The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations With permission, Mr
Speaker, I would like to update the House on building safety.
Before I do so, I can confirm that I have asked the permanent
secretary in my Department to conduct a leak inquiry. It was a
matter of considerable regret to me that details of the statement
that I am about to make were shared with the media before they were
shared with Members of this...Request free trial
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on
building safety. Before I do so, I can confirm that I have asked
the permanent secretary in my Department to conduct a leak
inquiry. It was a matter of considerable regret to me that
details of the statement that I am about to make were shared with
the media before they were shared with Members of this House, and
indeed with those most affected.
It is worth pausing at the start of any statement to reflect on
why building safety is an issue of concern to all of us in this
House today. It took the tragedy at Grenfell Tower on 14 June
2017, as a result of which 72 innocent men, women and children
lost their lives, to put building safety properly on the
political agenda. Families were living in a building that was
literally a death trap because of failures of enforcement and
compliance in our building safety regime. This Government must
take their share of responsibility for those failures.
Over four years on from that terrible tragedy, it is clear that
the building safety system remains broken. The problems that we
have to fix have been identified by many across this House, from
all parties. I would like at this point to register my
appreciation of the work that the late did on this issue. He was
shadow Housing Minister for three years and he did a great deal,
both as a trade unionist and as the Member of Parliament for
Birmingham, Erdington, to bring to light the plight of those
affected by this crisis.
As we know, there are still a small number of high-rise buildings
with dangerous and unsafe cladding that have to be fixed. We know
that those who manufacture dangerous products and develop
dangerous buildings have faced inadequate accountability so far,
and shown insufficient contrition. We also need to ensure that we
take a proportionate approach in building assessments overall.
There are too many buildings today that are declared unsafe, and
there are too many who have been seeking to profit from the
current crisis.
Most importantly, leaseholders are shouldering a desperately
unfair burden. They are blameless, and it is morally wrong that
they should be the ones asked to pay the price. I am clear about
who should pay the price for remedying failures. It should be the
industries that profited, as they caused the problem, and those
who have continued to profit, as they make it worse.
Mr Speaker, we will take action on all of these fronts. To ensure
that every remaining high-rise dangerous building has the
necessary cladding remediation to make it safe, we will open up
the next phase of the building safety fund early this year and
focus relentlessly on making sure it is risk driven and delivered
more quickly.
We will also ensure that those who profited, and continue to
profit, from the sale of unsafe buildings and construction
products must take full responsibility for their actions and pay
to put things right. Those who knowingly put lives at risk should
be held to account for their crimes, and those who are seeking to
profit from the crisis by making it worse should be stopped from
doing so.
Today, I am putting them on notice. To those who mis-sold
dangerous products, such as cladding or insulation, to those who
cut corners to save cash as they developed or refurbished
people’s homes, and to those who sought to profiteer from the
consequences of the Grenfell tragedy: we are coming for you. I
have established a dedicated team in my Department to expose and
pursue those responsible. We will begin by reviewing Government
schemes and programmes to ensure that, in accordance with due
process, there are commercial consequences for any company that
is responsible for this crisis and refusing to help to fix
it.
In line with this, just before Christmas, I instructed Homes
England to suspend Rydon Homes, which is closely connected to the
company that refurbished the Grenfell Tower, from its
participation in the Help to Buy scheme, with immediate effect. I
also welcome the decision by the Mercedes Formula 1 team and Toto
Wolff to discontinue sponsorship from Kingspan, the cladding
firm, with immediate effect. The voices of the families of the
bereaved and the survivors of the Grenfell Tower were heard, but
this is only the start of the action that must be taken.
We must also restore common sense to the assessment of building
safety overall. The Government are clear—we must find ways for
there to be fewer unnecessary surveys. Medium-rise buildings are
safe, unless there is clear evidence to the contrary. There must
be far greater use of sensible mitigations, such as sprinklers
and fire alarms, in place of unnecessary and costly remediation
work.
To achieve that, today I am withdrawing the Government’s
consolidated advice note. It has been wrongly interpreted and has
driven a cautious approach to building safety in buildings that
are safe that goes beyond what we consider necessary. We are
supporting new, proportionate guidance for assessors, developed
by the British Standards Institution, which will be published
this week.
Secondly, we will press ahead with the building safety fund,
adapting it so that it is consistent with our proportionate
approach. We will now set a higher expectation that developers
must fix their own buildings, and we will give leaseholders more
information at every stage of the process.
Thirdly, before Easter, we will be implementing our scheme to
indemnify building assessors conducting external wall
assessments, giving them the confidence to exercise their
balanced professional judgment. We will audit those assessments
to ensure that expensive remediation is being advised only where
it is necessary to remove a threat to life.
I will be working closely with lenders over the coming months to
improve market confidence, and I have asked my colleague to work with insurers on
new industry-led approaches that bring down the premiums facing
leaseholders.
Further, we will take the power to review the governance of the
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, to ensure that it is
equipped properly to support a solution to this challenge. Those
in the industry who refuse to work with us in good faith to take
a more proportionate approach should be clear that our
determination is to fix the problem for all those caught up in
this crisis.
Finally, we must relieve the burden that has been unfairly placed
on leaseholders. I want to pay tribute to all those across the
House who have campaigned so passionately on this subject. They
know the injustice of asking leaseholders, often young people who
have saved hard and made sacrifices to take their first steps on
the housing ladder, to pay money they do not have to fix a
problem they did not cause, all while the firms who made a profit
on those developments sit on their hands. We will take action to
end the scandal and protect leaseholders. We will scrap the
proposal for loans and long-term debt for medium-rise
leaseholders.
I can confirm to the House today that no leaseholder living in a
building above 11 metres will ever face any costs for fixing
dangerous cladding and, working with Members of both Houses, we
will pursue statutory protection for leaseholders and nothing
will be off the table. As part of that, we will introduce
immediate amendments to the Building Safety Bill to extend the
right of leaseholders to challenge those who cause defects in
premises for up to 30 years retrospectively.
We will also take further action immediately: we will provide an
additional £27 million to fund more fire alarms, so we can end
the dreadful misuse of waking watches; we will change grant
funding guidance so that shared owners affected by the crisis can
more easily sub-let their properties, and encourage lenders and
landlords to approve sub-letting arrangements; and in the period
before long-term arrangements are put in place, I will work with
colleagues across Government to make sure that leaseholders are
protected from forfeiture and eviction because of historic costs.
Innocent leaseholders must not shoulder the burden.
We have already committed £5.1 billion of taxpayers’ funding from
the Government, but we should not now look to the taxpayer for
more funding. We should not ask hard-working taxpayers to pay
more taxes to get developers and cladding companies making vast
profits off the hook. We will make industry pay to fix all of the
remaining problems and help to cover the range of costs facing
leaseholders. Those who manufactured combustible cladding and
insulation, many of whom have made vast profits even at the
height of the pandemic, must pay now instead of leaseholders.
We have made a start through the residential property developer
tax and the building safety levy, both announced last February,
but will now go further. I will today write to developers to
convene a meeting in the next few weeks, and I will report back
to the House before Easter. We will give them the chance to do
the right thing. I hope that they will take it. I can confirm to
the House today that if they do not, we will impose a solution on
them, if necessary, in law.
Finally, we must never be in this position again, so we are
putting the recommendations of the Hackitt review on building
safety in law and we will shortly commence the Fire Safety Act
2021. We are also today publishing new collaborative procurement
guidance on removing the incentives for industry to cut corners
and to help stop the prioritisation of cost over value. We will
legislate to deliver broader reforms to the leasehold system, and
also bring forward measures to fulfil commitments made in the
social housing White Paper. When parliamentary time allows, we
will have legislation on social housing regulation so that social
housing tenants cannot be ignored as those in the Grenfell
community were for many years.
Four and a half years on from the tragedy of Grenfell, it is long
past time that we fix the crisis. Through the measures that I
have set out today, we will seek redress for past wrongs and
secure funds from developers and construction product
manufacturers, and we will protect leaseholders today and fix the
system for the future.
3.43pm
May I thank you, Mr Speaker, for your kind words about , who should have been with us
here today? There is a space over there that I know Jack would
have occupied. Back in the 1970s, horrified by the spectacle of a
skyscraper in London that lay empty while people slept rough
underneath it, Jack was one of those who occupied Centre Point
tower in protest. He was never afraid to speak truth to power,
and I hope that today marks the start of all of us across the
House invoking his spirit.
Four and a half years after the appalling tragedy at Grenfell,
and with a road paved with broken promises and false dawns,
hundreds of thousands are still trapped in unsafe homes, millions
are caught in the wider crisis, and the families of 72 people who
lost their lives are waiting for justice. It is a relief that we
finally have a consensus that the developers and manufacturers
who profited from this appalling scandal should bear greater
costs, not the victims, and that blameless leaseholders must not
pay. After a year of hell of the prospect hanging over
leaseholders, we welcome the decision to remove the threat of
forced loans, but can the Secretary of State tell us what makes
him think that he can force developers, who have refused to do
the right thing for four years, to pay up? We have been told
there is a March deadline and a roundtable, but there is not a
plan. If he has one, can we hear it? He will find an open door on
the Opposition side of the House, if he has a credible proposal
to bring.
Today the Secretary of State warned developers that if
negotiation fails,
“our backstop…what we can do…is increase taxation on those
responsible”,
but that is not quite right, is it? I have in front of me the
letter from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. May I remind the
Secretary of State what it says? He was told that
“you may use a high-level ‘threat’ of tax or legal solutions in
discussions with developers”
but
“whether or not to impose or raise taxes remains a decision for
me”
—the Chief Secretary—
“and is not a given at this point.”
If I have seen the letter, I am fairly sure that the developers
have too. Furthermore, it appears that what the Secretary of
State has told the public—that tax rises are the backstop—is not
what he has told the Treasury. The letter says that
“you have confirmed separately that DLUHC budgets are a backstop
for funding these proposals in full…should sufficient funds not
be raised from industry.”
That is not what the Secretary of State told the House a moment
ago, so can he clear this up? Has the Chancellor agreed to back a
new tax measure if negotiations fail, or is the Secretary of
State prepared to see his already allocated budgets—levelling-up
funding, or moneys for social or affordable housing—raided? Or is
his plan to go back to the Treasury, renegotiate and legislate,
if he fails in March? If that is the case, it will take months,
and there is nothing to stop freeholders passing on the costs to
leaseholders in the meantime. Does he even have an assessment of
how many leaseholders will be hit with whacking great bills if he
delays?
If the Secretary of State is serious about going after the
developers—I hope that he is—why is he not putting these powers
into the Building Safety Bill now? The only trick that he has up
his sleeve, as he just confirmed to the House, is to ban them
from Help to Buy, and we know that the impact of that, though
welcome, will be marginal. Can he see the problem? He will also
know that there is a gaping hole in what he has proposed. A
significant number of buildings have both cladding and
non-cladding defects, and leaseholders in them face ruinous costs
to fix things such as missing fire breaks and defective
compartmentation. One cannot make a building half safe. Given
that the Secretary of State recognises the injustice of all
leaseholders caught up in the building safety crisis, why is he
abandoning those who have been hit with bills for non-cladding
defects, and why will he not amend his Bill so that all
leaseholders are protected from historical defects in law?
The truth is that the pace of remediation has been painfully
slow. The Secretary of State is now on track to miss the deadline
to fix all Grenfell-style cladding by over half a decade, and
there are huge delays when it comes to building safety fund
applications, so will he get a grip on what is going on in his
own Department and ensure that the progress of remediation is
accelerated markedly? As he knows, this has been a living
nightmare for affected leaseholders, and we owe it to them to
bring it swiftly to an end.
What the Secretary of State has given us today is a welcome shift
in tone and some new measures that the Opposition very much hope
will succeed, but the harder I look at this, the less it stands
up. We were promised justice and we were promised change, to
finally do right by the victims of this scandal, and that takes
more than more promises. It takes a plan.
I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for her questions.
First, I entirely agree with the generous and fitting words that
she had for . As I mentioned briefly in my
statement, he was a relentless campaigner for social justice
throughout his career. Indeed, the role he played in highlighting
the plight of the homeless, and the need to act in order to
ensure that they had a safe and decent place to live, is one of
the many achievements that we will all recall as we think of his
contribution. I also welcome the consensual approach that the
shadow Secretary of State and her Front-Bench colleagues are
taking in seeking to ensure that we place responsibility where it
truly lies, and she had a number of appropriate questions to
follow up in order to ensure that we deliver effectively.
The shadow Secretary of State made the point that the allocations
from the building safety fund so far have been slow and are
behindhand, and that is true. I think it is always better to be
honest about those areas where the Government have not performed
as well as they should, and one of the first things I did as
Secretary of State was to ask for all necessary steps to be taken
to ensure that that money was spent effectively. Of course, one
of the problems we have had is that it is a demand-led system, so
we have relied on many of those who have been responsible as the
individual owners of buildings to come forward. However, what we
are also hoping to do is ensure that, working with the National
Fire Chiefs Council, we have the most extensive analysis of all
the buildings that need our support and that we accelerate work
on the BSF. So her concerns are not misplaced, and it is
certainly my intention to ensure that we accelerate and make
comprehensive that work.
The shadow Secretary of State also made the point that
non-cladding costs do need to be met, and I agree. She
specifically requested that we provide amendments to the Building
Safety Bill to ensure that there is statutory protection for
leaseholders. That is our intention—we intend to bring forward
those amendments—and I look forward to working with her and
colleagues across the House to provide the most robust legal
protection.
The shadow Secretary of State doubted—again, I can understand the
basis of her scepticism—whether developers and others in
industry, given their past behaviour, would necessarily come
sweetly to the table, and that is why it is so important that we
have a range of tools available. I think it is important to
recognise that there are some developers and some in the industry
who have done the right thing, and it is also important to
recognise that a spokesman for the Home Builders Federation,
Stewart Baseley, today struck a very a constructive and open
tone.
However, we do need to have additional backstops, and it is clear
that taxes can, if necessary, play a part. I do not want to move
there, but we do have the absolute assurance that we can use the
prospect of taxation to bring people to the table. All taxation
decisions are made by the Chancellor, and no Chancellor or Chief
Secretary would ever say anything other than that, but the fact
that the Chief Secretary and the Chancellor have authorised me to
use the prospect of taxation, and the fact that we already have
taxation through the residential property developer tax, shows
that we are prepared to take every step necessary.
The final point that was implicit—perhaps explicit—in everything
the shadow Secretary of State said is that we will be judged on
our actions, and I think that is entirely fair. I recognise,
given the scale of the frustration that so many have felt in the
past, that ultimately there can only really be satisfaction when
we bring this matter to a conclusion. I believe that today marks
a significant step forward, but there is more work to do, and I
hope that we can conclude that work on a cross-party basis in
order to bring justice to those who deserve it.
Mr Speaker
I call the Father of the House.
I will co-operate, Mr Speaker, and may I say, through you, to the
Mother of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for
Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), that the tributes to her
husband for his work on people’s
interests at work and at home will be long remembered, together
with that of , who for 20 years worked on the
all-party group on fire safety and rescue with Ronnie King and
others?
I believe that this is another step forward that is greatly
welcomed and greatly needed, but I think the extension of the
liability to 30 years is wrong for those who knew that what they
were doing was wrong: 30 years may be fine for those who did it
by mistake, but for those who knew what they were doing, there
should be unlimited liability both in time and in money.
I hope that the Secretary of State will have a roundtable. If he
wants to take over the all-party group roundtable for a summit on
this, he can pick up some of the other issues that no doubt he
has been working on, but which, to keep his statement reasonable,
he may not have covered today.
One problem is the insurance premiums paid by leaseholders for a
property they do not own, which may have gone up from an
illustrative £300 a year to £3,000 a year. I believe that the
Association of British Insurers should be told that the
Competition and Markets Authority will look to see whether there
is price gouging, in simple terms, and, that if there is some
kind of catastrophic reinsurance needed, the Government should
help them to make communal arrangements to deal with that,
because insurance premiums should come down to the £300 they were
before.
The last point of very many I would like to make is that the
Treasury will expect to get the benefit of the levy and tax
towards the £5 billion already announced, and the contributions
that will come in from developers will relieve burdens on
residential leaseholders, but the Government should also get the
VAT on money that is spent, which is 20% of the total cost. If
the total cost comes down from £15 billion to, say, £12 billion,
my right hon. Friend can calculate and discuss with the Treasury
how much extra the Treasury is getting. The Treasury should not
be making a profit out of all this catastrophe.
I thank the Father of the House for his questions. He is quite
right that , before his sad death, was one
of the most prescient and most effective campaigners for improved
building safety. His memory is very much in my mind.
The Father of the House makes a point about the need to
potentially look at unlimited liability for those who consciously
and deliberately operated in a reckless fashion. I will consider
that and I am sure it will be considered during the passage of
the Bill. On his point that we should work with others,
particularly the broad leasehold community who have done so much
to identify the way forward, we absolutely intend to do that. The
point he makes about insurance premiums is absolutely right. That
is why my noble Friend will be talking to of Cotes and others in the
Association of British Insurers to ensure that more insurers,
like Aviva, do the right thing. I very much note his point about
VAT and Treasury contributions. In the ongoing conversations we
have with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I will reflect on the
very important point that he made.
I wish to echo the sentiments from across the House on the work
did on this issue and his
campaigning to get justice for those affected.
It has been almost five years since the Grenfell fire. In that
time, we have had four Housing Secretaries and several different
policies and approaches to this issue. First the Government would
pay, then leaseholders would pay and now developers will pay, all
because the Treasury has for so long refused to act further on
this issue. The confusion is not only harming homeowners facing a
Tory cost of living crisis, but affecting the ability of devolved
Governments to plan their responses appropriately. Can the
Secretary of State guarantee that this latest policy will be
acted on, and will he commit to working with the devolved
Governments to provide further clarity? Additionally, can he make
it clear when already promised funding will fully and finally be
delivered to the devolved Governments for this matter?
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her points. We certainly
will work with the devolved Governments. Of course, the
residential property developer tax, like all UK-wide taxes, is
distributed appropriately in line with the Barnett formula and
other requirements, but we will certainly work with devolved
Governments. I should say that I am very grateful to the Scottish
Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland
Executive for the work they have already done on this issue. We
all have much to learn from one another.
I welcome the direction of travel in the statement, specifically
that leaseholders will not have to pay for cladding remediation.
I am also glad that building product makers are now coming within
the scope of Government, not only property developers. I have
been personally shocked by some of the revelations coming from
the Grenfell inquiry and I think that potentially we need to
address the building products sector. May I stress to my right
hon. Friend that speed and delivery here is critical? It is now
four and a half years since the tragedy in my constituency. What
is important is not only having a good plan, but executing it
quickly and efficiently.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I am very conscious of the
need for speed. I quite agree. If we look at the behaviour of
some of the cladding firms, the behaviour of people who work for
Kingspan and Arconic, and the evidence presented to the Grenfell
inquiry, we see that it is truly dreadful. The individuals
concerned must take responsibility. She represents a constituency
in which there are many, many people who are effectively trapped
because of the failure of the property market to effectively
address all these problems. In the interests of her constituents
and so many more, and in particular in the interests of the
Grenfell community and its fight for justice, I am very conscious
of the need to move as fast as we possibly can.
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. I am sure he
will welcome an invitation from the Select Committee to come and
discuss these matters further in detail. Just two important
issues. First, will he clarify that leaseholders will not have to
pay the cost of remediation, including non-cladding work, because
that is not exactly what his statement says? Secondly, will he
clarify that, apart from the removal of aluminium composite
material cladding, the Government will give social housing
providers no help whatsoever? If developers do not pay for the
measures that he announced today or taxes are not raised, and
there are cuts to his budget as a result, will that come off
social housing provision as well? What assessment has he done of
the total impact on the future building of social housing?
These are three very important points. First, we will make sure
that we provide leaseholders with statutory protection—that is
what we aim to do and we will work with colleagues across the
House to ensure that that statutory protection extends to all the
work required to make buildings safe. Secondly, to ensure that
there is not an adverse impact on social housing or on the work
that Homes England is leading to bring together and remediate
brownfield land for new private-sector development, we will do
absolutely everything possible so that, ultimately, those with
big balance sheets and big bucks discharge their responsibility.
He and I will know that the seven major housing developers do
much good work but that in the last three years they made profits
of £16 billion. Understandably, people are prompted to ask that
those significant sums be devoted to ensuring that the building
safety crisis is met, alongside the building supply pipeline of
the future.
I welcome these further measures to provide critical support to
leaseholders and to restore a greater degree of confidence to the
housing market. In particular, may I welcome the future support
for those in medium-rise buildings? It is a pity that the
Treasury did not agree to that proposal in January of last year,
but such is the way with this issue. May I ask my right hon.
Friend about two particular points? First, he has agreed a
backstop with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury whereby the
ultimate risk will be borne by the provision of social housing. I
am sure that he would agree that it would be quite wrong for
social housing tenants and the homeless to pay the price for
solving this issue, so will he say that that will not be the
case? Secondly, I see that the Royal Institution of Chartered
Surveyors has failed to make good on the conversations we have
been having for several months, if not years, to instil a more
proportionate and sensible approach into the assignment of risk.
What further steps—he alluded to some in his remarks—can he take
against RICS, because its behaviour is now bordering on
scandalous in not taking this issue seriously?
First, I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend, my predecessor. I
have had the opportunity since joining the Department to see just
how hard he worked, facing a number of frustrations, to secure
justice for those who are our first concern. I heard some
comments from some Opposition Members seeking to decry that. If
they knew what I know about how hard Robert had worked to try to
secure justice, they would not be trying to make a cheap point
about it. We all care about this issue, but few care about it as
much, and certainly no one currently in this Chamber has worked
as hard to try to help those people, as my right hon. Friend. So
I am not having it.
The second point that m right hon. Friend made is absolutely
right; we need to ensure both that there is more social housing
provision and that we improve the quality of social housing—that
is a core mission for the Department. His third point, about
RICS, is right. There have been all sorts of difficulties with
that organisation in the past, but I am now hopeful that we are
on a more positive footing. We have the potential to take steps
to improve the governance of the institution, but I am hopeful
now that, given some of the conversations we have had, including
with lenders and others, we can be on a more positive footing.
Let me once again underline and affirm my gratitude to my right
hon. Friend for his incredibly hard and dedicated work to try to
bring this situation to a satisfactory conclusion.
My constituents in Eclipse House, Station Road, Wood Green have
been suffering for more than a year with astronomical costs to
deal with gaps relating to fire doors and external wall
insulation. Can the Minister confirm that that is not covered in
today’s statement? Secondly, what voice will tenants have in the
future? One of the worst things about Grenfell is the lack of
tenant voice to make good things stick when bad practice is all
around.
The hon. Lady makes two important points. First, the freeholders,
as the ultimate owners of these buildings, will be held
responsible for all the work that is required, and we will make
sure that leaseholders are not on the hook. Secondly, she is
right that those who listened to some of the testimony at the
Grenfell inquiry, and those who have seen some of the excellent
campaigning journalism associated with it, will know that Ed
Daffarn and others explicitly warned of some of the consequences
of the approach taken at the time. Tenants’ voices were not
heard, and people died as a result. That is why the social
housing White Paper, which my right hon. Friend the Member for
Newark () did so much to advance, and
the social housing Bill, which will come forward in due course,
are so important.
I welcome this brilliant statement, and I am grateful to the
Secretary of State for working constructively with us, across
parties, and with the cladding groups to get us to where we are
today. Today’s announcement is another huge step forward for
leaseholders. This is a victory for leaseholders, who will get up
to £9 billion of support. We will make those responsible pay and
start on the journey.
I seek clarification on two areas. First, cladding is an external
fire safety defect, but are developers responsible for internal
fire safety defects such as missing fire breaks, which stop fire
spreading from one flat to another? Secondly, will there be
Government amendments to the Building Safety Bill to make it
clear in law that leaseholders are innocent parties and will not
have to pay?
I thank my hon. Friend for his fantastic campaigning on this
issue. On the first point, which is linked to his second point,
the owners, the freeholders and the responsible figures in charge
of these buildings will be held responsible and made responsible
for making sure that all the work is done to make these buildings
safe. We will table amendments to ensure that, on a statutory
basis, we protect leaseholders from having costs passed on
unfairly by the owners of the freeholds of these buildings.
When the horror of Grenfell happened, many local authorities such
as mine responded immediately by inspecting all buildings and
taking action as appropriate, as they should have done. The
private sector did not do that for many of our leasehold
properties.
I had a very sad conversation with a group of leaseholders a
month ago. They are completely stuck. They cannot sell or move,
they have expanding families and they are faced with massive
bills. Can I go to them tomorrow and say that the Government will
underwrite all the costs that they have been threatened with so
that they can get their building brought up to standard and, if
they wish, sell and move on? Or will there be months and months
of delay until the private sector decides not to pay and the
Government intervene? I think those leaseholders, like
leaseholders all over the country, deserve an immediate answer.
They have been through too much stress.
Perhaps for the first time, I am almost wholly in accord with the
right hon. Gentleman. Leaseholders deserve speedy action, but I
do not want to overpromise. I believe we can rapidly relieve the
difficult situation in which his constituents find themselves. I
do not think it can be immediate, but I intend to ensure it is as
quick as possible.
Please forgive me for making this point, but I agree with the
right hon. Gentleman that many in local government, across
parties, were far quicker to respond to this crisis than some in
the private sector, which is shaming.
My right hon. Friend will be aware that this whole issue has
caused extraordinary misery, anxiety and upset, and I had the
opportunity this morning to speak to Jim Illingworth of BrumLAG.
He, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark () and our friend have worked closely, and he was
clear that he is very grateful for this progress. We are seeing a
mixed economy of response, although there are clearly issues of
timing and other details, which I have no doubt that my right
hon. Friend the Secretary of State will need to address. I hope
that he accepts that he needs to crack the whip on this, but is
he not well able to do so?
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his point. I had the
chance to chat to Jim Illingworth and other cladding campaigners
earlier today and he is absolutely right. I know that my right
hon. Friend, as a Birmingham MP, is all too well aware of how
many people in that great city are affected by this crisis, and I
look forward to working with him and others to resolve it as
quickly as possible.
A retired teacher in my constituency invested in a property in
2015, but just before Christmas, they were issued with a massive
bill for £200,000 for an increase in their costs, and remedial
work on their property will cost a possible £9 million. Will the
Secretary of State agree to meet me and the leaseholders to talk
about how the policy change will benefit them?
I am grateful to the hon. Lady and I will make sure that either I
or others in my Department have those conversations as quickly as
possible.
I welcome the statement today and the work that the Minister for
Housing has done with colleagues across the House to explain how
the policy will go forward, because this has been a nightmare for
leaseholders. I have two quick questions. First, if leaseholders
have already paid money out, will they get that money back from
the freeholders or the developers? Secondly, on the issue of
insurance, which was raised earlier, does the Secretary of State
realise that even though people are liable for the costs of
building insurance, they have no rights at all in the policy?
When the situation occurs, they cannot claim against the policy;
only the freeholder can do so. That must get changed in the
Bill.
There are few people in the House who know as much about fire
safety as my right hon. Friend. We will certainly work with him
to explore the specific insurance provisions that he mentioned. I
cannot, unfortunately—I would not want to mislead him—say that we
will be in a position to compensate those who have already
contributed. We are seeking to ensure that individuals do not
face costs in the future, but again, I will work with colleagues
across the House to try to get to the most equitable position
possible.
I look forward to seeing the amendments from the Government about
how leaseholders will be protected, because my constituents in St
Albans, like many others, have had too many false dawns. I want
to ask about the Secretary of State’s review of proportionality.
In the past, building safety assessors have been chosen because
of their willingness to recommend the less expensive safety work,
and that has created a race to the bottom. Will he confirm that
the BSI guidance will be mandatory for building safety assessors,
and will he put protections in place so that assessors do not get
away with offering the lightest touch mitigations that they
can?
First, I thank the hon. Lady—it is always difficult for me to
praise a Liberal Democrat, but she has been campaigning
consistently on this issue for some time and has done a great job
of bringing to light some of the defects that need to be
addressed. It is the case that the BSI work, we believe, will
ensure a properly proportionate approach. There are incentives
either way—incentives, sometimes, for some to seek to do work on
the cheap and for others to exaggerate the scale of the work that
may be required to generate business. I hope, however, that a
truly proportionate and safe approach will now be followed as a
result of the BSI’s work.
I joined this campaign a year or so ago because, as the Secretary
of State said in his statement, leaseholders are blameless and it
is morally wrong to make them pay. I look forward to seeing this
become part of the Bill so that leaseholders know that they will
never have to pay. However, let me go back to insurers: not only
are they increasing premiums by up to 1,000% for people who
cannot really afford the premiums that they were paying before,
but insurers are part of the problem. They were indemnifying
these developers and underwriting these developments. They are
part of the warranty issue and yet, this has not been brought
into scope as part of the solution, so will the Secretary of
State look again and make sure that insurers have to pay in the
way that developers will?
My hon. Friend makes a very important point and his campaigning
has been a significant factor in helping us to get to the right,
or certainly to a better, position. We want insurers to be part
of the solution, as we want everyone to be, and is doing great work with
them. I am sure that there will be an opportunity before too long
for me to explain in greater detail, with , to my hon. Friend and
others the progress that we are making, but he is absolutely on
the button in pointing out some of the mistakes that have been
made that need to be addressed by the insurance sector.
I note that the Secretary of State said he would extend the right
of leaseholders to challenge those who cause defects
retrospectively for 30 years, but he will be aware that
unscrupulous developers such as Mr Jason Alexander in my
constituency exploit loopholes in company law with the result
that there is no corporate entity to go after because it has been
wound up, struck off or stripped of assets. Can he say what work
he is doing with the Department for Business, Energy and
Industrial Strategy to ensure that those loopholes in company law
are closed? Can he also tell us whether the obligations that
developers will now face as a result of his statement today will
take precedence over their other financial obligations?
The hon. Lady makes two important points. On the first point,
yes, this has been a feature. I was not fully aware, until I took
on this responsibility, of how some within the development
industry play fast and loose with the rules and set up special
purpose vehicles, Shell companies and so
on to evade their responsibilities. They exhibit the unacceptable
face of capitalism, I am afraid, and she is right to say that
work requires to be done to bring them appropriately to account.
I will be working with colleagues across Government to do just
that.
I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement today but, like
others, I will be awaiting the detail, not least because I was
calling for leaseholders to be protected from the cost of
cladding when I was a Minister in the Department. So what has
happened to change the Government’s mind?
As so often, my right hon. Friend is ahead of her time. There
have been any number of occasions, including recently, when I
have had to acknowledge that she has been right and the rest of
us have been wrong, and this is one of those occasions.
Today the Secretary of State has told us what many all across the
House told the Government three years ago—namely, that individual
leaseholders trapped in unsafe homes should not have to bear the
cost of making them safe. But today’s statement focuses on
cladding, whereas the vast majority of leaseholders are suffering
in unsafe homes as a result of other insulation and fire stopping
defects. How will he address that? He has told the companies to
pay up, but many have now gone into voluntary liquidation. We
need a windfall tax on the whole industry now. Far too many
leaseholders have been waiting for three and half years in
purdah. Many of them, like my constituents in Central Square,
have been waiting since 31 July even to get a response from the
BSF. Can the Secretary of State get his own Department to be a
bit more expeditious?
The hon. Gentleman makes a number of important points. Yes, the
Department needs to be more expeditious and yes, we are focused
on doing just that. Yes, it is important that the freeholders—the
ultimate owners—deal with all the fire safety issues and yes, it
is absolutely right that, while ACM cladding is the most
egregious example of buildings being unsafe, there are many other
issues that require to be tackled.
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. It is long overdue.
Many in my constituency and elsewhere face huge bills, as he
knows. The biggest problem is getting the developers to talk to
those who have suffered. I spent two years trying to get
representatives of Telford Homes to meet the leaseholders, but
they have now gone to ground and will not say a word. The
Government have been talking about talking to developers for some
time now but nothing has come of it, so, with all due respect,
how is my right hon. Friend going to drive them—and the insurance
companies that insured those that have gone out of business—to
meet the leaseholders? Taxes can take time, so what about
instantaneous fines?
By any means necessary. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right.
My preference is, wherever possible, to proceed consensually and
to think the best of people. There are undoubtedly many people in
the property development sector who have done the right thing and
others who hope to do so, but if we need to, we will deploy
heavier artillery to ensure that we get the necessary support to
those on the frontline.
I welcome the statement, which is certainly a step in the right
direction.
There are many tall buildings in my constituency. Some of the
issues affecting them, and the costs that they bear, are very
complex, and do not involve anything that would be covered today.
Two blocks, Longitude and Altitude, have to pay for
compartmentalisation, and although Bridge House—which is over 18
metres tall—is cladded, its cladding is not categorised as the
right type to qualify for funding under the Government’s scheme.
Some of my constituents live in blocks where the developer has
gone bust and the freeholder is overseas, and they have a tenuous
relationship with the managing agent. It is very difficult to get
any information. Can the Secretary of State say something about
that wider issue and what can be done about it, and what is his
estimate of the cost of making all these buildings safe?
The hon. Lady has made a series of important points. I know that
she has already been in touch with the Department, but I want to
be more closely in touch with her. Our project team, Operation
Apex, are making sure that we can do everything possible to
ensure that the ultimate responsible owner is identified and
takes on responsibility for the work to which the hon. Lady has
correctly drawn attention. I look forward to working more closely
with her to address precisely that issue.
I thank my right hon. Friend for standing up for leaseholders,
particularly young people who have just got on to the housing
ladder. May I ask him to look again at sprinklers as a safety
measure? They are required in many countries, and the fact that
they are not required here has always perplexed me. I also ask
him to ensure that the building materials used for social housing
are subject to the necessary level of scrutiny. Developers often
use lower-quality materials which create a greater risk to
safety, and we need to protect social housing tenants as
well.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She was an incredibly
hard-working figure in local government in London, where she
helped to ensure that the needs of those in social housing were
understood. There are specific provisions in the building safety
legislation introduced by the Minister for Housing, my right hon.
Friend the Member for Tamworth (), to address some of
those questions about poor-quality material social housing.
It is right that leaseholders should not be held responsible for
the faults of builders in the past, and I therefore welcome the
statement. However, given that housing is a devolved matter in
Northern Ireland, I assume that what we are discussing today will
not automatically apply there. What discussions has the Secretary
of State had with the Communities Minister and the Finance
Minister—both of whom are responsible for these housing and
building regulations issues—given that Sinn Féin seem to take the
view that anything that emanates from this place, regardless of
how beneficial it is to people to Northern Ireland, is not
acceptable?
Those are very fair points. I have written today to Ministers in
the Northern Ireland Executive and the other devolved
Administrations to outline the approach that we propose to take.
I will work with Ministers from whatever party—I absolutely take
on board the point made by the right hon. Gentleman—to ensure
that we get to the right position. I am grateful to the First
Minister, , for the support he has given us
overall in the run-up to this announcement: it is much
appreciated.
Everyone remembers their first visit to Bolton, but on his next
visit, will the Secretary of State come with me to Holden Mill in
Blackburn Road and Astley Bridge to meet residents and see the
progress that has been made on the removal of cladding, but also
to discuss with them issues relating to poor build quality and
how the Government can fight their corner?
I certainly will, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is a
very effective advocate for Bolton.
May I add my voice to those who have spoken of the sudden passing
of ? He was a truly pleasant and
decent person. Let me also convey my condolences to the Mother of
the House, and especially to his son, Joe Dromey, who I know very
well, and knew especially well when we were councillors together
in Lewisham.
Leaseholders are feeling anxious and angry about the delays, and
the uncertainty about when the cladding will be removed from
buildings and associated safety problems will be dealt with. That
includes residents of the Parkside development in my
constituency. The developers and the housing association have
said that they will start to look at doing the remediation work
in the spring, but will provide no absolute guarantee that any
costs will not be passed on to the leaseholders. Will the
Secretary of State review this case in order to provide the
certainty that leaseholders in my constituency so desperately
need?
Yes, I absolutely will. I thank the hon. Member for bringing that
to my attention.
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and his sheer
determination not only to hold people responsible for the
wrongdoings they did but to stand up for leaseholders. However,
building owners are still dragging their feet, delaying essential
remedial works, even though they might be eligible for Government
funding. What incentive can he give today to those building
owners to complete the works as soon as possible and not put
concerns about their own financial liabilities, however
theoretical, above the concerns and safety of residents in those
blocks?
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is certainly the
case that many already enlightened owners have done just that.
But one thing we are saying today is that ultimately we will
ensure in law that it is the ultimate owner of the building that
is responsible for that work, so the incentive is to move now for
fear of consequences later.
It is good to see the Secretary of State acknowledge the unjust
treatment of buildings under 18 metres in particular. However, it
appears that what he has outlined will involve a voluntary
contribution from developers, which may take a while. The
leaseholders in my Vauxhall constituency do not have a while to
wait. They are fed up of waiting. It has been four and a half
years. They want solutions now. So will he confirm that he
absolutely understands the urgency that leaseholders want to see
and call on those developers to take action now?
Absolutely. Again, I do not want to over-promise, but I do
recognise the need for speed.
The complexity of this issue has been highlighted by the
Secretary of State’s statement and by the questioning. May I
challenge him on one point? As my right hon. Friend the Member
for Hemel Hempstead ( ) said, thousands of people
will have received large bills and many will have paid them. The
Secretary of State is saying that he will take statutory powers
in the Bill that is coming before us. When will that happen? Once
the House has voted on those powers, will that be the operational
date for bills not to be presented to leaseholders, or can
leaseholders who have refused to pay the bills thus far say,
“Thank goodness—I don’t have to pay anything”?
My hon. Friend, who has been a consistent campaigner in this
area, makes a very good point. Again, I do not want to make a
cast-iron commitment at the Dispatch Box on the operational date,
but I will work with him and others as we frame the legislation
and ensure that he has access, in so far as it is possible, to
the legal advice we have, so that we can stress test it and
provide the maximum level of protection.
I have spoken to many leaseholders in my constituency who have
struggled with issues around fire safety and cladding and the
impact that has had on their mental wellbeing. We raised that
issue in the Building Safety Bill Committee and the response was
that those people should access mental health support through
their GP in the usual way. We know the pressure GPs are under at
the moment, so will the Secretary of State bring forward any
additional measures in the light of his statement to support
leaseholders’ mental health?
It is the case that some leaseholders face additional
vulnerabilities. Some have had mental health problems and other
leaseholders living with disabilities have particular problems.
It is important that we develop a comprehensive package for all,
so I will look into that.
I welcome the announcement and thank my right hon. Friend for
listening to leaseholders who have faced the prospect of
bankruptcy because of defects that needed to be put right. In
confirming that he will keep in mind that other defects may come
to light when cladding is removed, will he commit to looking at
that and ensuring that the bodies responsible for the cladding
crisis cannot find a place to hide and will be pursued to pay for
it?
Absolutely. I totally agree with my hon. Friend that we need to
take all means to pursue those who are ultimately responsible. We
also need to recognise that, exactly as she said, when
remediation work is undertaken, sometimes other flaws are
revealed, and they need to be addressed.
I associate myself with all the comments that have been made
about my colleague, .
I welcome the steps forward that we take every time a Secretary
of State comes to the House and makes a statement, but it is the
steps backwards that we make after those statements that are
causing me problems. I have a property in my constituency that is
about 18 metres high. The residents have done their own survey
and say that it is over 18 metres. The management agency says
that it is over 18 metres and should therefore qualify for the
building safety fund. These issues though are difficult to
resolve. Meanwhile, the residents have been paying out £28,000 a
month for waking watch for nearly four years. How retrospective
will these measures be? Will my constituents be compensated for
what they have unfairly had to pay out? It would have been far
cheaper to put in a fire alarm system than to continue paying
waking watch. Will we see an end to the EWS1 forms or will RICS
come back at us and say that we cannot possibly do that, as it
has done before?
I can totally understand the hon. Gentleman’s frustration. As my
hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East () pointed out, and as the hon. Gentleman’s question
lays bare, there is a complex set of inter-related problems. We
are making money available to ensure that we can get rid of
waking watch in all save a very few circumstances. I recognise
that there are people who have faced costs so far, but it depends
on individual circumstances as to whether or not—depending on the
ultimate owner of the building—they can receive compensation. I
do not want to make any guarantees about that in a blanket way
today.
On EWS1 forms, we can dramatically reduce their use as a result
of the engagement that we have with lenders and with RICS. Again,
it will still be the case that, in the meantime—even as we get a
more proportionate approach—there will be some 11-to-18 metre
buildings where work of that kind will be required, but we
absolutely want to reduce it.
I welcome the commitment of the Secretary of State to hold to
account those responsible for this. It is morally wrong that
leaseholders should foot the bill. I know that this announcement
and this progress will be welcomed by residents of Vizion
apartments in Milton Keynes as well as by thousands and thousands
of others across the country. Can he confirm that this means that
the Government are accepting the principle of polluter pays in
this instance? How confident is he that the cowboys will cough up
without additional taxation?
We do accept that principle, and we will do everything that we
can to round up the wrong ‘uns. I do recognise, none the less,
that we are dealing with some individuals who have behaved
unscrupulously in the past and who will do everything to evade
their responsibilities, which is why we need tax as a
backstop.
There are many Welsh victims of this particular scandal,
including in my own Arfon constituency and elsewhere in Wales, as
I am sure the Secretary of State will be hearing about. I am very
much in favour of holding the industry to account, but I have to
tell him that long experience of trying to hold the cavity wall
insulation industry to account, albeit as a Back Bencher, has not
been encouraging, so I wish all power to his elbow on that
matter. I was glad to hear him say that he will be working with
the Governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Can his
officials look at the issue of companies that work from England
and are subject to its strictures, but that also work in Wales,
as that might be a complicating factor?
We absolutely will. I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for
the approach that he outlines. Indeed, we want to work with the
Labour-Plaid Cymru Administration in Wales in order to get to the
right result.
I am very grateful to the Secretary of State for his statement,
but I gently remind him that those who have worked hardest on
this issue are Conservative Members supporting their
constituents. Two in particular—my hon. Friends the Members for
Southampton, Itchen () and for Stevenage ()—have worked incredibly
hard on this issue. Will the Secretary of State confirm that no
leaseholder—living in the building or not—living in a building of
11 metres or lower, or having problems with external or internal
building defects, will pay any costs whatever?
My hon. Friend makes an important point and allows me to place on
the record my thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for
Southampton, Itchen () and for Stevenage (). I completely agree
that their campaigning has been incredibly important. It is our
intention that the ultimate owner of a building is responsible
for all of the safety steps that are required, and we will use
statutory means in order to ensure that that happens. That is
what we will seek to do with the help of colleagues across the
House.
I, too, welcome the statement’s commitment to leaseholders and
the fact that it puts businesses on notice, giving them the
chance to do the right thing. When will the deadline be up for
that chance to do the right thing? Without it, we could just be
kicking the can down the road. Leaseholders in Putney will want
to know when they can expect to be able to sell their homes and
to move on. Will there be a Government guarantee—a letter or
similar that they can use with estate agents and others—so that
they can move on with their lives? Finally, residents in a Putney
building of just under 11 metres have been given a bill of £1
million for remediation. Will they be covered by this?
I will look at the specific case of the building of just under 11
metres that the hon. Lady mentions. More broadly, I would
absolutely love to be able to provide people with reassurance
that from tomorrow the cloud will be lifted, but as a number of
Members have pointed out, there is a complex set of interrelated
problems. I believe that we have a means of dealing with them
all, and I also appreciate that we need to move at speed. I will
come back to the House before Easter with an update on the
measures we have taken. I will work with colleagues across the
House in order to ensure that we have the right statutory
underpinning. Again, I want to confirm that we require everything
to go right in order to be able to help everyone who is currently
facing difficulties. We will do everything we can. I hope the
hon. Lady will appreciate that I would not want at this stage to
provide an absolute guarantee for people whose specific
circumstances I am not yet familiar with.
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, which I very much
welcome, and I am incredibly grateful to his Ministers for the
time they have spent listening to my concerns and those of
residents of The Wharf in my constituency. They have suffered
from a lack of transparency and clarity on the work required and
whether it needs to be done. As we speak, the management company,
Y&Y, is applying to the tier 1 tribunal for costs. What
assurances can my right hon. Friend give my constituents, who are
very concerned about any outcome that would leave them with bills
of between £10,000 and £20,000, payable within the next six
months?
Absolutely the intention of today’s statement is to try to
address the concerns raised so powerfully by my hon. Friend on
behalf of constituents who face those imminent bills. I am really
grateful to her for drawing attention to the immensely hard work
being done by Ministers in the Department. The Minister for
Housing, and the Under-Secretary of
State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend
the Member for Walsall North (), who has responsibility for
rough sleeping, have all been working incredibly hard to engage
with colleagues across the House and with others in order to try
to move this forward. It has been a collective effort and I am
very grateful to my colleagues for that.
It is four and a half years since Grenfell. The Secretary of
State has made clear today that the Government have failed to
solve the problem, but he then said that his chief action has
been to write a letter to developers to ask them to come along to
a meeting. That is simply not good enough for the thousands of
leaseholders affected in Southwark. The biggest threat in this
statement is to allow the backdating of action against those who
have installed unsafe products over 30 years, but it is
leaseholders who will be forced to take on the legal and other
burdens involved, including the fees. Will the Secretary of State
therefore amend the Building Safety Bill to finally clarify
responsibility and load the burden where it belongs—on the
developers, builders and manufacturers—so as to properly protect
leaseholders, as Ministers have promised multiple times but which
today’s statement fails to deliver?
The proposals that the hon. Member enjoins on me are the ones
that we are seeking to bring forward. However, in fairness to the
hon. Member, for whom I have a great deal of respect—he is a
courageous and doughty campaigner—I can understand a degree of
cynicism and/or scepticism, given some of the missteps we have
had in the past. If we manage to make progress along the lines
that he has outlined, I hope that he will be in a position then
to say that his worst fears were not realised. I think it is
perfectly legitimate for him, at this stage, to want to see the
colour of other people’s money.
Morello Quarter in my constituency has issues not only with
cladding but with other building defects such as the apparent
lack of firebreaks. Will my right hon. Friend include those in
the scope of the measures, or should I go back to my residents
and tell them to pursue legal action against the developers, who
do not want to engage with me or with them, to try to get a
resolution and certainty?
It is our intention to ensure that those who are ultimately
responsible—the ultimate owners of the freehold or the real
owners of the building—pay in order to make it safe, but I will
look specifically at the example that my hon. Friend raises to
ensure that we can do everything we can to provide his
constituents with the reassurance they deserve.
Will the Secretary of State spell out how the statutory
protection he has announced will help leaseholders in
developments such as Waterside Park, built by Barratt in my
constituency, which does not have a cladding problem, but where
apartments have become valueless because of other serious
building defects—missing firebreaks and unsafe insulation? How
exactly will the statutory protection help them?
I rely on the right hon. Gentleman’s description of the building,
but we will talk to Barratt or whoever is the ultimate owner in
order to ensure that they live up to their responsibilities, and
there are steps that we can take. We will outline what they are
when we bring forward appropriate amendments. We will make sure
that we test those amendments with him and others to ensure that
they meet the need that he has correctly identified. There is
still a little bit of legal work to be done to ensure that the
amendments are as robust as possible.
I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the work
that the Minister has done as well. I hope it will bring
resolution to people in blocks of flats in Plough Lane in the
centre of Wimbledon and in Chorus properties. Can my right hon.
Friend confirm that he will expect and, if necessary, require
lenders to base their lending decisions in future on the new risk
mechanism, because clearly distress has been caused by people
being trapped in their houses?
My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on and that is what we will
seek to do.
The Secretary of State has been asked by both sides of the House
about protecting social landlords and tenants from remediation
costs. Will he answer that point, bearing in mind that the
biggest social landlords have said that their new housing
programmes will be cut by 40% over the next five years if they
have to cover fire safety costs themselves? Affordable housing is
at particular risk, as yesterday’s fire in New York showed. Will
he study the lessons from that fire, especially as some of the
victims were on the lower floors, which he appears to say are at
lower risk, and that lack of compartmentalisation rather than
cladding was the cause of most of the deaths?
I know that the hon. Gentleman, not least as a former council
leader, has considerable experience in this area. He is right
that the fire in New York reminds us of the range of risk, and he
is also right that we need to take appropriate action to ensure
that registered social landlords, housing associations and others
are not hit adversely. We need to balance a set of competing
goods, but ultimately—as he will appreciate—the most important
thing is to make sure that people are in decent, safe homes and
that there are more decent, safe homes built where people need
them.
My right hon. Friend spoke earlier about lifting the cloud that
is hanging over leaseholders. Can he provide reassurance to
residents such as those in Banning Street in Romsey, where the
building is sub-18 metres, the freeholder is a housing
association and the defects are cladding related, that they will
be swept up in his reforms? They are looking at costs of £15,000
to £20,000 per leaseholder for new fire escapes, which may well
not even be needed. Can he provide reassurance that they will be
helped?
I will absolutely look at that specific case. I do not want to
say any more at this point, but my hon. Friend raises a very
important point. One of the things with housing associations and
other registered social landlords is that we need to make sure
that the balance of responsibility is appropriate.
Sadly, cladding is not one of the only risks to building safety:
flooding is another huge risk. While the Secretary of State is
open to looking at amendments to building safety in general, will
he also look at strengthening the standards for all new public
and private buildings in terms of flood resilience? The Secretary
of State promised me a meeting with the relevant Minister to
discuss my flooding Bill and, as he is a man of his word, I am
sure that date will arrive soon in my email inbox.
The hon. Lady makes two very important points. We have already
changed regulation with regard to flooding, but more could be
done. I will ensure that either I or the relevant Minister sees
her before the end of February, if that is okay.
I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, which will
yield significant benefits directly for leaseholders in England.
As he has acknowledged, this policy area is devolved and
therefore responsibility in Wales falls to the Welsh Government.
However, the UK Government, through their initiatives, may well
raise significant sums of money for this purpose. What conclusion
has he drawn on whether that funding should be ring-fenced for
that specific purpose in Wales, rather than diverted to other
purposes?
My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. We of course
respect the devolution settlement, but he is absolutely right
that money generated for building safety should be devoted, as
far as possible, to building safety. I will work with him and
others to ensure that the focus is maintained in the way he
outlines.
It was a good weekend for Cambridge United, but sadly the misery
continues for so many people in and around Cambridge who find
themselves trapped in buildings that were not built to the
expected standards. As we have heard, it is not just about
cladding; it is also about fire breaks and so on. For so many of
those people, lack of an EWS1 form means that they cannot
move—they are absolutely trapped. What in the Secretary of
State’s statement can give them confidence that they will be
freed from that trap?
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman and all supporters of Cambridge
United, and I extend my sympathies to Newcastle and Arsenal fans,
given the unfortunate events of the weekend. On his very
important point, I hope that the withdrawal of the consolidated
advice note and its replacement with the BSI-approved PAS 9980
will play a part in helping his constituents and others to be in
a position once again to operate fully in the property market.
Lenders to whom I have spoken have given our proposals a fair
wind so far, but obviously engagement needs to continue.
In welcoming my right hon. Friend’s statement, may I draw his
attention to the situation at Nobel House in Redhill? The
development has 126 apartments, 86 of which are privately leased,
but the ownership of the freehold has changed twice. The managing
agents failed to make an application to the initial £1.6 billion
building safety fund. I was told in June that a new fund of £3.5
billion would be coming forward, but that is yet to materialise
and leaseholders are already having to pay over £2,000 each
towards the cost of this exercise. Can they be fully reassured
that they will get their money back, given the ownership status
of the building?
My hon. Friend raises a very important case. I will look at what
we can do to help his constituents. I will not make an absolute
promise from the Dispatch Box at this point, but the situation he
describes is clearly unacceptable.
The shadow Secretary of State said that we cannot make a building
half safe, but some residential buildings are possibly more
dangerous than others. In October 2020, over 800 leaseholders and
students were evicted from the Paragon blocks in Brentford, with
one week’s notice—that is how dangerous they were deemed to be.
They were built using a modular form of construction, and the
eviction came two years after the flammable cladding had already
been removed. I have reason to believe that the Paragon
situation—there are other examples across the country—was a
result of the modular form of construction, to which the
out-of-date building regulations do not apply, as well as poor,
shoddy and badly supervised construction works. When will the
Secretary of State bring up-to-date building regulations through
the system, and when will he address the lamentable culture in
the construction industry, which the counsel for the Fire
Brigades Union at the Grenfell inquiry described as being driven
by an
“agenda of deregulation, privatisation and marketisation”?
When will he do something about that?
The hon. Lady makes an important point about modular
construction. Through the Buildoffsite Property Assurance Scheme
guidance, we require appropriate adherence to principles with
modular construction, which should keep buildings safe. She is
right that the Grenfell inquiry has also had a number of accounts
from a number of witnesses that raise issues of concern. Although
it is important that we continue to take action even before the
inquiry concludes, I would not want to pre-empt the inquiry’s
conclusion on all the issues she mentions.
My right hon. Friend is entirely correct that this is a
substantial step forward, and he and the Minister for Housing, my
right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth () are to be
congratulated on it. May I return to the subject of those
developers and companies that have gone broke and disappeared
since they did the things for which the Secretary of State has
rightly castigated them? Some of those have disappeared not for
nefarious reasons. Has he quantified how much money will be
absent—how big a hole there is in the money that ought to be
available—for compensation from such companies? Who is going to
fill that hole?
My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. We want those we
can identify as the responsible owner or freeholder of properties
to contribute to and meet the needs of fire safety costs, but we
are already looking at the wider development community and at
construction products manufacturers to help to ensure that we
have sufficient resources to provide relief to leaseholders
everywhere.
I join the tributes to . Our shock is all the greater
because we thought that he would always be with us; the whole of
his life was dedicated to being there for others, as a
representative of workers who was very proud to serve his
constituents.
I welcome the statement that the Secretary of State has made
today. It represents progress—loans were never going to work;
they were unfair. However, my constituents will have listened
very carefully to the exchanges between the Secretary of State,
my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts),
the Chair of the Select Committee and the hon. Member for Harrow
East () on the question of liability for non-cladding
costs. I have many constituents, as do other Members, whose bill
is on the mantelpiece, staring at them. Given that the Secretary
of State has offered statutory protection, what are they meant to
do with those bills? Can they confidently say, “I do not have to
worry about that now, because the Government are going to sort
this out”? When he talks about statutory protection, he mentioned
protection against forfeiture and eviction. May I add a third
risk to that list, which is bankruptcy? That is what many people
are facing if they are ever forced to pay these bills that they
are not responsible for and cannot afford.
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: such people are not
responsible for these problems and in many cases they cannot
afford the bills. I would not want to give advice precipitately
to any individual at the moment about their particular
circumstances without knowing every aspect of their particular
circumstances, but it is vital that we move as quickly as
possible. What I will want to test with him and others is the
efficacy of the legislative solution that we propose to bring
forward, because I am confident that it will help enormously, but
I want to be in a position where he and others have an
opportunity to stress test it, so that we get the best possible
protection.
Everybody welcomes the statement of principle that it is immoral
that innocent leaseholders should pay for remediation of
something which was not their fault, but if that is immoral for
the future, it is also immoral for everybody who has been pursued
ever since the disaster at Grenfell Tower. Therefore, may I urge
the Secretary of State to revisit the answers he gave to my right
hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead ( ) and my hon. Friend the Member
for Harrow East (), because otherwise he will be creating a perverse
incentive for people to come down on leaseholders and extract
rip-off fees before any legislation comes into play if it is only
going to be forward-looking?
I very much take my right hon. Friend’s point. We will try to
ensure that the legislation deals with the potential perverse
incentive to which he alludes.
In opening his remarks, the Secretary of State acknowledged that
the problem is not simply developers’ negligence but a failure of
regulation, for which the Government are responsible.
Leaseholders will fear that today’s announcement will have the
effect of kicking a solution further down the road, causing
delays for those who have been trapped in an intolerable position
for far too long. Does the Secretary of State accept that the
best way of seeking a solution is for the Government to fulfil
their responsibility by acting to fix the faults without delay
and then using all their powers to recover the money from
developers and those responsible?
I absolutely take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I think that
the legislation we are bringing forward helps to address some of
the regulatory failures to which he alludes. I also think it is
important to wait for the conclusions of the Grenfell inquiry
before apportioning appropriate weight on the responsibility that
rests on central Government, the responsibility that rests on
local government, and the responsibility that rests on others. I
believe the proposals that we have put forward today are the best
and most expeditious way of ensuring that we can provide support
to leaseholders, but of course we will keep that under
review.
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of
Members’ Financial Interests as a chartered surveyor.
I warmly welcome today’s announcement. May I ask my right hon.
Friend about two aspects that he has mentioned in the
statement—namely that the indemnity given to building assessors
and the proper auditing assessment should enable lenders and
insurers to offer those products at reasonable rates fairly
quickly? That, in turn, will get the market moving, so that those
leaseholders who desperately need to move should soon find that
there will be a market for them to do so.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is exactly our
intention, and it is the fruit of the work read by my hon. Friend
and others.
As a co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold
and commonhold reform, I pay tribute to all the campaigners up
and down the country who have done a sterling job at keeping this
issue on the political agenda. They will certainly welcome the
principle, set out in the statement, that innocent leaseholders
must not shoulder the burden. I hope that applies equally—not
just to cladding, but to any other fire safety defects and to the
cost of the interim safety measures that have been necessary. The
Secretary of State recognised that in the statement by referring
to the extra £27 million for waking watches, but leaseholders
will have already paid out thousands of pounds for waking
watches. Should they now expect some reimbursement for those
costs?
I completely understand and appreciate the concerns expressed by
the hon. Member. We are seeking to avert additional costs in the
future. It will be difficult for us to make good all the
injustices that have been visited on his constituents and others.
I do not want to oversell what we are putting forward. It is a
significant step forward, but it cannot resolve every issue from
the past. I enjoyed listening to the conversation that he and the
Father of the House had on Times Radio at the weekend, and I echo
the very generous comments that he made about the Father of the
House.
I thank the Secretary of State for his actions today,
particularly scrapping the loan scheme for medium-sized
buildings, which will help constituents of mine such as Susan
Seal and the Russell Square residents in Horley. I really welcome
the onus that he is putting on developers. Does he agree that,
along with the other things he has talked about, transparency can
be an effective tool in getting people to do the right thing?
Would he speak to whether naming and shaming could be part of the
solution?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the things that we saw
just before Christmas with the Kingspan-Mercedes deal is the way
in which public pressure from the Grenfell community meant that a
very big corporate—Mercedes—did the right thing. I am very
grateful to Toto Wolff and his team for doing that. We need to
use a variety of tools, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right
that transparency is critical.
May I convey my own and my party’s sincerest sympathies to the
family of at this time of great grief and
sorrow? He made a significant contribution in Westminster Hall
last Thursday, and he will be missed—I want to put that on the
record.
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for his
clear commitment to finding a solution for everyone in this
process. It is clear to me that that is what he intends to do,
but can the right hon. Gentleman outline what steps he is willing
to put in place to ensure that the burden of the cost of
replacing cladding is not on the tenants alone? Too many tenants
of one-bedroom apartments are being asked to pay thousands of
pounds towards this from low wages, while developers are sitting
pretty. Will the Secretary of State liaise with the Chancellor to
see what tax breaks could be offered to developers who do the
right thing by their tenants?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his points. He is right
that there are people in small, one-bedroom flats who have been
faced with huge costs, which are totally disproportionate and
from which we need to relieve them.
Secondly, he makes an important point about being as supportive
as possible of developers that do the right thing. A debate such
as this will inevitably concentrate on those who need to take
additional responsibility, but it is important to stress that
many developers, housebuilders and people in the property sector
have done the right thing, and we should applaud them for having
done so.
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of
Members’ Financial Interests. I welcome my right hon. Friend’s
statement, which ticks all the boxes needed to solve this crisis,
not least pointing the finger at construction product
manufacturers. There is no doubt they have gamed the system to
get some of their products approved inappropriately, but that
gaming was facilitated by the Building Research Establishment,
which, as my right hon. Friend knows, was privatised about 25
years ago. Will he make sure that these manufacturers contribute
towards the costs of remediation and will he consider bringing
the Building Research Establishment back under public
ownership?
My hon. Friend is incredibly knowledge-able about all matters of
property and housing. On the first part, absolutely. On the
second part, that is a tempting thought, but I will have to
discuss it with the Chancellor.
Since last April, I have been seeking answers for a constituent
in Cambuslang who has been trying to sell a flat between 11
metres and 18 metres, which was wrongly assessed to have failed
the EWS1 form because of cladding. The Scottish Government have
launched a free-of-charge assessment pilot, but details about the
full roll-out and remediation payments are still pending. What
discussions has the Secretary of State had with the devolved
Administrations about remediating buildings across the UK at
greater pace?
I wrote to and was in touch with the Scottish Government, the
Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive earlier
today, and I look forward to working with them. As the nature of
the debate has reinforced, there are people in every party who
are interested in practical solutions. That is incredibly helpful
in helping to relieve the problems faced by the hon. Lady’s
constituents, and by so many others.
I welcome the statement, particularly on 11 metres to 18 metres.
That includes flats owned by many of my constituents, who will
get a great sense of relief from that. There are still concerns,
as colleagues have mentioned, about non-cladding issues. The
section of the statement about restoring proportionality was very
interesting, but I do not want to be in the same position in
three or four months of talking to a leaseholder who cannot sell
their property because of non-cladding issues, so the proof will
be in the pudding.
An issue that has not been raised is that when the cladding
remediation work is carried out, the living conditions those who
still live in the building have to live through are often
unacceptable. I am certain that if my right hon. Friend visited
St Francis Tower in Ipswich, he could not but share my anger at
the conditions in which my constituents have to live. I invite my
right hon. Friend to St Francis Tower to see the conditions that
they are expected to live in.
My hon. Friend makes an important point that sometimes work that
is absolutely necessary involves a degree of disruption to
people’s ordinary lives that is incredibly painful. Whether it is
me or another Minister, we will make sure that someone comes to
Ipswich to listen to my hon. Friend’s constituents. He is an
incredibly effective advocate for them, and it is only right that
we hear direct from them.
Some of the most distressing conversations I have with
constituents are with those who have been caught up in this
scandal, as are some of the most distressed constituents I have
met. They are trapped, unable to move and face unknown costs,
none of which is their fault. I warmly welcome the raft of
measures announced today, as will they, but the next question
will be, what next? What will happen and how quickly? I urge my
right hon. Friend to clarify the measures that he has set out as
soon as possible, to drive this forward and to bring them the
certainty they desperately need.
My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour is absolutely right
that people will want greater detail, and greater detail soon. I
look forward to working with him and others to provide them with
the required reassurance. As I mentioned earlier, although we
believe these measures have the potential to resolve many of the
issues, I would not want to say that every single individual’s
problems will be resolved. We will do everything we can to
proceed at speed in providing help.
I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial
Interests. I welcome today’s announcement, and I am sure many
families in my constituency will welcome it, too. Only this
weekend we have seen a tragedy in New York, and I am sure I speak
for every Member in saying that my thoughts and prayers go out to
all affected. This was another electrical fire, and we still have
a situation in this country where whether a flat’s electrical
installation and appliances are tested depends on the tenure of
the flat. It is like only rented cars having an MOT. I have
raised this previously, and I will continue to raise it until we
do something about it. Safe electrics and safe appliances means
fewer ignitions and fewer fires, which means fewer lives
lost.
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. Of course
there are things we need to do to ensure building safety when it
comes to construction products and materials, and when it comes
to the quality of development and building control, but he is
right that the fundamental aspects of wiring, power supply and
electricity in our homes need to be addressed if people are to
have the safe homes to which they are entitled.
Last week I led a debate on the broader issue of developers and
house builders making large profits from low-quality homes that
cause problems for owners and local communities. Does my right
hon. Friend agree that the safety issues he seeks to tackle today
are on a list of issues that people see with these companies,
albeit that they are the most serious? That means the public will
be very unsympathetic if they see further foot-dragging in trying
to get a satisfactory solution.
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and he tempts me
into a broader debate to which I will return. In a nutshell, many
people involved in housing provision, construction and
development produce safe, beautiful homes with concern for the
environment that enhance our communities, and we need more homes
that are safe, decent and sustainable. There are also problems in
the system, and the behaviour of certain actors needs to be
addressed.
Everyone in this House wants to work with the industry, because
having a home of our own is such an important part of our
aspirations and ambitions, but we must recognise that more work
needs to be done so we can be proud of the sector. I know that
was at the heart of the points my hon. Friend made in his
Westminster Hall debate.
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