commons. When the bill returns to parliament, the government is expected to face major backbench rebellion from some of its MPs.
Opposition and backbench MPs have between them proposed dozens of amendments to the legislation, billed as the biggest change to building safety regulation in a generation.
This month it was reported that housing secretary Michael Gove was considering naming and shaming building owners who did not remedy fire safety issues, among a series of potential measures aimed at getting a grip on the building safety crisis.
But shadow housing minister Mike Amesbury has questioned the approach and pointed out that former housing secretary Robert Jenrick made a similar pledge in 2019 regarding building owners that had yet to begin ACM remediation – a pledge that did not speed up the remediation.
While the government now publishes each month the names of landlords yet to start work, half of building owners who were on its list six months ago are still there, Labour said.
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On average, building owners on the list had been on it for four of the past six months, the party found.
In April this year, Inside Housing carried out an in-depth investigation into those building owners that had yet to start work to remove ACM from their buildings.
The government’s latest list includes 10 freeholders:
- Adriatic Land 5
- Betterpride
- HEB Apartments
- HEB Commercial
- Old House Group
- OYO Technology & Hospitality UK
- Rockwell (FC100)
- Rocquefort Properties
- Tonenest
- Travelodge Hotels
“The government’s toothless enforcement is letting building owners off the hook for failing to fix unsafe cladding,” Mr Amesbury said.
“Homeowners trapped in unsellable flats were promised that [the Building Safety Bill] would give them a way out,” he added. “We have now been through every single line of it, and in fact it makes their situation worse.”
Legal advice commissioned by Labour and published over the summer found that the Building Safety Bill in its existing form would worsen rather than improve leaseholders’ circumstances, making it “more certain” they would bear the cost of the building safety crisis.
In its amendments, Labour has called on the government to establish a ‘Building Works Agency’ within six months of the Building Safety Bill passing into law.
This body – modelled on a taskforce set up in Victoria, Australia – would audit building safety defects and prioritise them for remediation, manage grant funding and recover costs where appropriate, and provide support and advice for building owners during the process.
“Rather than repeating failed experiments of the past, the government must give leaseholders cast iron protection in law, and appoint a crack team of building safety experts now to go block by block and speed up remediation, and then pursue those responsible for putting up dangerous cladding through the courts,” Mr Amesbury said.
Among its proposed amendments, Labour has also called for the government to assess the impact of building safety issues on leaseholders’ mental health and access to insurance, collect building safety data better, and publish an assessment of the implementation of the Hackitt Review recommendations.
A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: “Building owners and industry must make buildings safe without passing costs on to leaseholders. Building owners that do not make acceptable progress should expect further action to be taken.
“The new secretary of state is looking afresh at work in this area to ensure we are doing everything we can to protect and support leaseholders, and we will come forward with further measures in due course.”
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