The Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government, Angela Rayner MP, has pledged to speed up the removal of unsafe cladding from buildings as part of a new remediation action plan.
Rayner made the announcement during her opening speech at the Labour Party Conference 2024, where she outlined the government’s ambitions for a “council housing revolution”.
“Working with the Prime Minister on the Grenfell Inquiry was the most sobering moment of my career: 72 lives lost, 18 children, all avoidable. A fatal failure of market and state. A tragedy that must never happen again.
“It is completely unacceptable that we have thousands of buildings still wrapped in unsafe cladding seven years after Grenfell.
“And that’s why we will bring forward a new remediation action plan this Autumn to speed up the process and we’ll pursue those responsible – without fear or favour.
“This must lead to new, safer social housing for the future.”
Her speech echoes the sentiments made during a parliamentary debate on 11 September 2024, where the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Rushanara Ali MP, told the House of Commons “there are too many buildings with unsafe cladding and the pace of remediation has been too slow.”
As previously reported by the FPA, during the parliamentary debate, Ali said the Grenfell report had revealed a “culture of putting profit before people, and a culture in which safety took a back seat”.
“We want to ensure that we speak to all relevant stakeholders. We need to work across a range of institutions to get this right and tackle the root causes of fire risk,” Ali said.
It is understood the government department is currently monitoring the remediation of 4,630 residential buildings above 11 metres of which 1,350 have completed remediation. Ali added that there were as many as 7,000 buildings requiring remediation that had “not yet applied for the cladding safety scheme” and would work with regulators to ensure those buildings were identified.
In light of the Grenfell Inquiry Phase 2 report released on 4 September 2024, the government has said it will consider all the recommendations “in detail”, with a response expected within six months.
You can read Rayner’s full Labour Conference speech here.