Dame Judith Hackitt's Report

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:38 pm on 23 May 2018.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 3:38, 23 May 2018

Thank you very much for those questions. I agree with you that the report is an extremely sobering read in terms of the changes and the breadth and depth of changes that we need to be making in terms of the regulatory system for high-rise buildings here in Wales. Although the report was very much focused at England, we take it very much in a Welsh context too, because of the very clear similarities in our regulatory regimes across the border.

I'm very pleased to be able to say today that, although Dame Judith did deliberately avoid making any comment on banning any particular materials, we're keen to address this matter, and subject to a legally required consultation we will move to ban the use of combustible materials in cladding systems on high-rise residential buildings. I say 'subject to a consultation' because it is a requirement of the Building Act 1984 that we consult with the building regulations advisory committee on that. But I hope that today I'm sending a very clear message that we will not welcome the use of these combustible materials on buildings in Wales.

Ever since the Grenfell Tower disaster we have worked really hard in order to establish where our high-rise buildings are in Wales. We've now got to the point, or we did quite some time ago, where we've managed to identify every single one of those buildings, and we've taken a casework approach, developing an individual relationship between Welsh Government and those building owners and the landlords of those buildings in order to ensure that we're sending out the correct and detailed safety advice that those buildings need. In Wales we differ slightly to England because of the scale here. We have just over 100 high-rise buildings, so we've been able to take a casework approach, keeping that business in-house, whereas across the border in England, again because of the scale, it's been led on a local authority basis. So, in terms of the cladding that failed the large-scale BRE tests, there are 12 in the private sector in Wales, and we're working with those landlords on that in order to ensure that that cladding is removed and replaced. As you've mentioned, yesterday, we were able to provide funding for Newport City Homes in order to replace the cladding there.

Addressing the cladding issue is only part of the picture. We've been very clear that building owners and landlords must work very closely with experts in order to undertake a review of the safety and of the status of those buildings, because we've been very clear that every building is an individual building and should be treated as such. I think that's really recognised in chapter 8 of the Hackitt report, which says that there should be a golden thread running though buildings so we can understand, from the concept of the building right through the lifetime of the building, any changes that are made to that building. I think, although Dame Hackitt is very clear that her report should be seen in the round, actually, that was one of the chapters that really stood out to me as something that can really make a big difference.