My Lords, it has been more than seven years since the tragedy at Grenfell Tower, but time has not diminished the shock and horror that we all felt when we witnessed the terrible events in west London. It was an immensely personal tragedy for the bereaved families, survivors and residents in the immediate community as 72 people lost their lives, 18 of them children. The community were failed in the years before the fire and in the immediate aftermath. I am sure I will be joined across the House in paying tribute to them and restating our commitment to ensure that lessons are learned.
We are meeting here today to debate and discuss the findings of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 2 Report, as part of the Government’s work to ensure that it never happens again. This is the least we owe to those most affected by this tragedy, a tragedy that the inquiry found to have been entirely “avoidable” and, to quote the report, was
“the culmination of decades of failure by central government and other bodies in positions of responsibility in the construction industry”.
I thank Sir Martin Moore-Bick and his team for their forensic examination of what happened on that day and why. Their report was difficult to read. The findings prompted renewed shock and horror at the lack of competence, professionalism, oversight and integrity and, in some cases, downright dishonesty in those we trusted to keep us safe in our homes.
As the inquiry makes clear, the tragedy was the result of a collective failure: the failure of the state to protect residents from harm and of those we trust to build and maintain our homes to put safety first. The inquiry uncovered
“systematic dishonesty on the part of those who made and sold”
the cladding and insulation that was used, and describes how they
“engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market”.
The Government understand the criticisms that were levelled at the state. The Prime Minister has apologised for the failings of the British state and, as the Lords Minister for Faith, Communities and Resettlement, I want to say again how deeply sorry I am, and this Government are, for the failures that led to the tragedy and how the Grenfell community were treated in the aftermath by those who should have been there for them. They have waited a long time for the findings of the inquiry’s report and for change. With each inquiry hearing, each news story, each government announcement and each new commitment to change over the past seven years, they had to relive the painful events of that night.
Sir Martin’s report exposes the truth in unsparing detail, but we recognise that this is not yet justice. It is imperative that there is full accountability, including through the criminal justice process, and that this happens as swiftly as possible. I reiterate this Government’s commitment to supporting the bereaved, survivors and residents of the immediate community, now and for the long term.
My Lords, I thank the Government for tabling this debate. I make particular mention of the Minister, for whom I have the greatest respect. He has always followed closely the issues relating to Grenfell, and I know he will continue to do so in his new role.
It is important that we mark the end of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, that we address the contents of Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s report and that we commit ourselves to doing all we can to deliver his recommendations—the bereaved survivors and residents deserve nothing less. I declare my interest as set out in the register. It has been my privilege to work with the Grenfell community for many years now—I am sure they would say too many years, and they would be right. But, such was the scale of the failure that led to Grenfell, I am afraid there was never going to be a quick fix.
No one comes out of this report well. Not central government, which made successive mistakes, going back decades, and which failed to act on the risks posed by the use of combustible cladding panels and insulation on high-rise buildings. Not the council—the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea—which turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the repeated legitimate complaints of its residents. Not the companies involved in the refurbishment—Studio E, Rydon or Harley—which
“failed to identify their own responsibilities for important aspects of the design and in each case assumed that someone else was responsible for matters affecting fire safety”.
Not the corporates that supplied the materials—Celotex, Kingspan and Arconic—which, again in the words of Sir Martin, were systematically dishonest and
“engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market”.
Not the certification bodies, the risk assessors or the Fire Brigade, despite the individual bravery of its men and women.
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness. I echo what she said about who holds the ring in government, because these changes will take time and we need to know who will do so, as government silos are well known and entrenched.
On behalf of these Benches, I pay tribute to Sir Martin Moore-Bick, his team, and the members of Grenfell United and their families and supporters for their relentless search for the truth. It has been a long time coming and I am sure we all regret that too much is still to be done before justice is finally done—if it ever is. The inquiry’s shocking findings place damning blame on companies, the Government, bodies responsible for building regulation and emergency services. It concludes that the victims were “badly failed” by those responsible for their safety and that all the deaths were “avoidable”. Could there be a more succinct, damning and deeply poignant sentence to sum up the Grenfell tragedy?
Sir Martin’s report does not hold back—thank goodness. He has shone a bright light on the cumulative decisions made in dark corners of boardrooms, in Cabinet and council meetings and during the regulation of fire safety and construction methods, and on the interconnectedness of these institutions, which all played a part in what happened on 14 June 2017. “Cumulative” and “interconnectedness” are the two key words that help me begin to understand what is at the root of the report’s reference to failures of government policy and decision-making. It is a simple phrase, but let us try unpacking it.
What shocked me most were the staggering accounts revealing cultures of complacency, denial, lack of scrutiny and accountability, back covering, buck passing, indifference, institutional negligence and even systemic dishonesty by the building contractors and these institutions. All of that created the perfect environment for this tragedy. The report exposes the systemic and entrenched refusal by every one of them to ensure that whistleblowers could speak up without consequence, confident that their concerns would be investigated and taken seriously. Civil servants were found to have ignored, delayed or disregarded concerns. Those who wanted to raise issues were simply too afraid to speak out and those who did were ignored or, worse still, branded as troublemakers. In short, there was a demonstrable endemic culture which led to the lack of importance given to fire safety and social housing tenants, which combined in a perfect storm—only the storm was a horrific fire that claimed 72 lives, including those of 18 children, left scores injured and displaced many families.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this debate so helpfully. I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson—to whom I pay a special tribute for all her hard work on behalf of the Grenfell residents over several years.
The Grenfell tragedy continues to have powerful consequences. It revealed truths that had been hidden for years about the nation’s construction industry and its housing provision. No more painful way of bringing these deficiencies to light could be imagined. But the legacy of Grenfell can and must be new and better systems that fundamentally change the way the nation provides the buildings and, in particular, the homes we need.
Attention has rightly focused primarily on aspects of the construction process the Grenfell inquiry has shown to have been deeply flawed on numerous levels. However, I will highlight a different aspect—one where I believe the campaigners of Grenfell United have been instrumental in securing important reform of lasting wider significance. The issue here is the management of social housing; that is, council and housing association homes. Fundamental reform to the regulation of social housing management has been introduced as a consequence of the pressures following the terrible fire, embodied in the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023. Changes continue to materialise from the pipeline of measures introduced by the Act.
The Grenfell inquiry report documents the highly unsatisfactory relationship that existed between the body responsible for the day-to-day management of the council’s housing in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea—its so-called tenant management organisation—and the residents themselves, the consumers and customers. A poisonous atmosphere and deep mistrust characterised this relationship. It is clear that the views of the residents, their insider knowledge and understanding, and their warnings about safety were all largely ignored and dismissed by the managing body. Poor organisational behaviour and a lack of accountability and transparency compounded the hostile and negative relationships between the tenant management organisation and the tenants themselves.
My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my register of interests. For the avoidance of any doubt, I was the chairman of the Local Government Association on the morning of the fire, when I was with the Secretary of State. I attended all the COBRA meetings and all the recovery group meetings put on by the Government—which just filtered away until we stopped doing them, even though the problem had not been fixed. I think I am right in saying that I am the only elected politician who was there at the start of that process and was at the end of the line when the Government stopped doing it.
I have not finished reading the report yet, and I do not intend to speak for very long today, but I thought that it was important to make a point of coming to speak, out of respect for the survivors and victims of the fire. To ignore the chance to be part of a debate about the fire would have been disrespectful. I am not sure that I have anything that I can add appropriately at the moment.
The victims will not see justice until people are in a criminal court facing manslaughter charges. Only then will the victims get the justice they deserve. It has taken far too long to get to this stage. I honestly believe that, part-way through the inquiry period, the criminal case should have been running in a parallel process, because the people who suffered need to get justice, and the only way that that justice will be delivered is when somebody has their liberty taken away from them.
I heard the Minister say that he was hopeful that we would never have another case like this, but I did not see whether he had his fingers crossed—because that is the only way we would have no chance of another one. Pure luck is stopping another Grenfell happening tomorrow, today or at any point. There are so many unsafe buildings in this country that will not get remediated at any time in my lifetime. There will still be buildings that are dangerous places for people to live in when I am in my wooden box. There will still be people who will live and sleep every night in a building that could end up killing them. We will not get through the remediation process. Every time somebody brings a new piece of work to the table, we find more properties that need fixing. The Government insist that high-rise buildings over 11 metres are the only places to look—but they are not. This is about all buildings that are complicated in terms of who lives in them and how they are constructed.
My Lords, it is rather difficult to follow such a speech and its insight into the industry and what has gone on.
I have no doubt that everyone in this Chamber can remember the horror at waking to the tragic news of the Grenfell Tower fire and the haunting images on TV. It is one of those significant moments in history: such a horror in our capital city, where 72 people tragically lost their lives. Our thoughts continue to be with the families and the community who lost loved ones and continue to grieve to this day.
The inquiry has rightly looked, in painstaking detail, at the facts leading up to the night of 14 June 2017: the underlying causes of the fire, where mistakes were made, the condition of the tower and the responses of the public and emergency services. While some specific recommendations are about Grenfell, there are lessons for every authority in the land. Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the chair of the inquiry, bluntly said that
“the simple truth is that the deaths that occurred were all avoidable and that 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 inquiry is absolutely damning about the construction industry, building management, inspection regimes and the public authorities involved, including the local council, the London Fire Brigade and the Government. As one reads the report, the perfect storm of dishonesty in the sector around the suitability of products to insulate high-rise buildings, alongside the failure of the inspection regime around the certification of such products, is truly shocking.
There are many recommendations for the Government on the regulation of the construction industry, fire risk assessors and the statutory guidance. I hope the Minister will be able to update the House on progress in these areas. The huge issue that remains is the number of buildings with dangerous cladding and other fire risks that remain across the country, particularly in our big cities. I remember the worried emails I used to receive as a London Assembly member at City Hall from people who were scared to live in their own homes, facing crippling bills for waking watches and remedial works and unable to sell their home. They had increased insurance premiums, mortgages and service charges, alongside the impact that this has had on their mental health and their lives. While the previous Government provided funding, which is gradually being allocated, for remedial works, many homes remain left in limbo. How can anyone live their life when they do not yet know when their building—their home—will be made safe?
My Lords, I declare an interest, as I played a role, as general counsel in No 10, in assisting Cabinet Office officials in setting up the Grenfell inquiry.
Sir Martin’s report is withering in its criticisms of almost everyone who could have prevented but failed to prevent a tragedy like this, and he makes many essential recommendations on how to stop it happening again. There must, and will, be accountability for the manufacturers, designers, contractors, developers, regulators, et cetera. The inquiry’s findings of systemic dishonesty and incompetence speak for themselves, and I understand that criminal investigations may be afoot.
My focus today, however, is not on the private sector but on the question of why successive Governments were not legally required to take effective preventive measures after previous high-rise block fires, and especially after the coroner’s detailed report on the prevention of future deaths following the Lakanal House tragedy. This raises a wider public law issue for the Government, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, touched on, since these prevention of future deaths reports arise in a multitude of different contexts. Each one records a real tragedy leading to one or more deaths, with invaluable lessons to be learned for the future on how to prevent such deaths. The tragedy of Grenfell is a shocking illustration of what can happen when lessons are not learned from these reports.
As we know, Grenfell was not the first high-rise block of flats to catch fire. In 1991, there was a fire at the 11-storey Knowsley Heights in Merseyside. By the time firefighters arrived, the entire external wall of the 11-storey building was alight, with flames coming out of windows and from the roof. New but combustible cladding had been installed three years earlier, as part of a pilot scheme intended to improve the appearance of high-rise blocks. To anyone who has read the Grenfell inquiry report, this sounds awfully familiar. Although no one died at Knowsley Heights when the cladding caught fire, the Grenfell public inquiry found that the Knowsley Heights fire “laid the ground” for the 2017 Grenfell Tower tragedy.
My Lords, I declare an interest in that my wife was, before she retired, a construction lawyer, and I have discussed the Grenfell disaster with several of her former colleagues and clients.
I thank my noble friend the Minister for his introduction to this debate and, as so often in this House, it has become a debate of high quality. We may be few in number, but we have certainly covered most of the issues in some depth and with great concern and care for the events that they led to. I am sure I am not the only one who would have liked to hear the noble Lord, Lord Porter of Spalding, vent his spleen a bit more about some of the issues that he was touching on. He was too shy; perhaps on another occasion we can learn a little more of what he can bring from his ground-level knowledge of some of the issues that we are talking about.
I have read most of the reports and commentaries on the fire, and we are certainly not short of material to read about it. They may in some cases be otiose and in some too detailed, but they certainly give us the material that we want to form future policy. The Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 2 Report, published in September, made 58 recommendations, and they are certainly very punchy and worth a lot of consideration. I am sure the department will be working very hard on making sure that they are implemented.
There are also, of course, two other reports. Dame Judith Hackitt’s report, concentrating on the building regulations and fire safety, was published in May 2018, and the Government indicated that they would accept all her recommendations. As far as the design and construction process is concerned, the Building Safety Act 2022 has provided powers for secondary legislation to bring forward new duties of care, competence and compliance, and these duties were indeed brought into force in October 2023.
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This Government are treating the inquiry’s findings and recommendations with the seriousness that they deserve. The Prime Minister committed the Government to responding in full within six months. We remain committed to this timetable and to providing a considered and unambiguous response that sets out how we will build a strong pathway to reform. We are committed to unequivocal reform, system-wide reform, governmental and regulatory reform and, of course, justice. Our commitment to justice remains as strong as ever and we fully support the Metropolitan Police, recognising that this is an independent and ongoing investigation.
In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, and again after the inquiry published its findings, we have seen a disappointing lack of remorse, apology or accountability from the organisations and individuals who failed in their duties. I know that many noble Lords have raised this important issue, and they are right to do so. Many of those who manufactured, sold and used inappropriate products, and many of the owners and developers who are dragging their heels in now making their buildings safe, have not taken responsibility. This Government will make sure that they do. I can confirm that the Cabinet Office has sent preliminary letters to companies named in the inquiry. For those found by the inquiry to have been part of these horrific failings, this is the first step in stopping them being awarded government contracts.
What happened at Grenfell Tower had a deeply personal impact on those directly affected. It was a national tragedy. It shone a light on the failures of the system and how practices, priorities and culture must change. Firefighters at the scene faced impossible circumstances with courage and professionalism but were let down by poor management, inadequate training and a chronic failure of leadership. Much has changed since 2017: fire and rescue services are better trained and prepared to respond to large-scale emergencies, but there is more to do to develop high-quality leadership, equipment and training for all personnel and to develop an environment that supports continuous learning and professional excellence.
We have seen that poor culture and a lack of integrity in our fire and rescue services lead to operational incompetence and thereby risk public safety. We must also acknowledge the impact of the failures in the fire safety industry. Collective action is imperative to raise standards in key roles, such as fire risk assessors, and to ensure that there is sufficient oversight of safety-critical work.
Sir Martin’s report focused on fire safety, but it exposed wider failures in practice and culture across government and industry. There have been important reforms since 2017, but there is more to do. Culture change cannot be a long-term aspiration; it must begin immediately. The Government have an obligation to carefully consider the findings and recommendations, and to continue to reform accordingly. So too do the designers, housebuilders, contractors, specialists, professions, those who produce and market products, and those who service and manage buildings. Every constituent part of our housing sector must act.
It is abundantly clear that far too many buildings remain unsafe. Yesterday the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published its monthly remediation statistics. They show that, of the 4,834 residential buildings 11 metres and over in height with unsafe cladding that the department is monitoring, 1,436, or 30%, have completed remediation and 983, or 20%, have started remediation. But 2,415 buildings, 50%, have still not started remediation We must go further, faster. Investment in remediation will rise to over £1 billion in 2025-26, and we have previously committed to accelerating the pace of remediation through targeted measures. I am pleased to say that more on this will be outlined imminently.
Everyone is entitled to, and should be able to access, a safe home, regardless of background or community. What we saw prior to, during and after the tragedy at Grenfell Tower was a lack of respect for residents and a community treated appallingly by both their landlord and local government leaders, who should have listened and acted sooner. Lessons have been learned, but more must be done so that the right support can be mobilised quickly to respond to major events. We will continue to carefully consider the findings on how central and local government must change, both in how they are organised and in their culture.
Social housing is a vital part of this country’s housing stock, but it must be better. That is why we have committed to a council housing revolution and to reforms that will ensure that landlords are held accountable for the quality and safety of the homes and services they provide. Routine inspections of large landlords will ensure that those who are not meeting standards will have nowhere to hide and will need to take steps to improve. Inspection results will be published, and residents can have their say about whether their landlord is delivering a good-quality service through annual tenant satisfaction measures.
Residents must be able to trust their landlords to deliver good services. We will introduce greater professionalism in the sector to embed that trust by bringing forward a new competence and conduct regulatory standard for social housing staff. We will press ahead with measures such as the new access to information requirements and the Make Things Right complaints communications campaign, so that tenants know their rights and how to raise issues.
This is not just about social housing: all residents must be heard. Our aim must be to support a more accountable, resident-centred housing system. We are putting in place stronger protections for the vulnerable, including through Awaab’s law, which will set specific timeframes for landlords to investigate and repair dangerous hazards in homes.
The inquiry’s report is a shocking story of what can happen when a system fails, when profits are put first, when the right oversights are not in place, when residents are ignored and when trusted actors are dishonest. We all witnessed the result of these catastrophic failures. Independent reforms have been made since 2017, but we must go further. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that this Government, the emergency services that serve to protect us, and those who build and maintain our homes must work together to create a fully modernised fire and rescue service and an effective, vibrant, innovative and, above all, safe housing sector, not just for now but for future generations to come.
As Sir Martin said:
“It is not possible to identify any single cause of the tragedy. Many different acts and omissions combined to bring about the Grenfell Tower fire”.
It is, however, possible to pick out a common theme, and that is one of staggering indifference. No one, in any link of the chain that led to this catastrophe, seemed to care that they were engaged in the business of health and safety—that the decisions they took, or did not take, could have a very real impact on people’s lives.
The final inquiry report stands at 1,700 pages. Throughout, with the notable exception of the current RBKC leadership, it is startling how few people are willing to stand up and take responsibility. Instead, at difficult moments during the inquiry hearings, we heard respondents say, time and time and time again, “I don’t recall. I can’t remember”. So many lapses of memory. So convenient for all those being questioned. So lacking in respect to the families and friends who deserved better. Yet despite this opacity, Sir Martin and his team have produced a devastating report. They have turned over every rock, every stone, and left all those involved with nowhere to hide. His final recommendations are precise, considered and, most importantly, achievable. My noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook will go through many of the individual recommendations, so I will limit myself to more general remarks about overall delivery and the infrastructure of government.
There is a peculiarity to our system, as outlined in the recent report by the House of Lords Select Committee into the Inquiries Act 2005, of which I was a member. It is the fact that, when something has gone very badly wrong we rightly spend an awful lot of time and money on public inquiries to address that injustice, to work out how and why it happened so we may learn the lessons to ensure it never happens again, as the Minister said. Yet there is no formal monitoring of the implementation of inquiry recommendations. At best, this leads to frustration for those involved; at worst, it means that chances to stop future disasters occurring are missed.
The issue goes more widely than public inquiries. As Sir Martin makes clear in the case of Grenfell, in the years between the fire at Knowsley Heights in 1991 and the Grenfell fire in 2017, important recommendations affecting fire safety were ignored. In particular, the Government of the time failed to implement the recommendations made by the environment and transport Select Committee in 1999, which warned that it should not take a serious fire, in which people were killed, before steps were taken to minimise the risks posed by some external cladding systems. Following the fire at Lakanal House in 2009, the subsequent Government failed to review the guidance on fire safety, particularly Approved Document B, as recommended by the coroner.
These were serious omissions with serious consequences, which is why Sir Martin recommended that it be made a legal requirement for the Government to maintain a publicly accessible record of recommendations made by Select Committees, coroners and public inquiries, together with a description of the steps taken in response. As I say, others have identified the problem. The Lords Select Committee recommended a new Joint Select Committee of Parliament to deliver a similar outcome. The charity Inquest is calling for a national oversight mechanism, which would entail the establishment of a new independent public body to undertake this work. Will the Government look seriously at this recommendation, and at potential ways of delivering it? Today we are rightly concerned with Grenfell, but this could have far-reaching benefits beyond this particular inquiry.
I appreciate that delivering on such a recommendation would take time so, in the meantime, could I ask the Minister about the mechanism that the Government are putting in place to deliver on Sir Martin’s recommendations? In response to the phase 1 report, we set up a cross-departmental board, chaired by a Minister, to drive delivery across Whitehall, but an argument could be made, given that this is the final report, for such a board to be chaired by a Secretary of State. The Prime Minister said that, while the Government will respond to the report within six months, there would be certain areas where work could start immediately, so I ask the Minister whether putting in place a suitable delivery framework is one of those areas in which work has begun. If so, can he provide details as to what it looks like?
There were frustrations over the pace of delivery of the phase 1 recommendations, partly because government moves slowly, but partly because of the way in which we communicated what had in fact been done. To this end, the Home Office devised an interactive, very easy to access, tracker, which way surpassed the impenetrable updates given via GOV.UK. I am afraid to say that we did not succeed in getting this up and running, for reasons which, if I am honest, are still completely unclear to me. Could the Minister take this back to the department? It really was an excellent innovation, and it would be a pity not to persevere with its implementation.
While we are addressing the machinery of government, I also raise Sir Martin’s recommendation for bringing the responsibility for fire and safety, currently exercised by MHCLG, the Home Office and the department for business, into one department under a single Secretary of State. As ever, he makes a compelling argument. It would mean that information could be shared more quickly and effectively between teams responsible for all the different aspects of fire safety; it would enable policy to be developed in a coherent way; and it would also ensure better communication between the proposed building safety regulator and the Government. Of all Sir Martin’s recommendations, my personal view is that this would be one of the hardest to implement. Government is not good at overcoming silos, and there is specialist knowledge particular to each department, which is why they each hold certain responsibilities. That said, given the comprehensive way in which the system failed, this would not only address some important practical issues but help to re-establish what should have been a given but which somehow got lost along the years—that fire safety really matters. Let us not forget, as the Minister said, that all 72 deaths were avoidable. Could the Government look at ways in which those recommendations might be achieved?
Finally, I would like to mention the recommendation to review the Civil Contingencies Act, to consider two matters: granting a designated Secretary of State to carry out the functions of a category 1 responder for a limited period of time; and requiring category 1 responders to establish and maintain partnerships with the voluntary community and faith organisations in the areas in which they are responsible for preparing for, and responding to, emergencies. The latter recommendation, which is essentially adding a humanitarian responsibility to the civil contingencies framework, might not have made the headlines, but it is fundamental to how the state interacts not just with those in need but with those it has failed.
We all know how the different local organisations rallied in the days and weeks after the fire. In the years since, I have watched in admiration as the community has supported and sustained itself through its grief and hardship. The state needs to operate differently in such circumstances. Too often it can end up doing further harm, as we saw with infected blood, the Post Office and Hillsborough. When people have been failed as badly as they were in all these instances, and as they were at Grenfell, there is absolutely no trust of the institutions which let them down or the people who work in them—and, frankly, why would there be? But it is up to the Government to try to rebuild that relationship, to ensure there is empathy in the system and to understand that this will always be a work in progress.
The response to Sir Martin’s inquiry will be part of that process, so I ask the Minister to assure us once again, as he has already done, that his Government will look seriously at ways of accepting all Sir Martin’s recommendations, as the previous Governments did for the phase 1 report, and that they will make a firm commitment to continue to support the Grenfell community, not just in terms of the inquiry and recommendations but in the many difficult moments that lie ahead, not least the decision that will have to be taken on the tower itself. As the Minister will know, this is a hugely sensitive issue, and while we need to work towards a fitting memorial can he assure me that the community, and in particular the bereaved, will remain at the heart of that process?
As the Minister said, it is now nearly seven and a half years since that terrible night, but none of us should ever fall into the trap of thinking “Oh, it’s a long time ago” or that it is somehow easier for people now than it was then. It is not. As the chair of Grenfell United said on the day the final report was published, “We paid the price”. The price was their children, their parents, their neighbours and their loved ones. We cannot bring them back, but we can do what is right in memory of them and we on this side of the House stand ready to help the Government in that task.
To say that the residents of that tower were let down by these institutions is a gross understatement, whether it was a cost-cutting local authority ideologically committed to outsourcing services, a regulation system completely gutted by successive Governments boasting about a bonfire of red tape, the privatisation of building safety testing, a fire service with inadequate controls or a construction industry focused on profits for shareholders and bonuses for senior executives. They were all in part responsible for the deaths that night.
Added to this were decades of underfunding of our public services. We have grown so used to cost cutting that it has become the norm across those services, including local government. We have watched our services be stripped to the bone and some abandoned altogether. There must be consequences from this over time, and we need to acknowledge that this has created a cost-cutting culture across these institutions, with staff under pressure to deliver regardless and discouraged from asking awkward questions.
Those asking such questions are seen as overly negative. They show a “can’t-do” attitude. “You’re not being a team player”. It is chastening to read on the Whistleblowers UK website that 96% of whistleblowers whose cases get to employment tribunals lose. To spell that out, whistleblowers more often than not find themselves on a redundancy list, not for their whistleblowing, of course—there are other ways—but due to “service re-engineering” or similar terms that are difficult to argue against. But some continue to whistleblow and, of the brave souls who do, almost all lose. No wonder they are afraid to come forward if they will lose their job, with the consequences that flow from that. Remember Mid Staffs, where Julie Bailey was forced to close her business and move away and nurse Helene Donnelly was attacked and bullied by colleagues and was too scared to even walk to her car. Do the Government plan to find ways to protect whistleblowers? There are many suggestions as to how this might be accomplished, as surely it is the only way to ensure that failings come to light before another major tragedy happens.
Many staff are stretched in their day jobs as “doing more for less” has been a mantra for years. Within councils, there has been a hollowing out of the role of scrutiny and audit functions, the effective working of which is fundamental to accountability, transparency and resilience. I recall one of the first things I was told as a brand-new councillor by the then Labour leader of Watford Council: “In this job you’ve got to know when you’re being hoodwinked by experts”—only he used more colourful language. I took that lesson with me as mayor and as a peer assessor.
Those on the board of Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation should have heeded it. It transpired that it was easy for employees to withhold information, doctor the findings of critical reports and downplay their urgency. Even outright lying was accomplished with ease. In fact, the fire safety reports were not even done by experts; they appointed someone without the relevant expertise and qualifications. Why? Because he lied and embellished his CV and nobody bothered to check his credentials, ask difficult questions, probe reports, scrutinise actions and timelines or test results. In other words, they failed to do their job. They were little more than nodding dogs. Some might call that a harsh caricature, but it is accurate given the evidence in this inquiry.
The cumulative impact over decades of policies designed to shrink the state, decrease regulation and let the market decide has led in part to their interconnectedness in Grenfell. Sadly, we appear not to have learned the lessons from history and so are doomed to repeat it—think Hillsborough, Windrush, Mid Staffs, infected blood and the Post Office, to name only the high-profile ones. Let us be under no illusion: those most impacted by this relentless trajectory are ordinary working people—the so-called “left behind” or “just about managing”. Whatever label we choose to put on them, they are the most marginalised and vulnerable in our society. I looked again at the photographs and heard the life stories of those who died at Grenfell, and they were all of those things. Most importantly, they were men, women and children with families who loved them. They loved and were loved, trying to live the best way they could.
My question to the Minister is not a simple one. How do we know that such a culture has changed and how to we monitor such things? The regulator and the Government are holding Kensington and Chelsea’s feet to the fire on its recovery programmes, but how is this being done? Can the Minister write to me, as this is an important check and balance in the system and is probably quite detailed for an answer at the end of the debate?
In conclusion, the report is very detailed, and it has many wide-reaching recommendations, which is why I have chosen to concentrate on one bigger issue. There is stuff about emergency planning: they were ill prepared. There is stuff on building control: has competition worked, or should it be taken out of councils’ hands? There is stuff about remediating buildings: why is the amount of money available considerably less for social housing providers than private owners? Is height an inadequate measure of risk? Should the definition of a “high-risk building” be reviewed? But I have chosen just the one overarching major issue, knowing full well that other noble Lords will seek to get answers to those questions and many more. I look forward to their contributions.
I am sure the Minister will agree with my final comment that the report raises fundamental questions about societal attitudes to social housing and its tenants. The report highlights that systematic neglect and a lack of investment in social housing contributed to the tragedy. Residents felt marginalised and their concerns about safety were ignored. This aspect of the disaster underscored broader issues of inequality and neglect in housing policy. How will this Government seek to change that?
Grenfell United, the residents’ campaigning body, with support from Shelter, pressed for changes to regulation and consumer protection across the social housing sector. With the awful experience of the consequences when a social landlord fails to listen to residents’ views, Grenfell United shone a spotlight on the need for social housing landlords to be held to account, to adhere to proper standards and, where things were not working out, for new regulatory mechanisms to sort matters out. As a direct result of the tenacious efforts of the Grenfell residents, the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 introduced a change of direction for the regulator whereby the setting and regulating of consumer standards is now a priority for the regulator, alongside the previous priorities of financial viability and governance.
As the Grenfell Tower Inquiry report notes, the 2023 Act
“enables the Regulator of Social Housing to play a more active role”
in the management of social housing,
“setting appropriate standards”,
requires information to be made available
“both to tenants and the regulator”,
and enforces good practice.
A central aspect of the shift in emphasis embodied in the 2023 Act relates to the way the regulator operates. The Grenfell United advocates felt that the oversight role of the regulator necessitated regular inspections—actual visits—to the social housing landlords, seeing and hearing first-hand how relationships were working out and how well the housing management was being performed. Grenfell United argued that if face-to-face contact had been made with the tenant management organisation, the regulator would have heard the voice of residents; the true position would have become clear to the regulator; and, who knows, the Grenfell tragedy coming down the line might have been foreseen and some action taken. An inspections regime means a changed approach from one of receiving written material from the landlords and forming a judgment at a distance.
Of course, however, physical inspections mean extra staff and extra expense. The Government of the day had hesitations about including a requirement in the Bill for the regulator to inspect periodically. So this was not part of the original Bill. I had the honour of tabling and championing an amendment to the Bill to insert an inspections duty into the legislation. We were blessed with a Minister in the Lords—the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook—who has supported the Grenfell United representatives consistently over many years. She backed the case and brought forward a government amendment to embrace mine. As a result, today a regular inspection regime is up and running.
Last week, I met the Regulator of Social Housing, Fiona MacGregor, and her chief of regulatory engagement, Kate Dodsworth. I was delighted to hear that inspections are now a central component in the implementation of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act’s intentions and are proving an invaluable mechanism in raising standards. The Grenfell inquiry has been able to conclude that with regard to the management of social housing
“we do not consider it necessary to make any additional recommendations in relation to the matters that we have uncovered”.
This conclusion by Sir Martin Moore-Bick and his panel is a testimony to the persistence of Grenfell United and, I must say, to the House of Lords for improving government legislation, greatly assisted by Ministers in both Houses willing to listen.
In conclusion, I must ask about a related concern which has also been raised by others. The concern relates to another aspect in the shift of culture of social landlords that presses them to raise their housing management standards. This, as the Minister mentioned, covers the role of the regulator in ensuring good standards of competence and conduct by insisting on the managers of social housing receiving relevant training and obtaining professional qualifications for the tasks they perform. Thanks to another last-minute amendment to the Social Housing (Regulation) Act, the Secretary of State now has the power to introduce this obligation on social landlords, and for the social housing regulator to enforce it: all good stuff. However, we are yet to see details of the mandatory qualifications or hear about a timetable for the housing associations and councils to take action. When will these details be announced?
Finally, I reiterate my congratulations to the Grenfell United team, who have made such a difference to the way that social housing is managed and regulated. Hundreds of thousands of residents in this sector will benefit for years to come from the tenacity and passion of this small but highly effective group.
A big care home was torched and levelled, and we were lucky that nobody died. The only reason nobody died was because it happened during the day and the staff were able to get everybody out. If that had happened at night, when the staff complement had been reduced and the people living in the care home were asleep and harder to move, people would have been victims. I appreciate that everybody is concerned and that everything the Government do takes time, but there does not seem to be the sense of urgency that will be necessary to get this problem dealt with any time soon.
I will probably be seen as “Mr Unpopular” for saying this, but the report is far too long. There are far too many words—across 1,700 pages—and it has errors and omissions. I will describe one omission. A number of the organisations that were found to be culpable were part of the Government’s immediate response afterwards. The Government set up a panel of experts immediately after the fire, and some of the people on that panel were responsible for some of the organisations that have now been criticised in the report. But the report does not criticise the fact that they were the people who the Government went to for expert advice. If we have the wrong people expertly advising the Government on a problem that they have partially created, how will we get to a place where everybody can say that we are content that we have done as much as we can? That is an omission; as far as I am concerned, it should have been in the report.
An error in the report is that the building safety guidance—the stay-put policy—is attributed to the LGA. It was not an LGA policy; it was a government policy. The Government commissioned the work and approved the experts who put the work together and its scope. The LGA was paid to bring those people together and then to host that information on its website. It was commissioned two chairmen before me, so I have no skin in the game with the commissioning. When we realised that the stay-put policy did not work because the compartmentalisation of buildings does not work—it does not exist; the stay-put policy was premised on the idea that you could be safe in a property, but nobody in a high-rise building is safe—we told the Government that we were taking the information down from our website. We took it down. The Government insisted that we put it back up again —and the staff did so. When I found out, I went ballistic at the staff, and we took it back down again. The Government now host that information on a Government-held website. The report should not have criticised the LGA because of that piece of work—that was another failing of another government department.
I will stop, because I might start going into the criminality bit, and I will end up probably doing something wrong by saying the names of some people who certainly should be locked up. The work we did from Smith Square all the way through provided plenty of evidence.
I have worked on a building site for most of my working life. I did a proper job: I was a brickie by trade. If we worked on a building site in the winter and the sand was frozen, which happens in English winters, we would chuck pallets into the sand heap and light them, to help to pour the sand out. We used offcuts of insulation as firestarters—it is solid petrol, so it burns really well. That was not a secret—everybody knew that—yet we were still allowing people to put it on buildings. I will stop before I drop myself in trouble—apologies.
I have spoken over the years to many housing association officers who have been unable to access previous government funding, as to do so meant that they had to show that their organisation was bankrupt. That cannot be right. As we have heard in today’s debate, our social housing sector needs support to ensure that housing is made safe quickly for tenants and leaseholders. The Budget last month saw over £1 billion allocated in 2025-26 to help with the remediation of unsafe housing. I understand that this figure also includes money to spend on the remediation of social housing, which is obviously welcome. Can the Minister provide more details of this in his response?
The Minister quoted some new departmental figures, but I have been looking at the recent National Audit Office report, which stated that
“remediation works on most tower blocks over 18 metres with the most dangerous form of cladding are now complete or nearing completion”.
However, it also estimated that 9,000 to 12,000 residential buildings over 11 metres need remediating, and as of August—this may differ from the Minister’s figures—just 4,771 buildings were in a remediation programme, leaving up to 60% of buildings still to be identified. Of all the buildings that may be in scope, work has been completed on only around 12% to 16%. This is just not good enough. We need a step change to make sure that people’s homes are safe. I think it is clear to us all that the scale of the cladding and wider fire safety crisis is far greater than we first thought.
I praise the work of the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign group, and I fully support its calls for the inquiry’s recommendations to be implemented in full and without delay. It is clear to me that leaseholders need to be protected from fixing all fire risks, not just cladding, and that the remediation fund process needs to be streamlined and faster.
If we are to consider how we prevent this happening again, we need to look at the regulatory regime. I was pleased to hear the Minister mention his commitment to regulatory reform, but there are multiple regulatory routes to remediation; several regulatory regimes can be used to compel a building manager to act. For example, the fire service can serve a notice under the fire safety order; the local council can enforce via the housing, health and safety rating system in the Housing Act 2004; and central government itself can apply to the First-tier Tribunal for a remediation order under the Building Safety Act 2022. These all produce the same thing: a legally enforceable order to remediate the premises so that it is safe, on pain of criminal sanction, including fines and even prison. However, there is no clarity over which agency, be it fire, council or government, should lead on any particular premises. Indeed, I understand that all three have been done successively.
Regulators would really like some clear guidance from the Government on which organisation should lead, especially as each case is potentially expensive and could involve litigating against an unwilling building manager. Without that guidance, it could be all too easy for agencies to assume that another will lead, and a dangerous building could fall through the cracks.
Another area where issues remain is the freeholder who could fund the remediation works but who does not accept that they are at fault or culpable, saying that the builder, the materials supplier or some previous freeholder is to blame. Such freeholders might ultimately receive government funding or be able to recover the costs from whoever was at fault, but they will not begin the remedial works without some assurance of this. I would welcome a clear statement from government that this is not acceptable and that regulators should be able to mandate that freeholders with the resources to fund remediation should do so straight away.
This is a sobering debate and a serious moment, as we look at what needs to be done to ensure that everyone can live in a safe home. I look forward to the Minister’s responses to these points.
But before that, we must come to Lakanal House. The 14-storey Lakanal House caught fire in 2009 and six people died, including three children. The resulting inquest found that the fire spread because of combustible cladding on the building. The coroner made a prevention of future deaths report on 28 March 2013 to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. She recommended that the department review Approved Document B to ensure that it provided clear guidance, giving, as she said, particular regard to the spread of fire over the external envelope of the building. She also recommended that it be drafted in such a way as to be intelligible to everybody engaged in construction, maintenance and refurbishment of buildings, and not just to professionals who may already have a depth of knowledge of building regulations and building control. Finally, she recommended that encouragement be given to providers of high-rise accommodation to consider the retrofitting of sprinklers, and that guidance be given to residents on when to stay and when to “get out and stay out”.
Officials in the Department for Communities and Local Government gave the Secretary of State a draft letter to send in response. After internal discussion, it was sent by the Secretary of State on 20th May 2013; the details are in the inquiry report. It is easy with hindsight to criticise it, but this is what public inquiries are for, and the Grenfell inquiry found that it was an inadequate response.
The coroner’s prevention of future deaths report had provided a golden opportunity to consider whether the construction industry understood or applied the regulations and guidance, especially in respect of tall buildings with external walls containing combustible materials. But the inquiry found that the coroner’s recommendations were not treated with any sense of urgency and officials did not explain clearly to the Secretary of State what steps were required to comply with them. The department therefore failed to learn the lessons, which were there for all to see in the prevention of future deaths report, about the inadequacy of the regulatory regime itself, so dominated was it by the Government’s deregulatory agenda.
The omens were not therefore promising for the Grenfell Tower renovation in 2016. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the tenant management organisation for Grenfell established value for money and appearance, not safety, as the key drivers for the project. So, the cheapest cladding option was chosen: aluminium composite material with unmodified polyethylene cores. The various regulators involved, which approved, certified, inspected and otherwise accredited the cladding, were allowed to act without sufficient vigour and competence—and that is putting it mildly. This was in no small part because of the failure of the Department for Communities and Local Government properly to implement the recommendations of the prevention of future deaths report following Lakanal House, especially concerning the need to provide clear guidance in Approved Document B on the risks of fire spreading over the external envelope of the building.
What exactly are prevention of future deaths reports? Regulation 28 reports, as they are now known, are made under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. A coroner has a duty to make such a report where circumstances exist which create a risk that future deaths will occur and, in the coroner’s opinion, action should be taken to prevent such an occurrence. It is not for the coroner to identify the remedial action. It is for the person responding to a report to set out details of any action which it is proposed will be taken and to set a timetable for that action; otherwise, the response must explain why no action is proposed.
There is an obligation on the person to respond within 56 days and, in the Lakanal House case, the department did that, but there was, and is, no mechanism for holding to account those who respond to such reports. Nothing is more serious than preventing future deaths, and it stands to reason that there should be proper accountability. It should not take a devastating tragedy such as Grenfell and a public inquiry to hold those responsible to account.
The same is true with public inquiry reports, to which the noble Baroness alluded. We all know that public inquiries can cost tens or hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, but there is no legal requirement to implement their recommendations, to give reasons for not implementing them or even to track the extent to which there has been implementation. This is a shocking lack of accountability.
The Grenfell inquiry itself noted in its recommendations that the department had no system for recording recommendations made to public bodies or keeping track of its response to them. It recommended in chapter 113 that it be made
“a legal requirement for the government to maintain a publicly accessible record of recommendations made by … coroners and public inquiries together with a description of the steps taken in response”.
It went on to say:
“If the government decides not to accept a recommendation, it should record its reasons for doing so. Scrutiny of its actions should be a matter for Parliament, to which it should be required to report annually”.
Similarly, the recent House of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee recommended a new committee of Parliament to hold Ministers to account in the case of public inquiries and Regulation 28 reports. The House of Lords committee noted that
“if the recommendations from the inquest into the Lakanal House fire had been implemented, then the Grenfell Tower fire may have been less likely to have occurred”.
That is an understatement, given the more recent findings that we now know from the Grenfell inquiry itself.
In conclusion, my question to the Minister is: will the Government implement the recommendation in the Grenfell inquiry report on introducing proper accountability for responding to prevention of future deaths reports and public inquiry recommendations, and, if not, why not? It might prevent another tragedy.
However, in the meantime, evidence emerging in the public inquiry exposed apparently widespread malpractice in the marketing of construction products, including some that were found to be a principal reason for the spread of the fire within the building—many speakers have referred to this. Unfortunately, the secondary legislation in respect of construction products, which, under the original timetable, was due to be implemented by October 2023 alongside the other secondary legislation, has still not appeared. This may be related to the lack of response so far to the recommendations of the third report, the Morrell Day report, which maps out the complexity and opacity of the current construction product regime, sets out proposals for reform, and proposes principles by which decisions on alternative proposals might be made.
Dame Judith Hackitt says in her foreword to the Morrell Day report:
“We must move from a state where: up to two-thirds of products are unregulated, there is lack of clarity around purpose of testing, the fitness for purpose of current standards is questioned and there is no enforcement to implement a process that delivers quality and confidence”.
That is rather a damning indictment of where we currently stand. It is this package of reforms that is missing. It seems to me that the Government need to come forward quickly with secondary legislation on this important set of proposals. If that is still in process and there is time to look at them, I hope that they will bring into their thinking the Morrell Day report recommendations of principles, which I think are very appropriate for this discussion and future thinking about how we do this. The report says that
“it is for product manufacturers to develop products that do the job expected of them, and to market them honestly, making no false claims … it is for Conformity Assessment Bodies to test and assess those products against defined specifications, impartially and independently, so that those who must rely upon performance claims can do so with confidence … it is for designers to choose products with the performance that is fit for purpose, and then design them into the works so that the performance can be achieved … it is for constructors to bring everything together with the same objective in mind”.
These are not matters which are always followed. The report goes on to say that
“it is not for regulators or enforcement authorities to act as the industry’s quality assurance department and take responsibility for every infraction, but it is … vital … to keep a watchful eye out for non-compliance, and to aid compliance … it is also for regulators and enforcement authorities to see that regulations are enforced where necessary—and particularly where they are wilfully ignored or carelessly disregarded; and … that all of the above depends upon clear regulatory requirements and standards that deliver the desired outcome”.
These are the ones that we are awaiting.
As we have heard, this year alone there have been several tower block fires, and we have also been told that no building is really safe. It has also been reported that more than 4,000 buildings across the country remain partially or wholly covered with unsafe cladding. Is this a situation that can continue? I do hope not. I end by asking my noble friend the Minister: given the critical role that inappropriate or mis-sold products played in the rapid spread of fire in the Grenfell Tower tragedy, and noting that the original intention was to bring in new regulations by October 2023, when do the Government intend to make proposals for reform along the lines I have outlined?