SNP ministers urged to pick up pace to replace Grenfell-style cladding

SNP ministers have been urged to speed up legislation to replace dangerous cladding on buildings.

SNP ministers have been accused of lagging behind the rest of the UK in replacing dangerous Grenfell-style cladding – as new figures reveal only £7 million out of £97m received from Westminster has been spent to deal with the issue.

The warnings have been issued as MSPs consider the first stage of the Scottish Government’s legislation to remove dangerous cladding. Scottish Labour has accused ministers of a lack of urgency after a Holyrood committee complained that “progress has been slow”.

The Scottish Government had introduced a cladding remediation programme in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire in London in 2017, which killed 72 people, with cladding on the high rise block said to have contributed to the spread of the blaze.

The Grenfell Tower in west London (David Mirzoeff/PA Wire)

But a report by the local government, housing and planning committee last month revealed that of the 105 buildings on this programme, only one had had any remediation works carried out, with mitigation work being done at one other building.

In contrast, the report said that as of December 2023, in England more than two fifths of affected buildings (42 per cent) had had work either started or completed, with 1,608 premises included in this total. Remediation works have been completed in 797 buildings (21 per cent) in England, the report added.

Meanwhile in Wales, Labour said progress has been “significantly faster”, saying work on 37 buildings had been completed, with work also under way on a further 86 buildings. People living in 103 buildings in Scotland are still waiting on work being carried out.

Scottish Labour housing spokesperson Mark Griffin said: “Not only are these delays seriously negligent, but they are also putting the lives of people at risk.”

He added: “While Scotland falls dangerously behind the rest of the UK on making these buildings safe, the SNP Government find themselves having to play catch up to the UK and Welsh government in passing legislation to speed the process up. It is time for them to wake up and get on with the job.”

Figures show only just over £7m of the near £100m given by the UK government in Barnett consequentials to deal with dangerous cladding issues in Scotland.

Scottish Conservative shadow social justice, housing and equalities secretary Miles Briggs, said: “This snail-pace progress from the SNP on removing dangerous cladding from buildings across Scotland is utterly inexcusable. SNP ministers were given almost £100m from the UK government, but are completely failing to deliver.

“Residents in Scotland’s tower blocks need to know the SNP Government are treating this issue with the seriousness it deserves, but their shamefully low levels of spending shows that simply is not the case.”

SNP housing minister Paul McLennan said: “We have introduced a Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Bill to address barriers to delivery and increased the internal capacity to drive forward the programme.

“The total level of spend on assessments, remediation and urgent interim measures on multi-occupancy residential buildings with cladding on their external walls has increased from £0.2m in 2021/22 to £7.1m at the end of Q3 2023/24.

“We are working to finalise the specification for the Single Building Assessment and the pathway for buildings into pre-assessment phase by summer 2024.”