Environmental impacts of replacing cladding

Andrew Dismore AM moved, and Navin Shah AM seconded, the following motion:

 “This Assembly notes:

• The GLA has declared a climate emergency and the Government has committed to Britain becoming carbon neutral by 2050;
• Housing is a significant source of carbon emissions, but boroughs have limited Housing Revenue Account (HRA) resources to improve this; and
• The Government has provided £400m to deal with social sector ACM cladding, but the costs of fire safety remediation works for London boroughs could rise to £1 billion, while the G15 housing associations has estimated their remediation costs at £4.6 billion.

This Assembly believes:

• Decarbonising homes is an urgent priority;
• Fire safety failings are a risk to life across the housing estate in London, which we must not delay in addressing; and
• These two priorities should be treated with equal urgency, not forced to compete for resources.

This Assembly resolves to:

• Ask the Mayor to work with London Councils to estimate of the costs to social sector housing providers of remediating their fire safety risks;
• Ask the GLA environment unit to assess the impact on decarbonisation targets of social sector housing providers using their HRAs to fund fire safety work; and
• Ask the Mayor to write to ministers calling on them to fund building fire safety costs for social sector housing providers.”

Following debate, and upon being put to the vote, the motion was agreed (17 votes cast in favour, 1 vote against).