Labour urges Government to solve tower block cladding crisis by June 2022 deadline

Powell urged: “There are still many, many thousands if not tens of thousands of people living in dangerous buildings or buildings that have been deemed dangerous [due to the presence of potentially combustible cladding] and, as such, the properties within are not able to be insured or sold.”

The most recent statistics issued by central Government suggest that there are still upwards of 320,000 people living in high-rise buildings clad in potentially unsafe materials.

Further, Powell stated: “We want the Government to give a cast iron guarantee in legislation that leaseholders and residents will not be asked to bear the costs of any remediation work that’s necessary.”

The Labour Party is now pushing for an amendment to the Queen’s Speech, which lays out the legislative agenda for the next 12 months, in order to require developers to remove combustible cladding from all buildings by 2022.

Fire Brigades Union responds

The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has welcomed Labour’s demands for a deadline to remove all combustible cladding. The Trade Union has commented that developers and the Government “must put an end to the building safety crisis once and for all”, referencing the strongly-held belief that “decades of deregulation” in the building industry led to the fire at Grenfell.

FBU general secretary Matt Wrack commented: “We have called for the removal of all flammable cladding ever since the fire at Grenfell Tower. The Government has now had four years to make our buildings safe, yet thousands of people across the UK are still living in homes wrapped in dangerous materials. It’s simply not good enough.”

Wrack continued: “The high-rise fire in Poplar earlier this month is a warning that another Grenfell could happen at any moment. Developers had the means and ability to remove the dangerous cladding, yet they sat on their hands. The onus is on Government ministers to force the companies responsible for these buildings to take immediate action and make them safe without saddling innocent homeowners with a huge bill at the end of that process.”

In a chilling warning, Wrack concluded: “Government complacency and delays are putting people’s lives at risk. They must take action now before another tragedy strikes.”