Cladding Remediation 2026: The Numbers and the Remediation Bill
MHCLG's latest data shows 53 per cent of monitored buildings have started or finished work, and the department's own release admits the total is incomplete by up to a quarter. A Bill now before Parliament would turn remediation into a legal duty backed by prosecution.
INFIRISK Team·7 min read·
הדסה, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Nine years after Grenfell, the story most people still tell about cladding remediation is one of drift. Buildings identified, money announced, nothing much happening on site. That story was accurate for a long time. It is now out of date in two specific ways, and fire safety professionals who are still working from it will misjudge both the pace of the work and the legal exposure of the people who commission them.
The first change is in the numbers. The second is that a Bill now sitting before Parliament would turn what has been a funding-and-persuasion exercise into a legal duty backed by criminal prosecution.
Where remediation actually stands
The most recent figures come from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government's monthly building safety remediation data release, published on 24 June 2026 and covering the position at the end of May.
As at the end of May 2026 there were 4,411 residential buildings of 11 metres and over identified with unsafe cladding and being monitored by MHCLG, an increase of 33 on the previous month. Of those, 2,331 buildings, or 53 per cent, had either started or completed remediation works. Completions stood at 1,672 buildings, or 38 per cent of those monitored.
The tall-building picture is much further advanced than the mid-rise one. Of the 516 high-rise residential and publicly owned buildings identified with ACM cladding systems unlikely to meet Building Regulations, 500, or 97 per cent, have started or completed remediation, and 472, or 91 per cent, are finished. Sixteen buildings have yet to start. Two of those are vacant, eleven have forecast start dates, two have had local authority enforcement action taken against them, and one came into scope only this year.
The Building Safety Fund shows a similar shape. Of 640 high-rise residential buildings proceeding with an application, 557, or 87 per cent, have started or completed work on non-ACM cladding, and 481, or 75 per cent, have completed.
Read those three sets of figures together and the picture is not drift. It is a programme that has largely finished the tallest and most obviously dangerous category and is now working through a much larger, much less well-mapped mid-rise population.
The number that should worry you most
MHCLG's own release contains a figure that gets far less attention than the completion percentages. The 4,411 monitored buildings are estimated to represent only 61 to 76 per cent of all buildings of 11 metres and over expected to need remediation. Somewhere between 1,400 and 2,900 further buildings are expected to require work but have not yet been confirmed as eligible for any programme.
In other words, the denominator is not settled. A completion rate of 38 per cent is measured against a population that the department itself says is incomplete by up to a quarter. Every month a few dozen more buildings arrive in the monitored set, which is why the total went up by 33 between April and May even as completions rose.
For anyone assessing a mid-rise residential block, that is the practical point. The absence of a building from a government programme is not evidence that its external wall is sound. It may simply mean nobody has looked yet.
The Remediation Bill changes the legal basis
On 13 May 2026 the King's Speech announced a Remediation Bill. The government's own background briefing sets out what it is intended to do, and the measures are more far-reaching than the funding announcements that preceded them.
The Bill would introduce a new legal duty to remediate, compelling those responsible for the safety of their buildings, including freeholders, to identify, assess and fix them without delay. The briefing states that those responsible must act or face the consequences, including criminal prosecution in the most egregious and severe cases. That is a material shift. Up to now the pressure on a reluctant freeholder has come through funding conditions, enforcement notices and reputational exposure, not through a standalone statutory duty to remediate.
Four other measures matter to practitioners.
A remediation backstop allowing a third party such as Homes England to step in and carry out the work, backed by cost recovery and potential sale of the responsible party's interest.
An 11 to 18 metre register, which the government describes as giving it, for the first time, a complete record of all medium-rise buildings in England. This directly addresses the missing denominator described above.
A legal requirement that Fire Risk Appraisal of External Walls surveys follow the PAS 9980 framework. The government notes that the British Standards Institution is finalising its review of PAS 9980 in summer 2026, so assessors should expect the methodology they are about to be legally bound to follow to be revised at roughly the same moment.
Route to remediation where ownership is absent, unclear or negligent, closing gaps that have stalled individual buildings for years.
The Bill would also allow developers and contractors who have already paid for remediation to pursue construction product manufacturers. The briefing notes bluntly that manufacturers have yet to contribute towards the cost, and that no claim against a manufacturer has been brought to court.
Lord Andrew Roe KFSM, Chair of the Building Safety Regulator Board, is quoted in the briefing saying the Bill "will give us additional tools we need to compel reluctant landlords to take action to remediate their buildings and remove unsafe cladding, or face severe sanctions."
London Fire Brigade Commissioner Jonathan Smith said: "Nearly nine years on from the Grenfell Tower Fire, there remain far too many buildings with serious fire safety issues. Ensuring that remediation progresses more effectively is critically important to restoring the confidence of residents in the safety of their homes."
What is a target and what is law
It is worth being precise here, because the two are routinely confused in trade coverage.
The end-of-2029 dates that circulate are policy targets from the Remediation Acceleration Plan, published in December 2024. That plan aims for all 18 metre and over buildings with unsafe cladding in a government funded scheme to be remediated by the end of 2029, and for every 11 metre and over building with unsafe cladding to be either remediated, or to have a date for completion, or for the landlord to be liable for severe penalties, by the same date.
Those are aims, not statutory deadlines. The Remediation Bill as described in the King's Speech briefing does not itself impose a completion date. What it does is create the duty and the sanctions that would make the target enforceable. Do not tell a client they face a statutory 2029 deadline, because at present they do not.
What this means in practice
Three things follow for responsible persons and the professionals advising them.
Enforcement is already active, not theoretical. The government's briefing records that regulators have had to take enforcement action at over 800 buildings with suspected unsafe cladding. That is before any new duty exists.
The money is largely committed. The government has committed £5.15 billion, and the estimated cost to the 53 developers who signed the Developer Remediation Contract is £4.2 billion. Funding availability is no longer a credible reason for a building to be sitting untouched.
Insurance exposure is quantified. The briefing cites the Financial Conduct Authority finding a 187 per cent increase in insurance premiums for buildings with identified flammable cladding between 2016 and 2021. That is a cost falling on residents now, for as long as a building stays unremediated.
If you hold responsibility for a mid-rise residential block that has never had an external wall assessment, the sensible reading of the current direction is that the question is not whether it will be assessed, but whether you commission it or a register does it for you.
MHCLG's next monthly data release is due at 9.30am on Wednesday 29 July 2026. It will be the first read on whether the announcement of the Bill has moved the mid-rise numbers at all.
