Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to speak on the important topic of building safety. My most recent appearance before the committee was just two weeks ago As always, it is good to be back.

The Government’s absolute priority is the safety of residents and home owners. The Grenfell Tower tragedy provided absolute clarity on why building safety is so important. As the committee will be aware, immediately after the Grenfell Tower fire, we established a ministerial working group on building and fire safety. Since then, substantial progress has been made, with changes to fire safety standards and guidance, and further measures being taken, including legislation on smoke alarms, to address safety in buildings. The ministerial working group continues to meet and will address actions on building safety matters, working with key partner organisations such as the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

Safety is the reason why we have established a cladding remediation programme. I am determined to ensure that we identify, assess and remediate buildings with potentially unsafe cladding. Currently, 105 buildings are on the cladding remediation programme. Each of those buildings will go through a comprehensive technical assessment through a single building assessment. A single building assessment is a complex expert assessment. As we have already heard this morning, it is crucial that we take the time to get that assessment right, since it is the basis of all further work on the building. If experts identify an urgent issue during the assessment, we will take immediate action to safeguard residents.

However, I appreciate that, for many home owners, this process has taken too long. Last year, we changed our approach to the programme, moving from a grant model to a direct procurement model, which has led to a real increase in the pace of delivery.

Finally, I will update the committee on the Scottish safer buildings accord. The process has taken longer than we had hoped and has been complicated by the nature of the Scottish tenure system. However, I am pleased that we have made positive progress on the accord, as the committee heard earlier from Fionna Kell. I can confirm that a number of developers have sent or are in the process of sending in developer commitment letters on the accord. That is an important step. We will now move to discussing the long-term legally binding agreement.

I can also confirm that we are looking urgently at legislative options to ensure that we remove barriers to support the delivery of the programme, to keep residents safe and to hold developers to account. We continue to work hard to remediate cladding issues for home owners and residents to ensure that we deliver a commitment to safeguard residents and home owners.

Thank you again for inviting me along. I look forward to answering your questions.

Again, I heard that mentioned earlier this morning. The first bit of work is the single building assessment, which is fully funded by the Scottish Government, so there will be no cost to residents and tenants in that regard. In my previous answer, I mentioned the accord, which is about the developer taking responsibility for the remediation work. We have been clear about that, which is why it was important to reach the accord. The owners should not have to pay anything for that.

The other issue worth mentioning is that, although we have been dealing with buildings in respect of which we know who the owners are, there are also orphan buildings. It is important to mention that there is a public cost there. There is no cost to residents.

I will bring in Stephen Garvin on that. Obviously, the tenure system in Scotland has been established for quite a while. Stephen can talk about the issue specifically in relation to cladding.

I will bring in Stephen Garvin on that, because he is the technical expert. Scottish building standards are slightly different from the UK and Welsh building standards. One of the key issues is that some of the organisations that we are dealing with through Homes for Scotland are UK based. In the programme in England and Wales, there are slightly different technical standards to ours. It is really about looking at that technical question of the slight differences between the UK and Scotland. That is broadly where that sits.

As Fionna Kell touched on earlier, it is really about points of clarification. That is the general reason why it has taken a little longer. Mr Griffin asked Fionna why the process had taken so long. Part of the discussions have been about getting those technical questions outlined.

Stephen Garvin will set out the specific technical points that we are looking at.

I do not think that there is a one-size-fits-all answer to that. It really depends on each building. We have heard about the inspection process. Part of the reason for some of the legislation is to quicken the pace of what we need to do with the buildings. In addition, one of the key things about reaching the agreement with Homes for Scotland and looking at legislation was to quicken the pace.

My key message is that we hope to increase the pace of the remediation of buildings, but it is hard to give an answer to that for one building or another because the requirements are all different. The key thing is to ensure that we quicken the pace. We are working with officials to do that and push things on quite a bit.

It is difficult to tie down the position for one building compared with another, as it depends on what remediation is required.

Policy on mortgages and buildings insurance is the responsibility of the UK Government. I know that that issue is being discussed on an on-going basis with officials, and I will let them update you on those discussions.

One of the main reasons for trying to meet the UK Government specifically on that matter is that UK Finance takes that forward. We need to ensure that we make progress on that as soon as possible. Chris Ashurst mentioned that this morning, particularly with regard to buildings insurance and mortgages. I am really keen to take that further with the UK Government, to make sure that we quicken the pace and to find out what we in Scotland need to do to make sure that it is aware of that. It is a really important issue for residents and home owners. It is one of the key things that I will be discussing with the UK Government.

As for specific work that we are doing here, I will bring in Rachel again to talk about discussions that we have had on that. To a certain extent, our hands are tied on that matter, but obviously we have been raising it with the UK Government. I am keen to quicken the pace on that to make sure that we get some resolution as quickly as possible, to give the tenants and residents a bit more peace of mind. There are other things that we need to work on. We talked about communication this morning, and that is important.

We can come back to the committee with the number that you asked for in relation to fire safety.

Again, the issue goes back to the discussions that I want to have with UK and Welsh Government officials. What are they doing on that? Rachel Sunderland touched on this, but there are UK, Welsh, Northern Irish and Irish companies that do this work as well. We need to look at the capacity in Scotland, but also at the capacity across the UK. What do we need to do under that four-nations approach to ensure that we all have capacity, given that we will all be looking to do the same things at roughly the same time? We will have those discussions with UK, Welsh and Northern Irish officials to determine what we need to do to look at the issue as a whole. Again, I will be happy to report back on the discussions that we have at that stage.

I will ask Rachel Sunderland to comment on that in a second, but first I will comment on the point that you made at the start of your question. I heard Chris Ashurst talk about the importance of communication even if people can only say, “Here’s where we are” and not what is happening. I will certainly take that away and discuss it with officials.

On the point about political leadership, one of the first meetings that I had as a minister was about the cladding programme and what we could do to take it forward. One of the first meetings that I had—within the first week, I think—was with Homes for Scotland, and we discussed the issue. I am glad that, within a reasonably quick period, we have reached the stage that we have reached and that we continue to move on. We will move on to the SMEs, as I said. We have talked about the need for legislation to try to quicken the pace. In the first two months, I have tried to show that leadership by moving on the agreement and moving on legislation that we require to do that. I am certainly keen to discuss that.

I will meet Chris Ashurst in the near future and I continue to meet Homes for Scotland regularly and keep on top of that programme. I have already mentioned having meetings with the UK and Welsh Governments to take the issue forward. I think that I am showing that political leadership, and I am keen to make sure that I do that not just in the first two or three months but on an on-going basis. As I said, the process will evolve in Scotland and in the UK, but I am really keen to make sure that we give people as much peace of mind as we can and that buildings are as safe as possible. That is the key thing.

I ask Rachel Sunderland to comment on the number of orphan buildings.

Discussions are under way on that. I will bring Rachel in, as she has been undertaking those discussions.

We have reached agreement in principle. There will be on-going dialogue between officials, Homes for Scotland and me, and they will be part of how this will evolve and work in practice. Those discussions will be on-going and regular.