Written evidence submitted by APPG - Fire Safety & Rescue (RDC0146)
INTRODUCTION
The APPG {Fire Safety and Rescue} is pleased to respond to the Committee’s inquiry seeking views on the progress of the remediation of dangerous cladding.
An APPG {Fire Safety and Rescue} has been in existence for over 25 years and was originally established by {former Minister} Jim Fitzpatrick MP, together with the late Sir David Amess MP, who was tragically murdered in October 2021. Sir David was succeeded as APPG Chairman by Bob Blackman CB MP, who remains the Chairman following the Inaugural meeting of the current Group on 29th July 2024..
The Group’s aims are to meet and consider important fire safety and rescue issues with appropriate specialists in these fields, consulting wider with other related agencies to create a safer built environment; contributing to fire safety events both inside and outside parliament, whilst raising issues of concern to government through its minsters.
The response has been approved by the Chairman and Officers of the Group, and shared with the members.
The Group’s Co Vice Chair {Lord John Hendy KC} previously represented the families of the deceased at the 2013 Coroner’s fifty day Inquest into the Lakanal House Fire Tragedy in Camberwell which had occurred on 3rd July 2009, and which was also attended by the APPG’s Fire Adviser/Hon.Sec. Ronnie King OBE.
Following this Inquest APPG Chair at the time, Sir David Amess MP wrote sixteen letters to Ministers on behalf of the APPG between 2013 and 2017, pleading for critical life safety actions arising from Lakanal Hose, to be brought forward ahead of the Department’s planned three year Review of Approved Document B, warning of a serious Fire Disaster; but was rejected. Then Grenfell Tower Fire Tragedy occurred. Sir David subsequently made it publically known that the Grenfell Tower Fire Tragedy would not have occurred had the Ministers listened to and seriously considered the warnings and evidence from the Group. Ironically Ministers’ planned three year Review of Approved Document B was not concluded, {nor even commenced} before the Grenfell Fire Tragedy occurred.
The APPG subsequently submitted a 34,000 word Statement to the Grenfell Public Inquiry along with circa 100 exhibits, in addition to separate four hour interviews with the Metropolitan Police and Counsel to the Public Inquiry.
During the Public Inquiry Justin Beer KC, Apologised to the APPG on behalf of the {then} Department for Levelling Up for its failures to listen or act on the Group’s warnings. There are numerous references in Phase 2 of the Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry final report outlining the circumstances in which the Group had been treated.
{It is appropriate to note that the Lakanal House Fire tragedy occurred under a Labour Government, the Coroner’s Inquest during a Coalition Government and the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy under a Conservative Government}
This response has been drafted by the APPG’s Advisers, Ronnie King, Tom Roche and Mike Wood, following consultation with the All-Party Leasehold/Common-hold Reform Group, the National Fire Chiefs Council, the Association of British Insurers, the Fire Sector Federation, the Fire Protection Association and APPG Members and Officers; taking account of issues arising from Phase 2 of the Report from the Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry; and the APPG’s January 7th 2025 meeting with Government Ministers Alex Norris MP and Dame Diana Johnson DBE MP; where a number of matters for clarification were discussed with Ministers:-
APPG Chairman Bob Blackman CBE MP mentioned that more is needed on the clarity around cladding, where buildings have still been constructed with unsafe cladding within the last five years, and cases of very tall buildings {one of 44 storeys} with only a single staircase.. He raised the matter of construction products where their suitability in recent construction projects remained an open question, noting situations where buildings completed post 2017 were not subject to remediation.
As a previous member of the Select Committee on DHCLG he felt that there had been ‘drift’ and there was a need for action to “get it right”.
At the various stages, the concerns of the All-Party Group have returned to those who live with these issues and occupy such buildings. The timeframes from assessment to final remediation to take place are extensive and impacts their well-being. Coupled to this are the ongoing burdens they face financially because of issues arising from property valuation, insurance or lack of options for mortgages.
Overall, the work in this area has highlighted the complexity of the built environment and the structures within it covering ownership, leaseholder preparations through to construction contracts. This complexity has been part of the delay to action with limited activity to “cut through” this complexity to make the path ahead clearer.
Fundamentally we face issues that arise in five areas:
A sixth issue can be added since the Metropolitan Police have confirmed that they do not expect to begin prosecutions until 2027 at the earliest. This could have a further and significant impact on the outcome.
The NAO matters raised for consideration and comment:-
Up to 60% of buildings with dangerous cladding have not yet been identified, and remediation for buildings within government’s portfolio is slow.
Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) modelling indicates an end date of 2035 for completing cladding remediation, but without published milestones, hundreds of thousands of residents have no idea when their building will be made safe.
While most leaseholders are now protected from remediation costs, residents continue to suffer significant emotional and financial distress.
With total estimated costs of £16.6bn and the Building Safety Levy yet to start, there are risks to keeping taxpayer contributions capped at £5.1bn.
Publishing a target date for the completion of dangerous cladding remediation works and providing greater transparency on remediation performance are two key recommendations arising from a new National Audit Office report.
The UK’s independent spending watchdog’s recommendations feature in its first report on the government’s remediation portfolio since five different programmes (see Notes for Editors) were brought together into a single portfolio in 2023. The NAO’s report follows the publication of the Grenfell Inquiry in September, which examined the root causes of the fire in June 2017 that resulted in the deaths of 72 people.
The NAO examines how well MHCLG is maximising the identification of unsafe buildings, driving progress with remediation works and managing taxpayers’ exposure to related costs.
The government has significantly changed the types of buildings within scope for its programmes, and its approach to remediation, as the scale and impact of the cladding problem has become clearer. It now has programmes to address dangerous cladding for all the estimated 9,000 to 12,000 buildings over 11 metres it considers need remediating.
There has been a substantial increase in remediation activity since the NAO’s 2020 Investigation into remediating dangerous cladding on high-rise buildings. So far, 4,771 buildings have been brought into the portfolio, but it is taking longer than expected to identify the remainder, and some may never be identified. With a potential 7,200 buildings or more (up to 60%) still to be identified, many people still do not know when their buildings will be made safe, contributing to resident’s suffering significant financial and emotional distress.
While building owners are responsible for fixing their buildings, engagement with government’s grant programmes is voluntary. As the NAO previously reported, incomplete building records, construction materials that differ from those on plans, and difficulties tracing owners can make identifying affected buildings extremely challenging.
Seven years after Grenfell, 98% of estimated high-rise buildings (over 18 metres) with dangerous cladding are in the portfolio. Mandatory registration of high-rise buildings under the Building Safety Act 2022 is helping to identify any that remain.
There is no mandatory registration for (more numerous) medium-rise buildings (11 to 18 metres), and the Department understands some building owners may be reluctant to engage for fear of uncovering problems out-of-scope for government funding, and others can lack the time and knowledge to navigate the process.
Of the 4,771 medium-rise buildings in the government’s portfolio – the equivalent of 258,000 homes – remediation work has yet to start on over half, is in progress for a fifth, with around one third complete. Of all 9,000-12,000 potentially in scope, work is complete for only 12-16%.
The report found, in total, it will cost an estimated £16.6 billion to fix unsafe cladding on all buildings over 11 metres in England. MHCLG expects to provide £9.1 billion of this, with the remainder funded by developers who have agreed to remediate buildings they developed, private owners or social housing providers.
To keep taxpayer contributions within a £5.1 billion cap over the long-term, MHCLG plans to recoup £700 million through refunds from developers for remediation works the taxpayer has already funded, and around £3.4 billion from a new Building Safety Levy. The Levy will be paid by developers on new developments, though MHCLG is yet to confirm payment mechanisms. It does not expect to introduce the levy until autumn 2025 at the earliest.
In 2023-24 there were potential losses of over £500,000 (paid to one applicant) through fraud, which has led to the Department reviewing its counter-fraud structures and developing plans to improve fraud management of the Building Safety Fund.
MHCLG acknowledges there may be overlaps between its remediation programmes and wider government priorities, from decarbonisation to building new homes, and the NAO report found MHCLG needs to do more to ensure that policies are not working at cross-purposes.
As MHCLG and other bodies investigate buildings at risk, they are gathering data about buildings on a national scale, which may support future government priorities, such as net zero ambitions.
“Seven years on from the Grenfell Tower fire, there has been progress, but considerable uncertainty remains regarding the number of buildings needing remediation, costs, timelines and recouping public spending. There is a long way to go before all affected buildings are made safe, and risks MHCLG must address if its approach is to succeed.
“Putting the onus on developers to pay and introducing a more proportionate approach to remediation should help to protect taxpayers’ money. Yet it has also created grounds for dispute, causing delays.
“To stick to its £5.1 billion cap in the long run, MHCLG needs to ensure that it can recoup funds through successful implementation of the proposed Building Safety Levy.”
Gareth Davies, head of the NAO
The National Audit Office Report: ‘Dangerous Cladding’ – the government’s remediation portfolio – 4th November 2024 – KEY FINDINGS STATE:
‘’8. Summary Dangerous cladding: the government’s remediation portfolio Key findings The government’s remediation activity 6 The government has significantly changed the types of buildings within scope for its programmes, and its approach to remediation, as the scale and impact of the cladding problem has become clearer. MHCLG initially focused on identifying high-rise buildings with unsafe ACM cladding. From 2018, as concerns mounted about the pace of remediation, fire safety risks in other types of cladding, and the unaffordable bills that residents faced, MHCLG introduced financial support. By March 2021, it had made £5.1 billion available to support remediation of high-rise buildings with ACM and other types of unsafe cladding across the private and social sectors. In 2020, government advice began to stress the importance of assessing the fire safety risk of external wall systems on all buildings, irrespective of height. In 2021, MHCLG announced a long-term loan for leaseholders in affected medium-rise buildings to pay for remediation works, along with measures to make industry pay. In 2022, it decided not to progress with the loan, promised to protect leaseholders in buildings over 11 metres from remediation costs, and adopted a more proportionate approach towards its assessment of building safety. This approach called for greater use of lower cost mitigations such as sprinklers, which it said would be less disruptive for residents. In some cases, where risk is deemed low or ‘tolerable’, it could mean flammable cladding staying in place. These changes have tried to clarify who will pay but introduced more uncertainty over the number of buildings in scope for government programmes and how much remediation will cost (paragraphs 1.3 to 1.13, 1.16, 1.20, 1.22 and Fig 1}
This is something which the All-Party Group strongly supports, along with the National Fire Chiefs Council.
In fact there is an opportunity for Government to do more to increase the use of sprinklers in the built environment. Sprinklers save lives and reduce injuries. They have been used for over one hundred years and are consistently reliable, protect property, reduce the cost of repairs, and minimise the impact of fire on the environment. Sprinklers can also buy crucial additional time in firefighting operations which may mean that evacuations are not necessary in the first place. Analysis has demonstrated that they are 99% effective in extinguishing or controlling a fire and 94% reliable in their ability to operate across all building types..
A cost-benefit analysis produced following the Callow Mount retrofit project demonstrated clear benefits to installing sprinklers[2]. Since then, more recent estimates from industry partners suggest that the cost per flat of installing sprinklers has risen from £2,500 - £4,000 per flat depending on a range of factors.
MHCLG’s best estimate of total remediation costs are £16.6bn (ranging from £12.6bn to £22.4bn) in 9,000 to 12,000 buildings[3]. The estimated costs of retrofitting sprinklers in these buildings is £1.5bn (midpoint estimate based on a range from £202.5m to £2.8bn).
While these initial estimates made by NFCC require further scrutiny and peer review, this suggests that at just 9% of the estimated costs of cladding replacement, sprinklers may be a proportionate and effective way to help mitigate risks in buildings while further solutions are being developed to support the pace of remediation. This is not to suggest that sprinklers can fully mitigate the risks posed by some or all external wall systems, or that they will be appropriate in every building as this must be risk assessed on a case-by-case basis. However, NFCC is aware of a range of cases where cladding remediation alone has not been sufficient to mitigate other risks within buildings.
With a high ability to mitigate a range of fire safety risks and in some cases the potential to obviate the need for simultaneous evacuation strategies and make it easier to develop and maintain personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs), these estimates demonstrate the value of further investigating greater use of sprinklers in the built environment.
NFCC has called on the Government to make it a requirement to retrofit sprinklers in all existing residential buildings over 11 metres on a risk-assessed basis; which is also supported by the APPG.
Fire and Rescue Services {FRS’s} have played a key role to date in relation to efforts to assess the extent of risks in high rise blocks of flats and ensure action is taken to ensure the immediate safety of residents despite challenges related to FRS’s workforce limitations. However, these efforts have highlighted the scale of broader issues preventing duty holders from meeting their obligations to make buildings safe.
These findings highlight that Government cannot simply enforce their way out of the building safety crisis, it will require leadership from Government to unlock the various issues in the system.
This submission has taken account of the urgent challenge of remediating unsafe residential buildings, highlighting key issues and actionable solutions.
The APPG has relied substantially on the National Fire Chiefs Council for data and facts; given the extensive involvement they have had throughout the Country since the Grenfell Tower Fire Tragedy.
"Government seems to recognise that the unsatisfactory outstanding issue concerning dangerous combustible cladding replacement and remediation may well have potentially further ramifications for fire safety concerns, especially affecting residential buildings but also spreading to other occupancies as well, whilst the cladding issue remains outstanding.
Other issues could quite easily arise the longer the cladding issues goes on festering, remaining unresolved. For example, there are concerns being expressed by leaseholders and responsible persons over unnecessary replacements of fire doors on the basis of unjustified advice from fire door inspectors, made without adequate explanations.
There are many millions of fire doors in use in buildings backed when installed by a BS 476 part 22 fire resistance national test that has not been technically questioned but which now has a shadow cast over the test by Ministerial statement that it is to be replaced by what has been termed a "more rigorous" EN fire resistance test (a description which the specialist bespoke fire door manufacturing industry does not automatically accept).
We advise that Government needs to recognise this risk, and accordingly needs to issue a statement that there is no reason to technically question the BS 476 part 22 fire resistance test for fire doors, following the decision to replace BS 476 part 22 by the EN test in national classifications, which was based on the intent to have a single coordinated standards system. Such an explanation is advisable in advance, before the issue on fire doors starts to grow more strongly, as feedback suggests. Concerns in this area could trigger another remediation question which would be very unwelcome."
Finally there are two paragraphs from the APPG {Leasehold/Common hold Reform} submission which the Group feels are worthy of drawing to the Public Accounts Committee‘s attention as follows BELOW:
2. The Government’s approach to building safety risk
Comprehensive, clear and consistent risk assessments of all fire safety defects at buildings of all heights are an essential building block for an effective and efficient building safety remediation programme, but they remain elusive.
The root causes of the current crisis include weak non-prescriptive Building Regulations and the muddle of “Class O” and outdated National Classes for fire testing standards (which have, finally, been withdrawn). From major fires at Knowsley Heights in 1991, to Garnock Court in 1999, or Lakanal House in 2009, politicians and civil servants chose to ignore the warning signs for decades.
In January 2023, former Housing Secretary Michael Gove accepted that “faulty and ambiguous” government guidance allowed the cladding and building safety scandal to happen. The regulatory system was faulty and the Government “did not think hard enough, or police effectively enough, the whole system of building safety.”
From 2017, the Government’s “Expert Panel” started publishing a series of Advice Notes, followed by a Consolidated Advice Note (CAN) in January 2020. This abruptly brought in a zero-risk approach, with a focus on replacement of combustible materials on buildings of all heights – but without supporting legislation, funding or processes.
This immediately led to a deluge of life-changing remediation bills being sent to leaseholders, and ineffective and financially ruinous waking watch patrols18 being installed. An External Wall Survey (EWS1) form had been introduced in December 2019 to confirm to mortgage lenders whether work was required to external walls, and was intended only to be used for buildings above 18m – but the CAN led to the indiscriminate use of EWS1 at buildings of all heights and an almost total freeze in the market for flats, due to a loss of confidence and certainty about which buildings needed remediation and who would pay. The Government has been playing catch-up with funding and legislation ever since.
6. Conclusion
“The government has repeatedly made what turn out to be pie-in-the-sky promises – and then failed to plan, resource, or deliver. The deadly legacy of a shoddy buildings regulation system has been devastating for the victims and survivors of Grenfell but is leaving a long tail of misery and uncertainty for those whose lives are in limbo. The Government must step up and show that it will put a stop to the bickering over who is responsible, who’s going to pay for the remediation – and just put this right.”
https://committees.parliament.uk/work/371/progress-in-remediating-dangerous-cladding/news/118990/pac-condemns-badly-missed-target-to-
For leaseholders and residents, there has been little change since the NAO’s previous report and the former Committee Chair’s comments. We urgently need a refreshed joined-up approach across government and between government and all relevant Non-Departmental Public Bodies.
A more simplified, comprehensive and centrally-driven and co-ordinated approach would mirror the proposals put forward by Labour when in opposition and provide certainty on the end-to-end remediation process. Certainty for leaseholders and residents, and certainty for developers, freeholders, contractors, insurers, lenders, and conveyancers. Adopting this approach may not be simple but it is the right thing to do, to keep the countless promises the current government made while in opposition, and ensure leaseholders and residents are truly at the heart of building safety.
Cultural change may be slow but there must now be the impetus and political will to take control of this unrelenting crisis and focus on ensuring people know when their homes will be made safe. There are a range of benefits if the current approach is simplified – whether removing vast amounts of self-interest in the process; minimising costly agent fees so that client-side support is dedicated to where the needs are most urgent; and joining up regulatory and enforcement efforts so that they are streamlined, coordinated and driven centrally, with all parties working together. Whether that is Homes England and the Leasehold Advisory Service collaborating to provide bespoke and timely updates on people’s homes, or Homes England working with the Building Safety Regulator to focus remediation and ensure statutory building control approval timescales are met.
We close by asking:
What lessons senior officials have learned from their legislation and funding schemes over the years and what they would change if they could go back?
What data the Government is collecting on mortgage lending, to validate the commitments made by the lenders two years ago that people would be able to remortgage and sell their homes?
January 2025