Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation
House of Commons · Westminster Hall · 15 Sep 2026 · 37 speeches · Official Report
I beg to move, That this House has considered the building safety remediation of residential buildings. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, and all right hon. and hon. Members for their participation. More than nine years after Grenfell claimed all those lives, we must ask whether the system that is intended to protect residents and deliver the safety and security they deserve is truly working. There has been progress. The Building Safety Act 2022, the Building Safety Regulator and remediation funding have strengthened our collective national response, but legislation must lead to safer homes, funding must lead to completed works and residents must be able to move forward with their lives. Today, I will address three interconnected issues: the protection of residents during remediation, the operation of PAS 9980 and the competence of those making critical safety decisions, and the position of non-qualifying leaseholders. I will begin by drawing on an experience directly connected to my constituency. Surrey Heath is, by any definition, a semi-rural consistency, where one would not necessarily have expected this issue to rear its head, yet the correspondence reaching my office from Camberley, our principal market town, shows how deeply the problem affects ordinary households across the UK. We must judge the system by the experience of the residents who depend on it. At Dorchester...
I can think of at least two buildings in my constituency that have been determined urgent life-critical but cannot be remediated because of delays in getting the certificates they need from the Building Safety Regulator. That leaves residents facing large insurance costs, unable to sell, and stuck with damp and mould and a whole range of other issues. Does the hon. Member agree that the Building Safety Regulator needs the resources so that residents are not left trapped in their homes for years?
I am incredibly grateful to the hon. Lady, who I know represents a Bournemouth seat. I have exactly the same issues in my constituency. Reports and certification are not being received in time, often frustrating sales and driving things like insurance premiums in the long term. Residents’ lives cannot be placed on hold indefinitely while those who have the whip hand decide what happens next. The problems do not end when remediation begins. At North Court, another development in Camberley, residents undergoing remediation through the Metropolitan Thames Valley housing association have reported restricted daylight and ventilation, broken windows and water leaks. Those issues are challenging at the best of times, but almost unbearable during a long, hot summer like the one we have just had, when temperatures inside properties regularly reached 40ºC. Some residents have described deteriorating mental health and feeling increasingly insecure in their own homes. Scaffolding, sheeting, noise and disruption may be unavoidable for a time, but poor communication, unresolved damage and unhealthy living conditions are not acceptable. Clear information, prompt repairs and credible completion dates should be basic expectations throughout the remediation process. I ask the Minister to outline how residents will be protected during remediation works, especially during hot summer periods and cold winters.
I am struck that the hon. Member used the phrase “collective national response” to start his remarks. As a Scottish MP, I am conscious that this is a UK-wide endeavour, but four different Governments could be looking at it. If work is accelerated in one part, pressure can be put on the resources available in another. Does the hon. Member agree that the collective national response has to be considered in a UK sense, not just under the relevant Department in Westminster? The Public Accounts Committee looked at this issue on 21 March 2025. One of our conclusions was: “Given the lack of progress to date and the remaining challenges ahead, we are sceptical about the adequacy and achievability of MHCLG’s Remediation Acceleration Plan.” Does the hon. Member share that scepticism?
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that one main handbrake to remediation is national resourcing. There are simply not enough fire safety engineers or specialist companies that can do this remediation work on a fast timescale. That problem exists not only between Scotland and England but within the English regions. I entirely accept the hon. Gentleman’s point that a co-ordinated national solution is the best response we could hope for for our residents, so that the work is undertaken in a timely and efficient manner. My second question for the Minister relates to that topic. How will those responsible be held to enforceable timetables, so that residents have certainty and transparency from companies completing the remediation works? The examples I have cited concern the pace and conditions of remediation but, before any work begins, someone must decide what work is required. That brings me to PAS 9980, the framework used to assess fire risks in the external walls of existing residential buildings. The Government have committed to making the standard mandatory for relevant external wall fire risk assessments, but its interpretation will influence the work that is carried out, the funding available and the conditions in which residents are expected to live. A proportionate approach is sensible. Assessors should consider the building as a whole, including its materials, construction and wider fire safety arrangements. The work undertaken should reflect the risk that the...
The hon. Member talked about publication of the audit, with which I hope everyone will agree. Does he agree that it should be shared across the nations of the UK in order that all our Executives-the Parliaments in Scotland and Wales and the Executive in Northern Ireland-can take action where that is appropriate?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He parallels the case made by the hon. Member for Stirling and Strathallan (Chris Kane). There has to be a national-level approach, and I hope that the Government will share information with the devolved Administrations in all parts of the United Kingdom and with all Members of this House so that we can adequately support the affected residents, who are certainly not just in England. The experience with the separate EWS1 process shows what happens when confidence in these professionals breaks down. One Surrey Heath constituent accepted an offer on their apartment for £260,000. That was for a flat originally bought for £316,000. They were prepared to accept a loss of £56,000 simply to move forward with their life, but even then the sale collapsed, because the buyer could not obtain a mortgage after lenders stopped accepting the building’s EWS1 form, which had been signed by the now notorious Adam Kiziak of Tri Fire Ltd. The Institution of Fire Engineers suspended Mr Kiziak’s membership and registration in 2024, following findings under its disciplinary process. It announced his expulsion on 5 March 2025, following even more complaints. Also in March 2025, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), I met the then Building Safety Minister to raise concerns about Mr Kiziak and his behaviour. My office has identified at least nine EWS1 forms issued through Tri Fire in Camberley alone that have subsequently been rejected...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison, and a delight to be called first. I congratulate the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) on securing this important debate. It is an important opportunity for me to raise with the Minister the many issues that my constituents are facing, which are similar to those that the hon. Member has just described. I welcome the Minister to her place as well. In having this debate, we remember all the victims and survivors of Grenfell. I also thank all the people across the country who have been campaigning on cladding. I have talked about cladding many times and yet we are still here; that is my frustration. I thank the previous Minister for Building Safety, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), for her work on the remediation Bill. The Bill will place stronger legal duties on landlords and freeholders to remediate unsafe cladding and other fire safety defects within clear timeframes. That is very welcome. I am also grateful to her for meeting with me to discuss a number of long-running cases that I face in Putney, and I am glad that the new Minister will continue that important work. I welcome the work of the remediation enforcement unit, the leadership of Lord Roe, and the work of the Building Safety Regulator, but I do not know why they are causing so many delays. I understand that 69 people work for the remediation unit and 500 people work for the Building Safety Regulator. I...
Order. Many colleagues want to speak and we have limited time. Front Benchers will be called at 10.28 am, so I suggest everyone takes four or five minutes for speeches.
I thank the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for securing this debate and for the excellent way that he presented the case. This issue causes unbelievable levels of stress for many of our constituents. We should briefly contrast the complications of getting remedial action to bring about safety and security for our constituents in multiple-ownership private sector developments with the relative speed and efficiency with which local authorities dealt with the problem of cladding after Grenfell. My own borough of Islington surveyed every property immediately, discovered unknown suspect cladding in a couple of places, and got on with it straight away. The issue was resolved very quickly. That was in 2018, but here we are, eight years later, and I have a considerable number of leasehold properties that have been built over the last 20 years or so where the residents, as the hon. Member for Surrey Heath pointed out, want to move on but cannot move or sell, and are paying massive insurance costs. I say to the Minister that the excessive insurance costs many residents are having to pay are not their fault. The problem should absolutely not be their responsibility; it should be the responsibility of the developers that caused it in the first place. If those developers no longer exist or are not prepared to pay, surely the default position should be that the Government as a whole are prepared to pick up that compensation. People are getting deeply into debt just to insure...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I warmly welcome the Minister to her post. I had meetings with most of her predecessors. I do not need to keep having meetings; I just hope that she takes up the points we have raised. I congratulate the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) on laying out the issues so clearly-as a result, I have cut my speech in half. Sadly, it is a bit like “Groundhog Day”: we have all raised these issues before. The peroration of the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) summarised the complexity that the Minister and the Government have to grapple with. It is not just the Government who are part of this challenge, but they have to be part of the solution. I will not name any of the developments that I am talking about, because my residents are very concerned about being blighted. There have been some improvements. The Building Safety Regulator is getting better and the delays have reduced, but as well as dealing with historical issues, it has to work with new developments. Hackney council has a good track record of building council housing, but some of it has been delayed by the Building Safety Regulator. I understand that the delays have now reduced substantially, but I hope the Minister will look closely at that issue in her new role to make sure the Building Safety Regulator is working as efficiently as possible. Skills remain a big issue, and there has been a woeful lack of activity. Some of us were...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton), for securing this debate. In my Woking constituency, residents have been the direct victims of construction failures. The Victoria Square development, a new shopping centre with two residential towers and another tower containing a hotel, is a glaring example. It was all built by Sir Robert McAlpine. This development was meant to help my town grow and ensure that we can build new homes and grow our economy. Instead, it has put Woking on the map for all the wrong reasons. The original opening date was meant to be October 2020. However, after cladding failures, it opened at Halloween 2024, and it has continued to be a horror ever since. Cladding panels fell off after the hotel opened, leading to road closures that disrupted local businesses and massively inconvenienced residents in their day-to-day lives. This was next to the town’s main road, an A road. One time the road was closed after being open for just 11 days, because another panel had fallen off. The road was closed during Christmas, and we all know how important that time of year is for businesses. I asked town centre residents and businesses to tell me how this impacted them. One family-owned restaurant told me its bookings had dropped, and unfortunately it had to cut staff hours. A carers agency said its staff were constantly being delayed in delivering necessary...
Will the hon. Member give way?
I had better not, given the timings. I urge the Government to listen to Members present and take the necessary steps to deliver the building safety and accountability that people back home in Woking, and across the country, deserve.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for this important debate, and the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for so ably setting out the issues that our constituents face. Dartford, perhaps unlike many city centre constituencies, is not necessarily somewhere that would be associated with high levels of building safety problems, but we continue to see issues, including new and previously unidentified ones. The key point I want to make is about the length of time it continues to take to resolve these issues. When I was first elected in 2024, I was contacted by residents of a set of four blocks at Ingress Park in Greenhithe who had a long-standing fire safety issue, first identified as far back as 2019, when it was found that flats had combustible material in the balconies and inadequate firebreaks. Frighteningly for residents, there was even a fire on the site in 2023, which left four people injured, bringing home the need to get the building sorted. I have supported residents over the last two years, bringing together the developer and the managing agents to try to overcome the various obstacles to getting the works done. It was honestly with a sense of relief that I visited the buildings last week to see that the work was finally under way, with an end in sight to the cost and uncertainty with which residents had been living. From today’s contributions and the conversations I have had...
Order. We are going to struggle to get everybody in, so brevity, please, colleagues.
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for securing the debate. He often brings vital debates to Westminster Hall, and I am always glad to come along and support him in his requests. I welcome the Minister to her place. She is a busy lady. She responded to the Adjournment debate last night, and as if she never slept, she is back in Westminster Hall this morning. We wish her well in her role. Building safety remediation is required to fix serious safety defects in residential buildings where those defects could put residents at risk. At the end of July ’26, more than 4,500 residential buildings in England measuring 11 metres or more in height had been identified as having unsafe cladding that requires remediation. The figure had increased by some 228 in just one month, so there is a growing problem, unfortunately. That demonstrates that the demand for essential remediation works is continuing to outpace the rate at which works are being completed. We need to remember that behind those stats are real people. Sometimes we think about the buildings, but what matters is what happens to the people living day to day in them with constant uncertainty about the safety of their own home. The pressure and the stress are almost overwhelming. Many report facing significant financial pressures due to insurance premiums and difficulties in selling their property. We have seen reports of some leaseholders in...
Commendably brief-thank you very much indeed.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison, and I thank the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for securing the debate. As you requested, Dr Murrison, I will keep my comments brief. I want to put on the record that I was silver team, accountability, at Mace for this area in my portfolio, and it was my colleague Sam Kennedy who took on the delivery of that. I am sure that her work has made buildings safer in the long term. I want to make sure that her work is recognised, because I forgot to do so the last time that I spoke here on this topic. The Building Safety Regulator was a serious bottleneck. After we spoke about this issue before, I could not go to a single panel event or roundtable, or open my LinkedIn account, without seeing complaints about the BSR and its performance, but the performance change has been substantial under Lord Roe and Charlie Pugsley. Given that the BSR is a public sector organisation that has changed so quickly, I do not think that we can have this debate without recognising the substantial change that they have made to the BSR, as the performance stats show. But as colleagues have mentioned, there are still areas to improve, so rather than focusing on what is happening now, I will focus on what I think will come next. There are two big issues for the Department to focus on. First, there is the implementation of the building safety levy. In Scotland, the scheme has already been paused, because of concerns over its...
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for securing the debate, and introducing it ever so comprehensively and well. One of the first emails I received when I was elected in 2024 was from Tillicoultry residents who had been told that reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete was present in their roofs. I remember being really moved by how those people have been affected in so many different ways. They have experienced immense stress and uncertainty at being evacuated at short notice. Three years later, they are still separated from their personal possessions: family heirlooms passed down through generations, photo albums, souvenirs and jewellery-items that cannot have a financial price put on them. Some people have had to move to temporary accommodation, such as hotels or rented properties that will never feel like home. The feeling of being unable to put down roots has taken a toll on their mental health, and having to still pay mortgages on uninhabitable properties has taken a toll on their financial health. These people’s lives have been turned upside down, but the most heartbreaking and scandalous part of their story is them feeling like they have been ignored. Confusion over repairs and the cost of them has been a hallmark of years of substandard communication from the council. Homeowners have struggled to get responses to emails or phone calls about their ongoing situation, meaning that people have...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) on securing today’s important debate and setting out the issue so clearly. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Forster) on all the hard work he is doing to deal with the Halloween horror of panels falling in the town centre. I pay tribute to the 72 victims of the Grenfell disaster. No debate should pass without recognising how grotesquely they were failed by the systems that were meant to protect them. Let us not forget what the public inquiry panel, chaired by the judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick, said in its epic report on the disaster. On building inspectors, it said: “We have concluded that the conflict between the regulatory function of building control and the pressures of commercial interests prevents a system of that kind from effectively serving the public interest.” Similarly, it said that the Building Research Establishment “sacrificed rigorous application of principle to its commercial interests.” I will return to commercial interests shortly. The remediation Bill announced in the King’s Speech is expected to make it a legal requirement that every fire risk appraisal of external walls be carried out according to the publicly available specification, or PAS 9980, standard produced by the British Standards Institution. That document decides whether, by law, a leaseholder’s building requires remediation or is...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison, and to take part in this debate on the building safety remediation of residential buildings. I thank the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for securing the debate and for eloquently setting out lots of issues in the sector. This is a vital issue. As right hon. and hon. Members have rightly said, no one should be forced to live in an unsafe home. A great deal of progress has been made to improve our housing in recent years, and the share of unsafe homes has declined in the past decade, but we must go further. The need to press ahead is as great now as it was in the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell fire, which caused the horrific deaths of 72 people. The last Conservative Government began the remediation work straight after Grenfell. It included the introduction of financial protections for leaseholders from the costs relating to remediation of unsafe cladding systems put in place by the developer remediation contract. That has ensured that major developers pledge to remediate life-critical fire safety issues in buildings over 11 metres that they have played a role in developing or refurbishing over the past 30 years in England, although some developers should be taken to task for not acting quickly enough and for leaving constituents to fend for themselves. The last Government were also responsible for putting in place £5.1 billion through the building safety fund and the cladding safety scheme to...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for securing this important debate. I thank all hon. Members who are here this morning. Nine years on, a number of them have rightly raised the tragic incident at Grenfell Tower. As a London MP, I vividly remember the night of 14 June 2017. My son had been born a week earlier, on 7 June. Watching TV throughout the night was like watching a horror film with flames and black pieces, not knowing that the black pieces coming out of the building were people jumping. It is right that this House is united in continuing to scrutinise the pace of remediation and the support available to those affected. Many residents across the country have lived with uncertainty about the safety of their homes, their financial security and their ability to move on with their lives. We recognise the impact that building safety can have not only on people’s homes, but on their wellbeing and peace of mind. Nine years on from Grenfell, we have to be honest and say that there can be no justification for unsafe buildings remaining unaddressed. Although significant progress has been made, more than 4,000 buildings have been identified as requiring remediation, and too many residents continue to face the consequences of failures that they did not cause. That is why this Government are committed to speeding up remediation, ensuring that those responsible bear the cost of making...
I welcome that step, but what the Minister says suggests it is some way off. Can she give some indication of the timescale for getting mandatory licensing in place?
I agree that many people will continue to question when the fire risk assessors will be in place. The Government recently launched a public consultation on the proposal to establish a fire risk assessor profession with consistently high levels of competency, whereby trust is rebuilt and a strong and diverse pipeline of talent comes forward to ensure that fire safety standards are met. We are currently analysing all the consultation responses, and the Government will publish a full response later this autumn, so hopefully my hon. Friend will not have to wait much longer. We recognise the additional pressures on building control and fire engineer capacity across the country. We have established the independent building control panel and the fire engineers advisory panel to examine the issues and provide recommendations on strengthening the system. The Government are committed to working with the BSR on long-term reform and exploring options for a more efficient building control system. Any future changes will be developed in consultation with the industry and other stakeholders.
We all want to see stronger and better building control, but local authorities have been hollowed out. We have lost a lot of experienced planners and there is not always a pipeline coming through with the necessary experience. Can we lobby the Treasury for support for local government in that respect?
My hon. Friend will know that I will definitely continue to lobby Treasury colleagues very hard, and any help from colleagues around the House will be helpful. In the meantime, the current system includes a new initiative looking at digital building control programmes. I can confirm that over £45 million has been invested in growing the workforce to help to address the key issue of capacity, streamline the process and support development. More is coming, but a lot more needs to come through the pipeline. A number of Members, including the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, mentioned the key issue of building insurance and the continuing financial strain felt by so many innocent leaseholders. They see their insurance premiums going through the roof, in some cases paying more than for their mortgages. In the remediation acceleration plan, the Government have committed to working with the insurance industry to explore options to address the insurance challenges faced by residents living in buildings that are undergoing remediation. To strengthen the evidence base, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government launched the remediation programme insurance survey, a UK-wide survey of buildings in Government remediation programmes. The findings, first published in July 2026, provide the most comprehensive dataset collected to date on insurance costs, premiums and claims and remediation status across more than 2,000 buildings undergoing remediation. The evidence is informing...
I am pleased to hear what the Minister just said about looking at the fairness of the whole market for insurance, but the immediate issue is that many of our constituents have for several years paid exorbitant and very excessive insurance costs. This is not their responsibility or fault-they did not install the dangerous cladding or fail to inspect properly. They deserve compensation from the insurance industry for what they have been through, and if that is not forthcoming, the Government should have a default position of backing it up. Our constituents have suffered grievously through this problem.
I thank the right hon. Member for raising that point. He highlighted examples of various developments in his constituency, including Drayton Park and Highbury Gardens, underlining the fact that innocent leaseholders have continued to pay exorbitant fees for many years. It is really important that we get to grips with this, especially for new buildings. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning will be discussing the matter in respect of the national planning policy framework and some other areas, and I will continue to discuss it as well. On the specific issue of backdating, it is important for us to look at clear insurance procurement-the pricing, the cover, the prescribed timeframes for providing information and the mechanism for challenging any future delays. Together, the measures the Government have outlined are intended to improve transparency, strengthen accountability and help to ensure that residents have a clearer understanding of insurance costs. There is a lot of jargon and hidden figures. We need to make sure that the costs are clear and that when residents challenge them, they get the right information back so that they can assess what they are being asked to pay for.
I thank the Minister for her answers; she is giving a comprehensive and detailed response, as I knew she would. Ever mindful that she has been in place for only a short time, I have a specific question about what is happening here compared with the situation back home. We have an outstanding problem with many properties in Belfast. It would be helpful if we were able, perhaps through the Minister, to engage with the Northern Ireland Assembly, and in particular the relevant Minister there, to ensure that what is learned here can be passed on to those back home in the Assembly.
I thank the hon. Member for raising a valid point about what lessons can be learned from what happens in the UK. As he has outlined, buildings right across the UK need to be safe. Every home needs to be safe; it does not matter where a person lives. I am very open to looking at areas of best practice, which we can share as we develop legislation. Several Members, including the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, outlined the big issue with EWS1 forms, which has caused many homeowners a great deal of stress. The Government recognise the difficulties in selling and remortgaging homes, and the concerns for residents living in buildings impacted by building safety issues. We have continued to work with major mortgage lenders to improve access to lending for affected buildings and support the functioning of the housing market while remediation progresses. The hon. Gentleman referred to concerns about the validity of certain EWS1 forms. I can confirm that my Department is aware of those concerns, which relate to a fire engineer who was removed from his professional accrediting body and is, as I understand it, no longer operating in the field. Although I cannot comment on individual cases, it is important to reiterate that the EWS1 form is not an official Government form but an industry tool used by lenders and valuers to help them to understand the remediation status of participating buildings. My officials continue to engage with the mortgage lending industry to encourage it to take a...
That is very positive, but of course those are the developers that are willing to engage, and many of them are not. I recently spoke to Carl Harris from Teesside who suffered life-changing injuries when a wall collapsed on him. He has been trying to engage the sector with an innovation he has developed to prevent unfinished walls from collapsing. What more can the Government do to encourage developers who are not already involved to innovate and protect workers and residents?
rose-
Minister, please allow a couple of minutes for the winding-up speech.
As of April 2026, developers had assessed whether remediation work was required in 94% of their buildings. Despite the progress, there is still a lot to do. Some developers are behind that stretch target and we will continue to engage with them. The Government remain firmly committed to building a safety regime that is robust, proportionate and protects residents while enabling the delivery of much-needed homes. We have listened to concerns and have already taken decisive steps to strengthen the regulator’s capacity, improve its processes and ensure it is fit for purpose. We will continue to work with the industry, residents and Parliament to ensure that the regulation delivers effectively. I am grateful for all the points Members have raised and will come back to them on any points I have not addressed, especially where they raised individual constituency cases. I look forward to the ongoing dialogue as we continue to address this really important issue.
I hope that every right hon. and hon. Member who participated in the debate accepts my thanks for their excellent contributions. I thank the Front-Bench spokespeople and the Minister, who is new to her role. To pick up on one thing, the Minister said-forgive me for paraphrasing; I was writing it down as she spoke-that “no responsible party” in this whole scenario should be able to derogate, or words to that effect, from their obligations. I will leave her with one thought: the risk of PAS 9980 is that it allows those responsible to do exactly that-to be absolved of their responsibility. The defects that were built at the point of construction will be retained because of the new risk-based approach. The responsibility then falls on the purses of our constituents, because they will pay higher insurance costs in perpetuity. I know the Minister is new to her role-
Order. Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).