SNP MUST RULE OUT MORE RAIDS ON GRENFELL-TYPE CLADDING FUND – GRIFFIN

By Bill Heaney

The SNP must pledge not to raid any more funding from the high rise buildings cladding programme, Scottish Labour has said.

This year the SNP “reprofiled” £700,000 of cladding remediation funding as part of its efforts to plug the gaps in its budget.

The SNP has faced criticism for slow progress removing the dangerous Grenfell-style cladding from Scottish buildings.

In 2020 the Scottish Government received £97 million of Barnett consequentials for cladding remediation – however, so far just £9 million of that has been spent on cladding remediation, with the Scottish Government recently admitting that the rest of the money has been spent elsewhere.

The UK Labour government has pledged to speed up the process of removing dangerous cladding from English buildings following the publication of the damning Grenfell Inquiry report, which set out a series of serious failures.

Scottish Labour has said that the Scottish Government must start treating this with the urgency it deserves.

Scottish Labour Housing spokesperson Mark Griffin, pictured right,  said “It is a scandal that after all these years so many buildings in Scotland are still covered in this dangerous cladding.

“The Grenfell tragedy should have been an immediate call to action, but progress has been painfully slow in Scotland.

“The SNP has already robbed thousands of pounds from this vital programme to plug the blackhole in its budget – this cannot happen again.

“Building safety cannot be sacrificed to SNP incompetence and financial mismanagement.

“The SNP must start to act with the urgency needed and give a cast iron commitment that no more cladding funding will be raided to fix its own mistakes.”