The Scottish Government has announced that it intends to present its Cladding Remediation Bill to the Scottish Parliament as part of its legislative programme this year. Whilst the detail of the Bill has not yet been published, it is understood that the intention is that this new legislation will accelerate the identification, assessment and fixing of unsafe cladding on Scotland’s medium and high rise multi-residential buildings by giving new powers to the Scottish Ministers to:

• undertake measures to remediate buildings with unsafe cladding that poses a risk to life; and
• create a new Building Safety Levy (similar to the UK Government’s Building Safety Levy for England).

The intention is that the Bill, if passed, should support the delivery of the Scottish Cladding Remediation Programme, speed up the remediation process and seek that developers contribute financially to that remediation. 

Due to a number of different factors, the use of cladding on high-rise residential buildings in Scotland is less extensive than in England. The Building Regulation regime in Scotland also differs to that in England. However, this latest announcement from the Scottish Government indicates that a number of the key principals of remediation and recovery in the Building Safety Act in England and Wales may soon become law in Scotland too. 

We look forward to reviewing the Cladding Remediation Bill when it is published in due course. 

This article was written by Claire Louge and Eva Hunter.