Tower Blocks: Dangerous Cladding

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government if he will update the House on the action taken and planned by the Government with respect to high-rise residential blocks with dangerous cladding.

There is nothing more important than ensuring that people are safe in their homes, and we remain determined to ensure that no community suffers again as the community did so tragically and appallingly at Grenfell Tower. Within days of that tragedy, a comprehensive building safety programme was put in place to ensure that residents of high-rise blocks of flats are safe and feel safe now and in the future. Our Department has worked with fire and rescue services, local authorities and landlords to identify high-rise buildings with unsafe cladding and to ensure that interim safety measures are in place until issues are permanently remediated. Measures have included waking watch, which has been put in place in all high-rise buildings with ACM cladding, with the oversight of the National Fire Chiefs Council. As of 31 December last year, interim measures have been in place on all 176 high-rise private residential buildings with unsafe ACM cladding.

Permanent remediation must rightly now be our key focus. On 18 December, we published our plan to implement the recommendations of Dame Judith Hackitt’s independent review of building regulations and fire safety, which will create a stronger regulatory framework and fix the issues for the long term. We have repeatedly called on private building owners not to pass costs on to leaseholders who find themselves in this position through no fault of their own. We have also warned private building owners that, unless they remove and replace unsafe ACM cladding from their high-rise residential buildings now, local authorities have the power to complete the works and recover the costs from the owner. As a result of our interventions, we have secured commitments from owners of 268 privately owned buildings, 212 of whom have either started works, completed them or have commitments in place to remediate. There remain 42 private residential buildings for which the owner’s plans are unclear, so we are maintaining pressure and rule out no solutions.

This is obviously a matter of great importance to many colleagues and, indeed, to many constituents, and that is reflected in the huge amount of activity that is taking place both within the Department, externally within the industry and, critically, in this House. There is an Adjournment debate tomorrow, and I will appear at oral questions and before the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee on Monday.

It should be a cause for national shame that, over 19 months after the Grenfell Tower fire, I am having to drag Ministers to the House because there are still buildings in this country cloaked in Grenfell-style cladding and residents who do not know whether their homes are safe, as the Daily Mirror has revealed today. It is shocking that the Government’s own figures show that there were 437 high-rise blocks with the same Grenfell-style cladding and that 370 are yet to have it removed and replaced. It is shocking that the Minister knows every one of those blocks but will not name the landlords or tell the residents. Whatever he says he is doing, it is not working. For over 19 months, any progress made has simply been too slow, too weak and always following pressure from this House and from Labour. If the Government cannot fix problems this serious and urgent, what on earth are they in office for?

Here is a six-point plan to sort out the problems, and this is what we have been arguing for months. First, widen the Government testing programme to cover all suspect cladding, not just ACM cladding. Secondly, set a deadline for all blocks to be made safe. Thirdly, make clear the legal duty for block owners to get this work done, and to pay for it without passing on the bill to hard-pressed leaseholders. Fourthly, set up a loan fund for private blocks. Fifthly, name the landlords and tell the residents so that the public know the safety status of all high-rise blocks. Finally, toughen the sanctions, up to and including taking over blocks to get this vital fire safety work done.

For more than nine months, as the Minister has repeated today, the Secretary of State has said that he is not ruling anything out. It is time to rule things in, and it is time to reverse the refusal to act on all these fronts.

In the days after the Grenfell tragedy, the Prime Minister promised the nation:

I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has sought to make this such an antagonistic exchange in what is a difficult and complicated situation that requires significant amounts of engineering and construction work, which will necessarily take time. He will know that the response from both the Department and the Government in the aftermath of the Grenfell tragedy was immediate and wide-ranging. The commissioning of Dame Judith Hackitt to conduct her inquiry was an important step forward in tackling this issue.

Since then, significant resource and effort have been injected into the need to remove this cladding, but the vital first step was to make sure that people living in high-rise blocks with ACM cladding were safe immediately, and those steps were put in place immediately. We now know, and can tell everyone in tower blocks with this cladding, that they are safe tonight. The Government’s primary focus was to make sure there were enough interim measures in place and that local fire and rescue services were satisfied that the buildings were immediately safe, while at the same time providing the resources, assistance and support—and, yes, cajoling some in the private sector to do their duty and replace this cladding.

That is what we continue to do, and we are making significant progress. However, the right hon. Gentleman is correct that we will get to a point where, for a small number—we are now down to a small number—of owners or contractors who put this cladding on buildings, we will need to consider more assertive measures, and those measures are under active consideration at the moment. All the while, in all of this—he may present himself as an expert, but I am certainly not an expert—we are guided by expert opinion, which includes Dame Judith Hackitt’s review and the independent expert advisory panel that was constituted in the immediate aftermath of Grenfell. We follow their advice in making sure that we can guarantee people’s safety tonight.

I agree with my hon. Friend that it is not a very bright idea to be partisan about this, given that the majority of the non-private blocks are probably in Labour-controlled councils.

Has the advice on fire and evacuation changed, and is the policy of staying put still right for these blocks? How will my hon. Friend take advice from the representatives of leaseholders? They are the ones who are made to carry the can, but they are regarded as only tenants for most legal purposes.

The advice on evacuation procedures is for the local fire and rescue service to determine. Depending on the formulation of the building, advice is given on whether it should be evacuated simultaneously or sequentially, and that advice varies from building to building. In the end, it is for the local fire and rescue service to satisfy itself that there are appropriate evacuation procedures in each building.

My hon. Friend is a well-known and long-standing champion for leaseholders in a number of circumstances, and he will know that we are putting significant pressure on building owners and, indeed, contractors to ensure that leaseholders do not bear the cost of this situation in any circumstance. The Secretary of State has not ruled out any particular measure in making sure that that pertains.

It is all very well for Ministers to come here and say “never again” after Grenfell, but it is extremely disturbing to hear the news from the X1 Eastbank block in Manchester. Not only did the construction firm apparently neglect to pass on the findings of a failed test, but it appears to have threatened to withhold payment for the test unless the testing company signed a non-disclosure agreement concerning the results. Will the Minister confirm whether the Secretary of State can request that information from the construction firm’s administrators and make sure that it is all handed over?

In the more than 18 months since the Grenfell tragedy, there seems to have been a continued lack of progress and reform. The Royal Institute of British Architects has stated that England lags behind Wales and Scotland, which have in place, or are introducing, regulations to require sprinklers and provide a second means of escape. The Scottish Government-led review of the Scottish fire safety regime by the building and fire safety ministerial working group produced its conclusions and recommendations in December last year. What discussions has the Minister had about that with housing Minister Kevin Stewart in Scotland, and are there recommendations from the group that he could easily implement in England?

Finally, I ask again whether the Government will consider zero rating materials for replacement cladding. That would help to reduce the costs for firms that want to take such remediation measures, and make it easier for them to do so.

As I said in my earlier answer to the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), I believe we are making progress on remediation. That is particularly true in the social sector, but we are now seeing signs that significant progress is being made in the private sector with the number of buildings that have been completed, the commitments that have been made and the work that is ongoing.

Regarding the Manchester situation that is on the front page of the paper today, I understand that the local fire and rescue service is satisfied that everybody will be safe in that building tonight, and that temporary measures are in place while the work is being done. There seems to be some complication about getting that work done, but it is being done.

Sadly, I have not met the Minister whom the hon. Lady mentioned, but as she will know, we are reviewing approved document B—the fire safety building regulations —and we would welcome any contribution towards that consultation to help us to get this right.

Assertive measures are urgent for my constituents at Northpoint in Bromley, one of the 42 buildings where the owner—in this case Citistead, an offshoot of the Tchenguiz family trust—refuses to meet its obligations and insists that it will use a term in the lease to pass on the costs to the flat owners regardless. The Government need to introduce a legally foolproof mechanism to override those provisions and prevent my constituents and others from being forced to pick up the tab. Words are not enough.

My hon. Friend is a fierce advocate for his constituency, and we share his concern about the position of the Northpoint residents. We have been very clear that leaseholders should not bear the cost, and he will be pleased to learn that the Secretary of State has written to the building owner and other parties concerned to make it clear that he expects them to fund the work.

The Secretary of State has just written to the Select Committee about the role of local authorities, and local authorities clearly have powers under the Housing Act 2004. When building owners will not act and the local authority acts instead, it may incur costs that it can try to recover from building owners. Can we have an absolute guarantee from the Minister that when local authorities find it impossible to do so, the Government will find that money so that it will not have to be found from hard-pressed local authority budgets?

The Chair of the Select Committee raises an important point. We have offered financial assistance to local authorities, and we will work in partnership with them to attempt to recover the money. Where that proves to be impossible, we will try to reach as convenient and financially efficacious an arrangement as possible.

May I ask my hon. Friend about Hartopp Point and Lannoy Point, two 14-storey blocks in Fulham that are rumoured to face demolition? Residents—including leaseholders who are worried about getting proper compensation —are extremely concerned, and opposition Conservative councillors are calling for an emergency council meeting tomorrow night. Will he join me in urging Hammersmith and Fulham Council to lift the secrecy from its proposals and communicate properly with concerned tenants and leaseholders?

My right hon. Friend raises what sounds like an alarming situation. Where people’s homes are concerned—whether it is about safety, the future of their homes or, indeed, demolition—I urge all those in authority to be as transparent as possible. It can be extremely debilitating, concerning and worrying for any resident to have the future of their home mired in uncertainty. I hope that he gets the clarity that his residents need.

If the Minister was one of my constituents in the X1 block in Manchester, I am sure that, like them, he would have woken up this morning feeling not only worried and scared, but furious—furious at the way in which the matter has come to light, and furious that there is still, after all this time, no accountability, no transparency and no recourse for the people affected. We urgently need legislation, which must also cover leaseholders who, like those in many of the blocks in my constituency, cannot sell their homes because of the fear that they will have to pay the cost of recladding. This has got to stop.

The hon. Lady is quite right; given the story on the front of the paper, anyone who lived in that block would be worried. We have reassured ourselves that the Greater Manchester fire and rescue service is satisfied that everybody resident in that block is safe tonight, and that there has been sufficient engagement by the owners and managing agents to make sure that the temporary measures that are in place are adequate to keep residents safe.

We understand that there is work under way. I believe that that work has been contracted, but it is yet to be made clear who will pay. We will put pressure on the owners and managers of that building, as we are doing with all owners and managers, to make sure that it is not the leaseholders who pay. At this stage, we are not ruling out any particular measure for making sure that that is the case.

The Housing Minister is doing excellent work on the matter, both behind the scenes and out in front. I have spoken to him about it on a number of occasions. Particularly with private sector buildings where there is no obvious freeholder responsible for replacing the cladding, does he consider that central Government should step in and fund the cost of replacement until it can be established who is responsible for it, after which they should reclaim that money?