- Before we begin the general debate, I remind the House that on Wednesday last week, Mr Speaker renewed the waiver relating to matters sub judice in respect of ongoing or adjourned Grenfell Tower inquests and cases relating to cladding. This is to allow debate to take place on relevant policy matters, including the phase 2 report of the Grenfell Tower inquiry and the Government’s response to it. The waiver does not permit discussion of the details of individual cases. I remind hon. Members of the likelihood that both civil and criminal proceedings in the courts will follow in the coming months and years. Members will want to take special care to avoid saying anything in this House that could prejudice a future trial.
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- I beg to move,That this House has considered building safety and resilience.I rise to open this debate on the critical issue of building safety and resilience, following last week’s publication of the Grenfell inquiry’s final report. Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s findings on an entirely avoidable national tragedy were devastating, and I begin by remembering the 72 people who died, 18 of them children, in the biggest loss of life in a residential fire since the second world war. I pay tribute to the bereaved, the survivors and the wider Grenfell community, who have waited too long for the answers and justice that they deserve. It is thanks to their tireless crusade for truth, accountability and change that we are here today.The final report of the Grenfell Tower inquiry represents a defining moment in the journey for justice. As Sir Martin stated:“The simple truth is that the deaths that occurred were all avoidable, and those who lived in the tower were badly failed over a number of years and in a number of different ways by those who were responsible for ensuring the safety of the building and its occupants.”The report shines a light on a terrible culture in the industry in the years leading up to the tragedy—a culture of putting profit before people, and a culture in which safety took a back seat. It reveals a building safety system that was fundamentally broken, with deficiencies that went unchallenged by different Governments. The consequences of these failures are still with us today; there are too many buildings with unsafe cladding and the pace of remediation has been too slow. We will consider all the recommendations in detail, and we will respond within six months. As part of that work, we will listen to and engage with the bereaved, survivors and residents in the immediate community. We will update Parliament annually on progress against every commitment we make. As the Prime Minister said,
- I thank the Minister for what she just said. On the remedial works that will be done, some will be in the public sector; most will be in the private sector. In many cases, residents are paying the price in very high insurance premiums, as she rightly acknowledged. Could those residents who have suffered a great deal of stress and cost over the past few years expect some form of compensation for their losses, because of the failure of Government and the industry to undertake the proper remedial works?
- We recognise the impact on those with high insurance premiums. We will take action to protect them, and will have the necessary dialogue to address the right hon. Member’s points and ensure that there are not high insurance premiums.
- Does the Minister agree that firefighters and the Fire Brigades Union need to be listened to, and that the Government need to deliver the statutory advisory body to ensure that the lessons of Grenfell are learned?
- We have already had discussions with key stakeholders, including firefighters and the head of the FBU. We want to ensure that we speak to all relevant stakeholders. We need to work across a range of institutions to get this right and tackle the root causes of fire risk.I want to focus on the number of affected properties. The remediation of 4,630 residential buildings above 11 metres is being monitored by my Department. For half of them, remediation has started; 1,350 have completed remediation. However, counting the buildings that we know about is not enough. We estimate that as many as 7,000 buildings that need remediation have not yet applied for the cladding safety scheme. That is a maximum estimate—there may well be fewer than that—but those responsible for those buildings have no excuse for failing to apply. We will work with regulators to ensure that the buildings are identified.
- Several hon. Members rose—
- I will make a bit more progress. We will ensure that dangerous buildings are found and dealt with. The money is there. The speed must increase. We are not leaving this task just to regulators; the Government must do more, and this Government will do so.
- I congratulate the Minister on her appointment. It is absolutely right that the Government should be providing support, including financial support, for those buildings that need work done urgently. Of course, the problem is that the building safety fund has different rules and criteria for buildings in the social housing sector and those in the private sector. When the Prime Minister spoke about Grenfell, he spoke about the discrimination and poor treatment of social housing tenants. Will the Government rectify that by making social housing providers equally eligible for help from the building safety fund?
- I thank my hon. Friend for his work on this matter. I served on the Communities and Local Government Committee under his chairmanship many years ago and learned a great deal from his work. The Government have committed up to £400 million in grant funding for the removal of Grenfell-style cladding in the social sector, and social housing landlords can apply for the grant schemes in particular circumstances, but we are working with regulators and the sector to ensure that social landlords assess the progress of remediation work. There is much to do, and I look forward to working closely with him on that and the wider agenda.Since 2017, some progress has been made, including the Building Safety Act 2022, which Labour supported. But what is clear is that the speed of work to fix unsafe cladding is not fast enough. The recent fires in Dagenham and Slough underlined the vulnerabilities that persist in our built environment. Since coming into office, we have met regulators and other industry partners to press for action to make buildings safe. We are contacting all metro mayors in England to ask for their support in driving forward local remediation acceleration plans, working in partnership with regulators.
- I congratulate my hon. Friend on her appointment, which, in trying to put right these wrongs, is to one of the toughest jobs in Government. I wish her all the best.One of the things that would help is to improve the skills throughput in the construction industry. In my constituency, only one large block has had its cladding completely removed, and that started five years ago—it has taken that long to deal with it—so those that have had no work started are way behind. One big brake on that is skills in the construction industry. What are the Government doing to improve and enhance skills in that sector?
- I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention on this really important agenda. I will say more about the remediation action plan and our response. The Prime Minister committed to making sure that we respond to the recommendations of phase 2 within six months, and we will certainly be looking at those recommendations. The point she makes, which is very important, has been raised with me over the past few months. I am also familiar with those concerns as I raised them myself when we were in opposition.I turn to enforcement action. Our message to building owners is clear: those who fail to make their buildings safe will face enforcement action. The funding is there: the Government have committed £5.1 billion to remove dangerous cladding, and industry is providing the rest. All blocks of residential flats above 11 metres now have access to a scheme to fix unsafe cladding. Qualifying leaseholders are protected by law from crippling bills for historical safety defects.As the Prime Minister made clear in his speech in the House last week, we will take the necessary steps to speed this up. We are willing to force freeholders to assess their buildings and enter remediation schemes within set timetables, with a legal requirement to force action if that is what it takes to tackle industry intransigence. As I mentioned, we will set out further steps on remediation this autumn.
- I welcome my hon. Friend to her new position; I know that she will be a firm advocate for those thousands of people who are still waiting for remediation to be done on their buildings. While we need to have partnerships with the big housing builders to meet our target of 1.5 million, some of those same developers are still dragging their feet on doing the remediation on homes. Will she assure residents in my constituency and across the country that part of the deal those developers may be doing with other parts of her Department will be about taking seriously their remediation responsibilities for those buildings?
- I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that important point. A number of developers have already signed agreements on the remediation agenda. The Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the whole Government have made the clear commitment to building the 1.5 million homes. These are two sides of the same coin. We have to make sure that buildings that are not safe are made safe, and that the future homes that we build are safe and secure and address the needs of our country. She made important points, and we are very much on the same page.There is no excuse for a building owner not to enter a cladding scheme that they are eligible for. Any owners who fail to do so will be held to account. We will not sit by while they fail to act. As well as acting now to keep people safe, we are learning the lessons from Grenfell for the long term. We are investing in and supporting local resilience to deliver strong planning, response and recovery. The Department has provided £22.5 million in core capacity and capability funding to local resilience forums since 2021. These are fundamental to our national resilience, and the Department will continue to consider every opportunity for further strengthening them, including by supporting the Cabinet Office to shape and develop the programme of engagement with local stakeholders through the resilience review.We will ensure robust oversight, strong regulatory frameworks and an unwavering commitment to accountability at every level. That means reforming the construction products industry that made this fatal cladding. Those who compromise that safety will face the consequences. That means taking steps to make the necessary improvements. My written statement last week focused on improving the fire safety and evacuation of disabled and vulnerable residents in high-rise residential buildings in England. In our first weeks in office, we have resolved an important recommendation from the Grenfell inquiry’s first report—five long years after it was published.
- The Minister has talked about support for high-rise buildings in my constituency. My local authority has removed cladding from several council blocks, including one I grew up in, which are of four storeys or fewer. What support will the Government be able to give lower-rise blocks, and what checks will they do?
- The evidence shows that the risks tend to be in the high rise, and that has been the focus, but there are arrangements to ensure that lower-rise buildings with safety issues are addressed. We need to look at these issues in the round. It is important that we do not miss anything, but in the Department’s work so far, the bigger risks have been in the higher rise. I take the hon. Member’s point, and where there are issues with lower-rise buildings, we are very much willing to look at how we provide support.
- My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way to Members across the House. As she said earlier in her remarks and just touched on again, sometimes recalcitrant developers are really reluctant to pay and do not engage with residents. There is a danger that those residents will be left at the bottom of the heap as they compete for skills, products and so on. I am sure she is mindful of that, but is she able to give those residents any comfort about the pressure the Government can put on those recalcitrant developers, to help get on with the work and make them pay later?