MHCLG must take ‘clearer central role’ to fix remediation, says Clive Betts

The former chair of the housing select committee has criticised the “staggering underperformance” of the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) in its efforts to tackle the cladding remediation crisis.

Clive Betts, MP for Sheffield South East, spoke to BD’s sister title Building in the wake of a highly critical report by the public accounts committee of which he is now deputy chair.

The report said the government’s plan to remediate dangerous buildings across the UK was both “insufficiently ambitious” and at risk of not delivering what it promises, and found that as many as 7,000 unsafe buildings had yet to be identified

Eight years on from the Grenfell Tower fire, in which 72 people died, Betts said this high number of unidentified buildings demonstrated an “incredible underachievement” by successive governments and housing ministers.

Seeking to explain the failure, he told Building that “there was never a sense that the department took up responsibility”.

MHCLG has primarily been responsible for the government’s approach to remediation, much of which was developed while Michael Gove was the secretary of state.

>> Read more: MPs ‘sceptical’ government can deliver on building safety remediation promises 

Gove was widely seen as taking a firm approach with developers in an effort to encourage them to fix legacy building safety issues themselves.

Betts said the department had felt its job was “to lay out legal frameworks, and then others, like leaseholders and building owners got on with it”. 

“Obviously that’s not worked [and] I think the department has to take a much clearer central role,” he said.

The MP, who chaired the housing committee in Commons for 14 years, said that financial arrangements to support remediation had been “disparate” and said he was concerned that the deferment of the Building Safety Levy could push the Treasury’s contribution higher than the stated £5bn limit.

However he added that it was “reassuring that there is a recognition now that this has to be accelerated and there has to be central oversight”, after the new Labour government published its plan to address the issue late last year.