Mr. Daniel Sinnott:

At the moment, while we are waiting for the report at the end of this month and the finalisation of the fire protection guidance, we do not know yet what the proper fire prevention measures are. When we know what they are, we can review our grant schemes accordingly and consider whether the grants could be put towards some of those fire prevention measures. The early indications we have from the expert who is drawing up the initial report are that many of the fire prevention measures are fairly straightforward and relatively low cost.

What we will do in the first instance is put our efforts into identifying what works to reduce fire risk. The Chairman mentioned that many owners have carried out lots of works to try to prevent fire. What we are finding, however, is that different insurance companies look for very different things to be done, and the measures they are looking for are not necessarily supported by the evidence that is available on what actually works to reduce fire risk. The first step is to establish a better understanding of what the proper changes are in the building and we can consider at that point how they should be funded. As I said, the initial indications are that the measures are quite simple and quite low cost. It may not, therefore, be a major barrier.