7. Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: Building Safety

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:35 pm on 14 December 2021.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 5:35, 14 December 2021

Thank you, Janet Finch-Saunders. I think, broadly, we're in the same place. You've slightly conflated the problems of the existing leaseholders with what the new regime might look like. So, just in terms of the new regime going forward, once we take the legislation through, of course the Senedd and its committees will have a chance to look at that legislation, scrutinise it and add in or suggest amendments to that legislation. And I think there's quite a big consensus across the Senedd, so I'll be looking forward to working with you to get into the real detail of that as we take that forward. But, absolutely, the whole purpose of the new regime is to make it extremely plain who the duty holders are, who is responsible at each stage, who does the sign-off and what happens for the occupation phase. Technology has moved on and so on and we would be expecting a great deal of more as-you-go inspection than has been hitherto possible, and, of course, we're going to learn the lessons of the past. So, I think, going forward, there's a lot of consensus.

In terms of where we are at the moment, one of the biggest problems that we have is that ordinary leaseholders don't understand what's wrong with their buildings—they know there's nothing with them—and the EWS forms have made that worse because we've had surveys undertaken. So, part of what we've had to do is we've had to act as broker for them, if you like, to make sure that the expertise goes in, and we don't exacerbate the problem by having a pile of people who aren't really qualified telling them what's wrong with the building and so on. It seems like we're going quite slowly, but actually that's quite a difficult and arduous thing to do. And also, these inspections are not just somebody coming in and having a look at your walls; these are really invasive. The people have to have big holes made in the building and you have really highly skilled people looking to see exactly what's happened inside the walls and all the rest of it. These are things that are quite intrusive for people as they take place, so we have to be absolutely certain that we're doing it once, we're doing it correctly and we get the right picture at the end.

The truth is that we don't know what the problem in all of the buildings is because we haven't got x-ray vision; we can't look through to see if the fire breaks are all in place or if the compartmentation works and so on. We've been clear all along that this isn't just about the cladding. The cladding was one issue, but there are lots of other issues that have come to light. So, I'm really pleased that the building passport scheme will allow us to do that. It will allow us to help the leaseholders and other interested parties go through the process of discovering what exactly it is that's wrong with the building, and then we'll have to look to see what of that can be rectified by a Government scheme to do that—a grant scheme, if I can possibly manage to do that.

But also, Janet, I'm very aware that I don't want to just do a first come, first served, so we're going to try and rank them in order of risk as well, because I don't have an unlimited pot. We won't get into the politics of that, but I'm disappointed by the amount of money that we have as a result of all—. We didn't get the consequentials that were announced by the UK Government, and now we're the other side of a comprehensive spending review. So, we are where we are, but it's not the sum of money we would have liked to have had. So, it's very important to make sure that we cover off the highest risk buildings and the highest risk issues across the piece, rather than just first come, first served. I want to reassure all the leaseholders out there that we are doing that, and if you're the twentieth to go through the process, that doesn't mean the money will have run out, and that we'll be keeping an eye on that all the way through.

And the reason I've announced the scheme I've announced today is because I'm very aware that for some people it's just become unbearable. So, assuming that they're in a position where they can't sell their property on the open market, then we are going to put a scheme in place that will rescue them, if you like—mortgage rescue for them. That will have two components. They will either be able to sell the house to us and then if they want to stay on and rent it, they can, or they can vacate, take the money and start again somewhere else. I know from speaking to large numbers of the residents that there are a lot of people who will be very interested in a scheme of that sort. So, I wanted to make people aware that that scheme is now available, and that we will be looking to do that in the new year via a similar expressions of interest kind of process.