General debate on building safety and social housing to mark six years since the Grenfell Tower tragedy, House of Commons - 6 July 2023

• The LGA welcomed the Building Safety Act, which introduces a new building safety regime designed to prevent the tragedy of Grenfell Tower being repeated. It has been councils’ priority to ensure that lessons from Grenfell are learned and that swift action is taken to ensure that every tenant has access to a safe and high-quality home. 100 percent (160) of social sector high-rise residential buildings with dangerous aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding have now either completed or started remediation. Of these, 159 (99 percent) have had their ACM cladding removed.
• With building owners having to complete the registration of high-rise residential buildings with the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) by October 2023 and the new building safety regime coming into place in April 2024, stock-owning councils are still awaiting clarity on the measures that will be expected of them as part of the safety case process. Therefore, it is currently unclear what the wider impact of complying with the Building Safety Act will be on Housing Revenue Accounts (HRAs).
• Councils and Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs) also need clarity on what is expected of them as regulators alongside the BSR. A significant amount of secondary legislation is still needs to be approved by Parliament to implement the new building safety regime. Although we appreciate the difficulties in doing so, sharing early drafts with local government for comment before they are finalised would assist councils and fire and FRSs in delivering their new regulatory responsibilities.
• Effective delivery of the new building safety regime is dependent on adequate resourcing of councils’ building control teams and the fire service. Although resources have been provided to expand the capacity of both building control and the fire service to work alongside the new Building Safety Regulator, it remains to be seen if the charging provisions in the 2022 Act will be enough to sustain that capacity going forward.
• Research for the LGA estimates that the sector-wide requirement to achieve building safety standards for high-rise residential buildings and buildings housing vulnerable residents in council housing is £7.7 billion. Government has provided a small proportion of the funding required for this work. We remain concerned that the costs of fixing social housing blocks will fall on councils already overstretched HRAs and housing associations The LGA agrees with government that the construction industry must be made to fix the fire safety defects it has built into blocks owned by councils and housing associations. Councils should also have full access to national funding for remediation works in social housing.
• As we outlined in our submission to the Levelling Up, Housing and Committee, HRAs are facing wider unsustainable income and expenditure pressures, while having to deliver on increasing number of priorities including maintaining and improving housing quality, improving energy efficiency, fire and building safety works, decarbonisation, regeneration and building new social homes. We continue to highlight concerns that cumulative pressures are increasingly impacting on councils’ ability to deliver their responsibilities as local housing authorities, as well as their ambition to build new homes. The self-financing settlement for social housing is no longer fit for purpose and it is vital that the Government provides a new long-term sustainable funding framework for social housing. 
• The LGA has always maintained that building height is a poor indicator of risk. The development of the Cladding Safety Scheme to fund the remediation of fire safety risks associated with external wall systems in medium rise residential buildings (those 11-18m in height) is therefore welcome. It would be helpful to know when the scheme is expected to open, and whether councils will be eligible to bid for funding from the scheme.
• We have concerns regarding the Government’s proposals for emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs), which ensure that disabled residents can be evacuated in the event of an emergency. The LGA believes that the owner and manager of every high-rise residential building should be required to prepare PEEPs, and the LGA has received legal advice that suggests councils and housing associations have an anticipatory duty to consider the requirements of those who are unable to self-evacuate, without those residents having to ask. The Government’s consultation on the proposals closed on 21 August 2022. We urge the Government to publish its response as soon as possible. 
• With are over 1.2 million people on housing waiting lists and almost 100,000 in temporary accommodation, delivering a step-change in social housing building will be fundamental to tackling the housing emergency. The LGA is calling on Government to implement a six-point plan to enable councils to resume their historic role as a major builder of homes and deliver an ambitious build programme of 100,000 high-quality, climate-friendly social homes a year. Research by the LGA found that building 100,000 social homes a year would save the public finances by £24.5 billion over 30 years.

The fire at Grenfell brought to light significant systematic issues in how building safety and building products were regulated. We welcomed the Government’s action to address these through national policy and new legislation, including the Building Safety and Fire Safety Acts.

The Fire Safety Act

The Fire Safety Act 2021 clarified that the designated responsible person for fire safety (usually the building owner) in shared blocks of flats also has to consider the building’s structure, external walls and flat entrance doors in their fire risk assessments.

The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 additionally required responsible persons of high-rise blocks of flats to provide information to Fire and Rescue Services, to provide additional safety measures in all multiple occupancy High Rise Residential Buildings (HRRBs) and to provide residents with fire safety instructions and information on the importance of fire doors.

Building Safety Act

The Building Safety Act brought in several important reforms to strengthen building safety, including:

• Establishing a Building Safety Regulator (BSR) within the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to oversee a new safety regime for residential buildings over 18m (HRRBs).
• Requiring new buildings to pass through three regulatory Gateways in relation to safety – at the planning stage, at the final design stage (before construction can begin) and immediately before occupation when construction is complete.
• Strengthening the regulation of construction product safety.

However, we were disappointed that the Government ignored our calls and only made buildings over 18 meters accountable to the new Building Safety Regulator and the new building safety regime.

The LGA has always maintained that building height is a poor indicator of risk. The development of the Cladding Safety Scheme to fund the remediation of fire safety risks associated with external wall systems in medium rise residential buildings (those 11-18m in height) is a positive step forward. The Cladding Safety Scheme launched a pilot in November 2022, which precedes wider rollout this year, providing funding for remediation when the developer of a building cannot be traced or identified. While the pilot has been extended it would be helpful to know when the scheme is expected to open, and whether councils will be eligible to bid for funding from the scheme.

With building owners having to complete the registration of high-rise residential buildings with the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) by October 2023 and the new building safety regime coming into place in April 2024, stock-owning councils need to understand what is required of them. However, it is not yet clear to councils what reasonable and proportionate measures will be expected of them as part of the safety case process, and therefore what the wider impact of complying with the Building Safety Act will be on their Housing Revenue Accounts. There is an urgent need for better communication with local government and building owners more widely from the BSR.

Councils and Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs) also need to clarity on what is expected of them as regulators alongside the BSR. A significant amount of secondary legislation is still needs to be approved by Parliament to implement the new building safety regime. Although we appreciate the difficulties in doing so, sharing early drafts with local government for comment before they are finalised would assist councils and fire and FRSs in delivering their new regulatory responsibilities.

Clarity is also needed on how joint inspections of buildings which are mixed use, with only part falling under the scope of the Building Safety Act are coordinated between the BSR and other regulators, principally Fire and Rescue Services. There is a risk that Fire and Rescue Services will have to take enforcement action under the Fire Safety Order in support of the BSR, but not be able to recover the costs of doing so as they would have been able to do under the Building Safety Act.

Research for the LGA estimates that the sector-wide requirement to achieve building safety standards for tall buildings and buildings housing vulnerable residents in council housing is £7.7billion. This is based on 3,300 tall buildings with approximately 228,000 units affected, and up to 290,000 homes housing vulnerable residents. Of this £7.7billion, an estimated £1.8 billion relates to re-cladding, some of which is covered by Government support. Other costs include compartmentation, fire door replacement, sprinklers and ongoing building safety case costs.

Government has only provided a small proportion of the funding required for this work. We remain concerned that the costs of fixing social housing blocks will fall on councils already overstretched housing revenue accounts (HRA) and housing associations.

In May 2018, Government provided £400 million for councils and housing associations to cover the cost of removing and replacing unsafe ACM cladding (compared 1.8 billion of costs relating to remediating all unsafe cladding in council homes.) Councils have also been prevented from accessing funding from the Building Safety Fund for remediation of unsafe non-ACM cladding of 18 metres or over, unless they can demonstrate that they are ‘unable to pay’ for remediation works or that paying would be a threat to their financial viability.

We have consistently raised with Government that, as HRA income is primarily funded by social tenants’ rents, social tenants have unfairly had to pick up the tab for remediation works within the social housing sector. Social housing providers have also reported that in prioritising essential building and fire safety works, funding has in some cases had to be redirected from planned upgrade and maintenance works to social housing and programmes to build new homes. 

The LGA agrees with government that the construction industry must be made to fix the fire safety defects it has built into blocks owned by councils and housing associations. Alongside this, we have consistently called for social landlords to have full access to funds for building safety remediation.

Councils Housing Revenue Accounts (HRAs) are facing considerable income and expenditure pressures, while having to deliver on increasing number of wide-ranging priorities including maintaining and improving housing quality, improving energy efficiency, fire and building safety works, decarbonisation, regeneration and delivering new supply. In addition to the 7.6 billion for fire and building safety, research by Savills for the LGA estimates that the costs to decarbonise the housing stock by 2050 will cost councils £23 billion, while the impact of the current social rent cap will amount to a deficit of £664 million over two years.

The reality is that funding can only stretch so far. The impact of cumulative pressures on HRAs are not sustainable and are increasingly impacting on councils’ ability to deliver their responsibilities as local housing authorities, as well as their ambition to build new homes. 

The self-financing regime that has been in place for social housing since 2012 urgently needs to be reviewed. The settlement is now ten years old; its underlying income and expenditure assumptions have been superseded and it is no longer fit for purpose.

To support councils to fulfil our ambition of ensuring that everyone has access to a safe, secure and high-quality home, we are calling on Government to urgently review the current funding regime for social housing and provide a long-term sustainable funding framework.

Following the recommendations of Phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry and campaigning from the LGA, the Government consulted on proposals to improve measures to support disabled residents to evacuate buildings in the case of an emergency.

The Government have proposed Emergency Evacuation Information Sharing (EEIS+) as a way of identifying those who need personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPS). This means the Government is proposing, that in buildings with simultaneous evacuation strategies in place (where the building is required to have a communal alarm system to alert all residents to evacuate) the building owner would be required to ask residents to come forward if they need additional support to evacuate.

The LGA believes that the owner and manager of every high-rise residential building should be required to prepare personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs), and the LGA has received legal advice that suggests councils and housing associations have an anticipatory duty to consider the requirements of those who are unable to self-evacuate, without those residents having to ask. With the Government’s consultation on proposals to support the fire safety of residents who would need support to evacuate in an emergency closed on 21 August 2022 we urge the Government to publish its response as soon as possible. 

The LGA urges the Government to publish their response to the EEIS+ consultation.

Empowering councils to deliver a generation step-change in social housing will be fundamental to ending the housing emergency. There are currently not enough social homes to meet demand. Over 1.2 million households are on the waiting list for social homes in England. While almost 100,000 households are living in temporary accommodation, including 120,710 children. Councils spent £1.6 billion on temporary accommodation in 2021-22 alone.  

Over recent decades, construction of new homes has failed to keep pace with population growth, demographics and socio-demographic change, particularly due to the decline public house building. At the same time, the stock of social homes has significantly reduced as councils have struggled to replace homes lost through Right to Buy. The housing shortage has seen rents and property prices rise significantly faster than incomes, acutely impacting the lowest income and vulnerable families and individuals. Compared to the private rental sector and homes at affordable rent, social homes provide a genuinely affordable alternative and greater security of tenancy. For many people, social housing remains the only feasible option due to the widening gap between Local Housing Allowance (LHA) and market rents.

The LGA is calling on Government to implement a six-point plan to enable councils to resume their historic role as a major builder of homes and deliver an ambitious build programme of 100,000 high-quality, climate-friendly social homes a year:

1. Roll-out five-year local housing deals to all areas of the country that want them by 2025 – combining funding from multiple national housing programmes into a single pot. This will provide the funding, flexibility, certainty and confidence to stimulate housing supply, and will remove national restrictions which stymie innovation and delivery.
2. Government support to set up a new national council housebuilding delivery taskforce, bringing together a team of experts to provide additional capacity and improvement support for housing delivery teams within councils and their partners.
3. Continued access to preferential borrowing rates through the Public Works Loans Board (PWLB), introduced in the Spring Budget, to support the delivery of social housing and local authorities borrowing for Housing Revenue Accounts.
4. Further reform to Right to Buy which includes allowing councils to retain 100 per cent of receipts on a permanent basis; flexibility to combine Right to Buy receipts with other government grants; the ability to set the size of discounts locally; and the ability to recycle a greater proportion of receipts into building replacement homes paying off housing debt.
5. Review and increase where needed the grant levels per home through the Affordable Homes Programme, as inflationary pressures have caused the cost of building new homes to rise, leaving councils needing grant funding to fund a larger proportion of a new build homes than before.
6. Certainty on future social rents, to enable councils to invest. Government must commit to a minimum 10-year rent deal for council landlords to allow a longer period of annual rent increases and long-term certainty.

In addition to boosting the supply of affordable homes, building 100,000 social homes a year would save the public finances by £24.5 billion over 30 years, which includes a reduction in the housing benefit bill and temporary accommodation costs. Research for the LGA and partners found that every £1 invested in a new social home generates £2.84 in the wider economy with every new social home generating a saving of £780 a year in housing benefit.