In the recently announced Cladding Remediation Bill, the Scottish Government has unveiled the next step of its response to the issue of potentially combustible cladding.
Cladding Remediation Bill
The Scottish has recently announced Cladding Remediation Bill to introduce two reforms to support the overall Cladding Remediation Programme commenced following the Grenfell Tower Disaster in June 2017.
Firstly, the Bill will build upon the progress made in identifying and assessing potentially hazardous cladding on medium and high-rise multi-residential buildings by accelerating the ongoing survey programme for high-risk buildings. The Bill will grant ministers new powers to order remediation of buildings fitted with cladding that is deemed to present a risk to life.
Secondly, the Bill will tackle the issue of funding for remediation works by seeking a transfer of powers to allow a Building Safety Levy to be introduced, similar to that intended in England and Wales. This is in line with the policy aim announced by both the UK and Scottish Governments to ensure a developer contribution to remediation costs. The timescales for introducing this levy are not set out, and it is unclear how closely the Scottish Government intends to align its scheme with the UK Government’s levy, the details of which are also awaited.
The Bill also addresses the ongoing issues of ‘orphan’ buildings with no known developer, announcing a £400m fund to address cladding issues on these buildings.
Impact and Limitations
The announcement of this Bill is a helpful indication of the Scottish Government’s next steps, with its presence in the Programme for Government a sign that this remains a high-profile issue.
Without the full text of the Bill the exact scope of these plans remains unclear. However, the proposals in the Bill do appear to represent a less far-reaching response than that of the UK Government. They focus on specific cladding products, rather than on passive fire protection more generally. This means that issues with insulation, cavity barriers and internal smoke management systems are not caught. If funding is similarly limited, this will act as a practical limitation on the ability of building owners to address overall fire protection issues within properties.
A further disparity is that the Scottish proposals do not address forward looking issues. The 2022 ban on the use of metal composite material panels on all residential buildings and combustible cladding systems on high-risk residential buildings was generally seen as a welcome development. However, there are currently no plans to introduce an equivalent of the overhaul of site safety processes and attitudes to Building Regulations compliance envisaged in England and Wales in the Building Safety Act.
It does therefore appear that the responses of the Scottish and UK Governments will continue to diverge, with resulting uncertainty for the industry.
Article co-authored by Jade Wilson, Trainee Solicitor at CMS
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