Government’s proposed Remediation Bill confirmed in The King’s Speech

Nearly nine years on from the Grenfell Tower tragedy, there are still far too many buildings harbouring unsafe cladding. The cladding safety crisis continues to endanger lives and leave so many individuals stuck in unsuitable homes they’re unable to sell.

The Remediation Bill delivers on the Labour Party’s General Election Manifesto commitment to fix the cladding crisis. It will make construction product manufacturers pay towards fixing the problem they caused by fixing long-standing gaps in the law and ending years of inaction.

For the first time, developers, contractors and others who’ve paid to make buildings safe will be able to properly pursue manufacturers, rather than being blocked by technical legal barriers.

Regulators are going to be equipped with the powers they need to compel action and bring the cladding safety crisis to an end. From the Government’s perspective, it’s wholly unacceptable that the current regime lacks the severe sanctions needed to punish those who “continuously and egregiously” determined to block remediation.

Further, the Remediation Bill will introduce a new legal duty to remediate, compelling those responsible for the safety of their buildings (such as freeholders) to identify, assess and fix their buildings without delay. Those responsible must act or otherwise face the consequences (including criminal prosecution in the most severe cases).

In addition, the Remediation Bill is going to mandate how external wall assessments are carried out in order to ensure a nationally consistent approach to remediation work and introduce an 11 to 18-metre register to identify all remaining buildings requiring remediation work.

For the first time, the Government will have a complete record of all medium-rise buildings in England, thereby putting an end to the information gap and improving system readiness if new risks affect homes.

Remediation backstop

The Government intends to implement a remediation backstop to allow a third party, such as Homes England, to step in and carry out remediation work themselves, ensuring that residents have a route to remediation even where the responsible party is determined to ignore their duty to keep residents safe. This will be supported by tough sanctions so they cannot benefit, including cost recovery and potential sale of their interest.

There’s a determination to fix gaps in previous legislation to protect residents and guarantee a route to remediation even in those instances where ownership is absent, unclear or negligent.

Every building made safe will allow those who are stuck in unsuitable housing, through no fault of their own, to sell their flats and move on with their lives.

For clarity, the Remediation Bill will extend to England and Wales, although the majority of measures will apply in England only.

Of the 4,310 buildings that are 11 metres tall and above in England that have been identified with unsafe cladding, remediation work has been completed on only 35% of them. Too many of those responsible are not complying with their obligations to make their buildings safe. To date, regulators have had to take enforcement action at over 800 buildings with suspected unsafe cladding.

The Government – and some members of the construction industry – is funding the cost of remediating external wall defects. The Government has committed circa £5.15 billion to remediate buildings in England, while the cost to the 53 developers who’ve signed the Developer Remediation Contract is estimated at £4.2 billion for those buildings for which they hold responsibility. Construction product manufacturers have yet to contribute towards the cost of fixing the problem they caused.

As yet, no claim against a manufacturer has been brought to court. The Remediation Bill takes important steps to address this position. The Government will continue work to ensure manufacturers play their part, including from a financial standpoint.

Robust assessments lacking

Too many buildings still lack clear and robust assessments of their external walls, delaying remediation and leaving residents exposed to unacceptable risk. The Remediation Bill will put into law the standards and assurance practices already proven across Government remediation programmes. It will legally require fire risk appraisal of external walls-focused surveys to follow the PAS 9980 framework, thereby providing a clear, proportionate and evidence-based methodology for assessing external wall risks.

The ongoing cladding safety crisis is blighting lives across the country. Those stuck in unremediated buildings are unable to feel safe in their homes, while being unable to sell up and move on. They also face higher costs.

The Financial Conduct Authority has stated that there was a 187% increase in insurance premiums for buildings with identified flammable cladding from 2016 to 2021. The continued presence of unsafe cladding undermines confidence in the safety, value and viability of living in (and owning) flats.

Achieving the goal

Lord Andrew Roe KFSM, chair of the Building Safety Regulator’s Board, has stated: “The Remediation Bill will give us the additional tools we need to compel reluctant landlords to take action to remediate their buildings and remove unsafe cladding or face severe sanctions.”

Lord Roe added: “Everyone deserves to feel safe and be safe in their homes. The Remediation Bill will help us to achieve that goal.”

London Fire Brigade Commissioner Jonathan Smith observed: “We welcome this announcement and the continued progress towards legislation that will help to address fire safety risks in high-rise residential buildings. Nearly nine years on from the Grenfell Tower fire, there remain far too many buildings with serious fire safety issues. Ensuring that remediation progresses more effectively is critically important when it comes to restoring the confidence of residents in the safety of their homes.”

Slow pace

Jaclyn Mangaroo, chief communications officer of The Property Institute (the professional body for residential property management) stated: “The slow pace of fixing unsafe buildings has clearly shown the need for legislation. The Remediation Bill is to be welcomed as far as it goes, particularly so for residents who’ve been living with dangerous cladding for years. However, the proposed legislation falls short on two crucial issues: implementing a backstop for pledged developers and addressing internal safety defects.”

Mangaroo continued: “First, the backstop for inaction applies to landlords, but not to developers who pledged to fix their buildings more than three years ago, but – according to our data – have still only completed 10% of the necessary remediation work. This is counterintuitive when developers were responsible for the construction of their buildings and are taking the longest time to fix them. We’ve found that nearly 60% of developer-pledged projects have not yet even agreed the scope of works.”

In addition, Mangaroo went on to comment: “The Government is justified in focusing on removing unsafe external cladding and façades, but the Remediation Bill fails to address internal safety defects such as inadequate compartmentation and non-compliant fire doors. This means that residents will continue living in potentially unsafe buildings, which has a significant knock-on consequence of paying unjust costs to fund interim safety measures, not to mention higher insurance premiums.”

Mangaroo concluded: “Our members, who collectively manage over two million homes in England and Wales, are still facing too many barriers and challenges in attempting to ensure residents are protected from risk and further costs resulting from safety-centred remediation work. The Government must understand and legislate for the fact that that the building safety crisis goes beyond cladding and that residents should not be left in limbo.”