Unsafe Homes: The Cladding Crisis examined

Join us as we explore the ongoing crisis surrounding dangerous cladding in residential buildings, years after the Grenfell Tower disaster. We examine the latest report from the Committee of Public Accounts, uncovering the sheer scale of the problem, now estimated to affect 9,000 to 12,000 buildings and potentially 3 million people. Discover why progress in identifying and fixing these unsafe buildings is still painfully slow, leaving many residents in financial distress and trapped in unsellable homes.

We'll unpack the government's Remediation Acceleration Plan, looking at its targets and the scepticism surrounding its ambition and deliverability. Learn about the significant barriers hindering progress, including landlord reluctance, supply chain constraints, and regulatory capacity. We also highlight the crucial issue of non-cladding defects and the ongoing debate about who should foot the bill.

Find out why, despite promises, manufacturers of dangerous cladding products have yet to contribute financially to remediation efforts, while developers are now part of the solution. We also consider the worrying shortage of skilled workers and the impact of this on the speed of remediation. Finally, we touch on the long-term concerns about exorbitant insurance premiums and the potential impact of remediation plans on wider housebuilding targets.

Key Takeaways:

• The cladding crisis is far larger and more costly than initially understood.
• Progress in remediating unsafe buildings remains unacceptably slow.
• Thousands of residents continue to suffer significant financial and emotional burdens.
• The government's acceleration plan faces scepticism regarding its ambition and achievability.
• Significant uncertainties remain around the total cost and timeline for remediation.
• Exorbitant insurance costs persist for affected residents.
• The impact of remediation on new housebuilding is a growing concern.

Source: Committee of Public Accounts

The Remediation of Dangerous Cladding

Seventeenth Report of Session 2024–25 HC 362

Chapters

• 1:26 Costs
• 2:15 Unidentified buildings
• 2:45 Remediation Accelleration plan - doubts
• 3:24 Roadblocks - landlords, supply chain, capacity
• 4:46 Finding buildings that need to be checked
• 5:15 Costs not covered by govt funding
• 6:19 Cladding manufacturers
• 7:20 Frustrations getting the work done
• 8:11 Homes England / Insurance
• 9:28 Value for money?
• 10:49 Who is paying for this? Anti-fraud measures
• 11:53 Wider impact on the housing sector
• 13:03 Conclusions

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to The Bench Report, UK politics straight from the benches. We are your hosts, Amy and Ivan. As always, do read through the episode notes as a guide to today's discussion. We've got a really, weighty topic to unpack today. It's something that's been in the headlines for years now.

It's The UK's well, the ongoing struggle, really, to fix all the dangerous cladding on homes. You know, it all stems from the Grenfell Tower tragedy. It's an issue that's, touching so many lives, and the costs involved are, well, they're astronomical running into the billions. Absolutely. And to really get to grips with this, we've been diving deep into a recent report by the Committee of Public Accounts.

It's their seventeenth report, actually, of session twenty twenty four twenty five h c three sixty two, and it focuses specifically on the efforts to remediate this dangerous cladding. Now this committee, they're a parliamentary group, and their job is to, well, scrutinize how public money is spent. So their findings carry a lot of weight, you know, a lot of authority. Right. So today, we're gonna take you through this report, step by step.

We wanna understand where things stand right now with this cladding crisis. You know, how much progress has actually been made, what problems are they still grappling with, and what does it all mean for the people living in these buildings and for us as taxpayers? It's a complex picture, and it's evolved quite dramatically over time. Back in 2020, the initial estimate was around 600,000,000. 6 hundred million?

Yeah. To fix about 450 high rise buildings that were found to have flammable cladding. That sounds like a huge undertaking even then. It did, but it turned out to be, the tip of the iceberg. The reality is far more extensive.

The latest estimates now suggest that there is somewhere between 21,000 buildings, both medium and high rise, that need attention. That's a massive jump. It is. And it really highlights how the initial assessment vastly underestimated the scale of the the problem. The potential cost has also skyrocketed.

To how much now? Current estimates range from 12,600,000,000.0 to a staggering 22,400,000,000.0. Wow. It's it's quite alarming when you see those figures, and the report doesn't pull any punches. It says point blank that progress in identifying these buildings and carrying out the necessary work is far too slow.

Yeah. That's a key takeaway. The numbers are pretty stark. As many as 7,000 buildings, potentially with dangerous cladding, haven't even been identified yet. Still.

Still. And for the 5,000 buildings that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, or MHCLG for short, they're the government department responsible for housing, are aware of. Well, work hasn't even started on over half of them. It's been years since Grenfell. It's worrying that people are still living in unsafe homes.

It is. Now MHCLG did introduce a remediation acceleration plan back in December 2024, which included targets for completing this work. So the goal is 2029 for billings over 18 meters and the same deadline for those between eleven and eighteen meters with potential penalties for missing those deadlines. That sounds positive, setting those targets at least. You'd think so, but the Committee of Public Accounts, they're not convinced.

They're actually quite skeptical about whether this plan is enough or even achievable. They highlight that by 2029, it'll be twelve years since Grenfell. And even then, work won't be finished everywhere. Some buildings might not have even started by then. So what are the main roadblocks?

Why is this process moving so slowly? Well, both the plan itself and the committee's analysis pinpoint a number of key barriers. One is the reluctance from landlords to take action, and there are a lot of potential reasons for that. Issues around, you know, who pays for the work and the legal complexities. There's also a limited supply chain.

We don't have enough skilled workers to carry out this specialized work. And on top of that, there's limited capacity within the regulatory bodies to oversee and enforce all these changes. So there are bottlenecks all over the place. Yeah. Pretty much.

And that's not all. You've also got inconsistencies in how developers are approaching the problem, a lack of specific funding for social housing providers to undertake the work, disputes involving third parties, and a generally poor experience for residents who are living through this. It sounds very chaotic. It can be. And we can't forget about the non cladding fire safety defects.

These often cause delays because they need to be addressed alongside the cladding issues. So it's more than just the external walls. Exactly. And the report suggests that, legislative changes might be necessary to really get things moving. New obligations for landlords and stronger enforcement powers for regulators, but, and this is a big but, the time frame for these legislative changes is still up in the air, which just adds another layer of uncertainty to the whole situation.

So how are they going about finding these buildings that still need to be checked? Homes England, that's the government's housing delivery agency, they're carrying out a thorough investigation of building records. They started with four story buildings and are now moving on to three story ones. The aim is to finish this identification process by December 2025. Now high rise buildings, they already have to be registered.

But for buildings between eleven and eighteen meters high, it'll depend on what happens with that future legislation we talked about. Okay. And this is something I found concerning in the report. The costs of fixing these non cladding fire safety defects, they're not covered by government funding, are they? That seems like it could be a real problem for residents.

It is. Organizations like the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Property Institute have expressed serious concerns about this. Many buildings require temporary safety measures, like waking watches, because of internal fire safety issues that have nothing to do with the cladding. The question is, who pays for the permanent solutions to these problems? So people could end up in a situation where, you know, the cladding on their building is fixed, but there are still other fire risks inside.

That's the worry. A new standard is being developed to address these non cladding issues, but there's a lot of concern that the cost will fall on freeholders and, in some cases, on leaseholders. And while there are caps on what leaseholders can be charged, you know, £15,000 in London, Ten Thousand Pounds elsewhere, the group and our cladding scandal, they make a very valid point. Even those amounts can be life changing for many people. It's a huge burden on top of everything else.

What about the companies that manufacture these dangerous cladding products? Are they contributing to the costs of fixing this mess? That's a source of frustration for many. MHCLG admits that despite earlier promises to hold the industry accountable, they haven't yet secured direct financial contributions from those manufacturers into the main remediation fund. You mean even after the Grenfell Tower inquiry uncovered some questionable practices in the industry?

Exactly. While the Building Safety Act does allow building owners, developers, and leaseholders to take legal action directly against the manufacturers, so far, there hasn't been a direct injection of funds from from those manufacturers into the main government led schemes. This whole situation really highlights the human cost of this crisis, doesn't it? Up to three million people are estimated to be affected, and their lives have been completely turned upside down. It's true.

It's incredibly distressing to hear about the financial difficulties, the emotional toll, the feeling of being trapped in homes that are not only unsafe, but unsellable. It's like their lives are on hold. And even the process of getting the remediation work done can be really difficult. Yeah. It's not straightforward at all.

Progress is often delayed by disagreements about how to interpret safety risks, particularly when it comes to the PAS nine nine eighty assessments, which is that new standard for evaluating fire risk in external walls. MHCLG promised a formal process to resolve these disputes, but it hasn't been implemented yet, which leaves a lot of residents in limbo. Communication also seems to be a major problem. It is. Despite previous recommendations and a code of practice that was introduced in 2023, many residents still say they're not getting clear and consistent information about their buildings.

And the problem is this code of practice, it's not legally binding, so there's limited evidence to show how effective it's actually been. Now the report mentioned a TELUS tool from Homes England. What is that exactly? It's a way for residents to check if their building is on Homes England's radar. The idea is good, but it seems like awareness of this tool is pretty low.

It's a huge financial burden, and there's a chance that the new PAS ninety nine eighty standard that we mentioned earlier could have a longer term impact on insurance costs as well, couldn't it? That's a really good point. Because PAS 99 d prioritizes saving lives over protecting property, it allows for less expensive safety measures, like sprinklers, to be installed. This could mean that flammable cladding might stay in place if the risk to life is deemed acceptable. But the insurance industry is warning that if this combustible cladding isn't fully removed, those high premiums could very well become the norm.

So there's a potential dilemma here. Cheaper fixes in the short term might actually lead to higher costs for residents in the long term through their insurance. So it's a trade off, essentially. Yeah. It is.

It's something to consider very carefully. Now MHCLG has taken some steps on insurance, like banning those broker commissions to freeholders and agents and putting caps on the charges to leaseholders. They're also looking at providing further government support during the remediation process, but the underlying risk and how it affects premiums, well, that's still a big challenge to tackle. It brings us to the issue of value for money, doesn't it? Are we actually getting bang for our buck with all this?

The report highlights some pretty big uncertainties around the costs and timelines. It does. That broad cost estimate of 12,600,000,000.0 to 22,400,000,000.0, That figure's over a year old now. And MXCLG hasn't provided the six monthly updates they promised. Without that clarity, it's really hard to judge whether public and private funds are being used effectively.

And these inconsistencies in how PAS ninety nine eighty assessments are being done aren't helping matters. No. They aren't. Different fire risk assessors are coming to different conclusions about how much remediation work is needed. This just creates more disagreements and delays, which ultimately affect costs as well.

I know the government has published some cost information, but I understand it's based on older standards. That's right. The figures they've released for high rise buildings are based on pre PAS nine nine eighty standards, which usually meant removing all the cladding. Now with this newer, more proportionate approach to risk assessment, those unit costs are expected to change, making it even harder to get a clear picture of the overall financial impact. There's also a lot of skepticism from groups like the Home Builders Federation and Andar Cladding Scandal about whether MHCLG's estimates of how many buildings need fixing are even accurate.

It's a bit of a mess, isn't it? So who is picking up the tab for all this? Well, the funding model includes a contribution from taxpayers that's capped at £5,100,000,000. The rest is supposed to come from private building owners, social housing providers, and developers. They're using a developer remediation program and a building safety levy on new developments to try to get that money.

But there's a catch. If public spending exceeds that 5,100,000,000.0 cap, the levy might have to run for longer than the initial ten years. With so much public money involved, the risk of fraud must be a major concern. It is. And the report points out that those earlier schemes, they didn't have the strongest taxpayer protections, which did lead to potential losses from suspected fraud.

A formal fraud risk assessment wasn't done until 2023, which is quite late in the game. There are also concerns about how well records have been kept. However, it seems lessons are being learned. The newer cladding safety scheme has more centralized information, and payments are made after the work is completed. They're also working with a public sector fraud authority, and they're planning a measurement exercise to see how well those anti fraud measures are working.

And finally, the report talks about the impact this huge remediation effort is having on other priorities in the housing sector. Right. It's not happening in a vacuum. All the resources and attention being focused on cladding remediation could negatively impact the government's goal of jolting 1,500,000 new homes, you know, that shortage of skilled workers and the diversion of funding. And social housing seems to be taking a particularly hard hit.

It is. The National Housing Federation has reported a 90% drop in new social housing starts in London because providers are having to divert funds to cover these unexpected remediation costs. Their estimate is that the £3,800,000,000 social housing providers are spending on this could have paid for around 76,000 new homes. It's devastating. It is.

And what about the impact of the building safety levy on the private sector? Well, the Home Builders Federation, they're worried that it could lead to fewer new homes being built, especially affordable ones. They're also concerned that it could put smaller developers at risk. MHCLG believes the impact will be small because of how the levy is designed, you know, those discounts for brownfield sites and exemptions for affordable housing. But the potential for exemptions for affordable housing.

But the potential for disruption to the housing supply is definitely there. It's a complex situation with wide ranging effects. So to sum it all up, it seems like The UK still has a lot of work to do to fix this dangerous cladding issue. Progress is painfully slow. The costs are huge and not entirely clear, and people's lives are being deeply affected.

That's a very accurate summary. We need to see faster progress, much more transparency, and clear accountability from everyone involved. The residents are bearing a huge financial and emotional burden, and that needs to be addressed much more urgently. It really makes you wonder, given the scale of this crisis and what it could mean for the housing market and our public finances down the line, what needs to change fundamentally to fix this and make sure something like this never happens again? It feels like we need more than just quick fixes.

Definitely. We need to keep asking those questions, keep thinking critically, and develop solutions that are both robust and sustainable. Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into the committee of public accounts report. It's a vital issue, and we hope this has given you a better understanding of the challenges we're facing. We encourage you to read the full report if you wanna delve deeper into this topic.

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