The government will provide a further £3.5bn to “end the cladding scandal in a way that is fair and generous to leaseholders” in the wake of Grenfell Tower fire, the housing secretary has announced.
Robert Jenrick told MPs on Wednesday that ministers aimed to “finish the job we’ve started” on removing and replacing unsafe cladding from residential buildings following the 2017 tragedy.
In a statement to the House of Commons, Mr Jenrick revealed the government would make further funding available to pay for the removal and replacement for all leaseholders in high-rise residential buildings of 18 metres and higher – or above six storeys – in England.
However, the government was immediately attacked for only offering loans for the removal of cladding on smaller buildings, while also not addressing non-cladding fire safety defects.
Workmen remove the cladding from the facade of a block of flats in Paddington, north London.
Mr Jenrick told MPs that “leaseholders in high-rise residential buildings will face no cost for cladding remediation work” as he outlined the fresh action.
He admitted, without this “exceptional intervention” from the government, that “many building owners will simply seek to pass these potentially very significant costs on to leaseholders as this is often the legal position in the leases that they signed”.
The housing secretary said this would “risk punishing those who have worked hard, who have bought their own home, but through no fault of their own have found themselves caught in an absolutely invidious situation”.
The new funding would “focus on the higher-rise buildings where the independent expert advisoruu panel tells us – time and again – the overwhelming majority of the safety risk lies”, Mr Jenrick added.
However, the cabinet minister confirmed there would be no direct cash for the removal of funding on lower and medium-rise blocks of flats.
Instead there will be a “long-term scheme” of financial support for the removal of cladding on buildings between four and six storeys, Mr Jenrick said.
“Under a long-term low-interest scheme, no leaseholder will ever pay more than £50 a month towards the removal of unsafe cladding, many far less,” he added.
Mr Jenrick told MPs that the government had now committed more than £5bn to removing unsafe cladding following the Grenfell tragedy, in which 72 people died.