division_name: Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders
motion: <p class="indent" pid="b685.2/2" pwmotiontext="yes">That this House calls on the Government to urgently establish the extent of dangerous cladding and prioritise buildings according to risk; provide upfront funding to ensure cladding remediation can start immediately; protect leaseholders and taxpayers from the cost by pursuing those responsible for the cladding crisis; and update Parliament once a month in the form of a Written Ministerial Statement by the Secretary of State.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b696.0/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;any form of combustible cladding&#8230;from any high-rise or high-risk building&#8221;,</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b696.0/7" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;The Government must recommit to the principle that leaseholders should not pay anything towards the cost of remediating historical building safety defects&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b699.1/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;We live in a state of crippling uncertainty. Our plans to move are on hold indefinitely. We have no choice but to raise our young family in a small flat with no garden that is also unsafe. And we face the prospect that all the money we have worked extremely hard to save in order to buy our first family house will instead be spent on paying for remediation works or steep mortgage fees&#8212;through no fault of our own.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b699.1/6" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;I am a single parent with two young children. I am currently not in employment and in receipt of Universal Credit. So, to now be potentially facing astronomical fees on top of already costly service charges is having a real negative effect on my mental health.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b700.0/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;It is the fear of living in the unknown&#8230;It is the feeling that we are trapped; we cannot sell and we cannot move.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b700.0/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;there can be no more excuses for inaction&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b702.0/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;We wrote to you in June 2020 to let you know your building needed an &#8216;intrusive survey&#8217;. Our fire safety contractor carried out an intrusive survey in several different areas of your building&#8230;The results showed that there are issues with timber cladding, insulation inside the masonry walls with incorrectly installed cavity barriers between flats and cavity closers&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b702.0/6" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;If you would like to re-mortgage or sell your flat, the mortgage lender involved will probably ask for an (EWS1 form). Your building received an ESW1 rating of Option &#8216;B2&#8217;&#8212;confirming combustible materials are present and remedial work is required. It is likely a lender will ask for more information about what work is needed, the likely timescales and the costs of carrying out the work. Unfortunately, we don&#8217;t know that information at this stage.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b702.0/8" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;At this stage it is too early to say. We fully understand this is a key area of concern for residents and this is a top priority for us. We do not wish to pass cost onto leaseholders and will only do this as a last resort.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b702.0/10" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;We don&#8217;t know how much this is going to cost us. We don&#8217;t know if we will have to vacate the building. It&#8217;s time for us to have answers. It&#8217;s stressful enough already with the pandemic. We can&#8217;t go on like this.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b710.0/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;a disgusting abuse that a government would aim to help so many and then bankrupt those they aimed to help by not legally protecting leaseholders from these costs&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b711.0/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government will be bringing forward a plan very shortly.&#8221;&#8212;[Official Report, <phrase class="date" code="2021-01-27">27 January</phrase> 2021; Vol. 688, c. 371.]</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b714.0/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;This has been caused by two main factors, poor building regulations in England across decades and a lack of regulatory oversight, which led to a construction industry that took advantage, put profits ahead of safety and built buildings with combustible materials and with missing compartmentation now regarded as fire traps.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b716.1/6" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;it remains building owners&#8217; responsibility to address unsafe cladding on buildings of all heights&#8230;and we have called on them to do all they can to protect leaseholders from the costs of remediating historic building defects.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b721.0/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;It is pretty much all I talk and think about. I have thought about killing myself and have started counselling to try to manage the thoughts and my anxiety.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b722.0/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;The Government must recommit to the principle that leaseholders should not pay anything towards the cost of remediating historical building safety defects, and&#8230;amend the Bill to explicitly exclude historical costs from the building safety charge.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b734.0/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;I would summarise my life as pretty much a living nightmare. I have spent every single waking moment when I am not working my day job trying to figure out how to make my home safe without going financially destitute. Unfortunately, my experience is not an uncommon one; it is shared by thousands of people just like me&#8230; We are constantly anxious, both for the safety of our families living in these dangerous buildings and also the pretty much blank cheque that we are being forced to write to fix defects that were not of our making.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b734.0/5" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;The Government must recommit to the principle that leaseholders should not pay anything towards the cost of remediating historical building safety defects, and, in order to provide leaseholders with the peace of mind they deserve, amend the Bill to explicitly exclude historical costs from the building safety charge.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b735.0/5" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Builders took shortcuts. Regulators failed to regulate. Freeholders are not doing the right thing. As expected, they are passing potentially ruinous costs on to leaseholders. In addition, some leaseholders must bear the emotional and psychological burden of living with waking watch while trapped in unsaleable properties.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b737.0/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Those who created this problem&#8212;the builders and their suppliers, some of whom have shown a blatant disregard for  public safety&#8212;should be made to pay for it. The blameless leaseholders should not. The government has to use its muscle, and not be influenced by whether some of these businesses are Tory donors. If not, more than 4.5 million affected leaseholders will know exactly who to blame.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b743.0/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;If I cannot pay the bill for remedial works, the freeholder can bankrupt me and make me forfeit the lease, making me homeless in retirement. I worked for over 45 years paying Income Tax, National Insurance, mortgage payments, service charges, council tax and other housing costs, yet I now face possibly losing my home because the Government decides that leaseholders should pay for the failings of builders, freeholders and Government regulations.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b744.0/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;This is weighing heavily on my and my wife&#8217;s minds&#8230;I purchased a newly converted flat. I had a survey. I did the due diligence.&#8221;</p>