House of Lords
Grenfell Tower Inquiry Report
(1 month ago)
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Lord Khan of Burnley
That this House takes note of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry report.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Khan of Burnley) (Lab)
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.
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.
Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)
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 closely followed 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. Central government does not: it made successive mistakes, going back decades, and failed to act on the risks posed by the use of combustible cladding panels and insulation on high-rise buildings. The council—the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea—does not: it turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the repeated legitimate complaints of its residents. The companies involved in the refurbishment—Studio E, Rydon and Harley—do not: they
“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”.
The corporates that supplied the materials—Celotex, Kingspan and Arconic—also do not: again in the words of Sir Martin, they were systematically dishonest and
“engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market”.
The certification bodies and the risk assessors do not, and neither does the fire brigade, despite the individual bravery of its men and women.
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 again, “I don’t recall. I can’t remember”. There were so many lapses of memory, so convenient for all those questioned and 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 and 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? It is up to the Government to try to rebuild that relationship, to ensure 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.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
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.
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?
Lord Best (CB)
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.
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.
Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)
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.
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.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
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?
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.
Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)
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.
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.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
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.
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?
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interests as a vice- chair of the All-Party Group on Fire Safety and Rescue and as a vice-president of the LGA. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, who laid out many of the Hackitt reform proposals that are so essential.
I start by paying tribute to the victims and survivors, many of whom had complained about the lack of safety in their building for many years, and the wider community around Grenfell. They still face many problems every day. I am pleased that the fire services have recognised their own failures but, as the Minister said in his opening speech, that is just the start of the failures of so many bodies, public and private. At the heart of this inquiry report is the evidence of the poor treatment of people, especially those already marginalised in our society. Sir Martin said it was a
“marked lack of respect for human decency and dignity … many of those immediately affected feeling abandoned by authority and utterly helpless”.
This could also be written about the other inquiry reports, such as Windrush and infected blood. All of us, whether Ministers, politicians, officials, staff or members of the public, must constantly challenge our own thinking and behaviour to make sure that we change. The tenant management organisation failed badly. Never again should social housing tenants be regarded as not worthy of safe housing, or treated as Grenfell tenants were treated. Never again should the vulnerable, especially the elderly and disabled, be regarded as not worthy of safety systems to get people out of burning buildings. It seems extraordinary that in the 21st century, and after 40 years of serious fires, we have to fight for the changes needed to ensure that buildings are safe, mainly but not only from fire.
Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s final report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry is blunt that building safety has failed for decades in central government, local government and the construction industry. He says that every death single was avoidable. Can the Minister confirm that, as with the Infected Blood Inquiry report, the Government will review these recommendations at pace? Specific criticism about the deregulation of safety legislation is important. The failures of the construction sector, whether regulators, manufacturing companies, builders, maintenance or management agencies, are also shocking. The 2018 Dame Judith Hackitt report’s 50 reforms for the sector were accepted by Sir Martin Moore-Bick and the last Government in 2019. Key was the golden thread of safety, running through the sector from manufacturing construction to regulation and training. After the Hackitt report was published, the last Government accepted that they should implement it urgently, but it appears that only more consultation happened. The steering group on competencies for building a safer future, a sub-group of the CIC Built Environment Professions Together, has noted that:
“The Hackitt review suggests that a year should be required for completing this work, with updates every quarter. On 5 October 2020, the Competence Steering Group released its final report, Setting the Bar, which includes recommendations designed to produce a new competence regime for construction safety. In December 2018, James Brokenshire launched Building a safer future: an implementation plan”.
On 2 April 2020, in response to the Building a Safer Future consultation, the new Housing Secretary, Robert Jenrick MP,
“announced steps to introduce mandatory sprinkler systems and consistent wayfinding signage in all new high-rise blocks of flats over 11 metres tall”.
However, it went out to consultation and we still wait for government action. Can the Minister say when there will be an update in Parliament on the implementation of the Hackitt recommendations and the publications of the very urgent guidance?
The Fire Safety and Rescue APPG has repeatedly written to Fire Ministers about fire safety in flats over the last two decades. We had real frustration in getting Ministers to answer our questions, whether in person or in writing, including after each of the many serious flat fires and coroners’ reports that predate the Grenfell Tower fire, including Lakanal House. Most Fire Ministers over the last 20 years did not engage, not least because fires of this type were a multi-departmental issue. Speaking as a disabled person, I say that one of the areas that most worried me was that 40% of the disabled residents in Grenfell Tower died. There has been much debate in your Lordships’ House, during the passage of the then Building Safety Bill and other legislation, about how important personal emergency evacuation plans are. The excellent fire safety briefing by Triple A Solutions for Equitable makes a clear distinction between the appropriateness of the provision of PEEPs versus person-centred fire assessments. It also explains, in the subsequent pages, why it is so necessary.
The Local Government Association wrote to Dame Diana Johnson, the current Fire Minister, saying:
“As you will know the report of the second phase of the Grenfell Inquiry is expected to be published this Autumn. It is disappointing that your new Department will still not have implemented the recommendations of the first phase inquiry in relation to personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs) by this point, despite two years having elapsed since the closure of the second consultation on emergency evacuation. We are concerned that this failure may be at odds with the Home Office’s obligations under the Equalities Act and would welcome an opportunity to share our views with you in more detail”.
Dame Diana’s response concerned the recent announcement of the department’s plans to bring forward proposals and its recommendations. She said:
“More information on the detail of the proposals will be shared when we are able, including a formal response to the EEIS+ consultation, and we will engage with the LGA along with other partners in taking these forward”.
That is still very slow, with no firm date in sight.
I want to mention the duty of candour and the machinery of government. One of the most shocking threads through this report is that there has been no sense of responsibility and a lack of curiosity inside various government departments, by both civil servants and Ministers. That is why we have long supported the duty of candour and are pleased that the Government have committed in their manifesto to introduce it. When will legislation for duty of candour arrive? In the meantime, what changes have been made so that civil servants and public agencies always ensure that Ministers are told uncomfortable truths?
Changing the law alone is not enough. We know from when the duty of candour was introduced into the NHS that cultural change is also vital. Therefore, can the Minister outline the Government’s plans for culture change inside government? The Moore-Bick report also says that the machinery of government and its agencies failed the victims, principally through the interdepartmental working. Fragmentation and lack of curiosity resulted in action, delay and obfuscation, which cost lives. Ironically—or perhaps not ironically—this is also a criticism of the Infected Blood Inquiry report, the Hillsborough report and the Post Office Horizon reports. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that everyone across government knows which department is leading and how the current culture can be changed to ensure that no more tragedies like Grenfell can happen again? It is vital that the police and the CPS move at pace to review the report and investigate those individuals and organisations who Sir Martin said deliberately breached the law. Given the pressures on the police and the CPS, will the Government provide extra resources for this? Justice further delayed is justice denied.
Finally, how will the Government report back to Parliament on the progress of the recommendations? I ask this in light of the Dagenham fire in August. A resident of that block has been in touch, saying:
“The cladding on Spectrum Building had been mostly remediated. The cladding on the fifth and sixth floors had been replaced and held up quite well against the fire—the timber frame of the fifth and sixth floors is where the fire continued to spread … But the site clearly wasn’t safe. There was confusion over the alarms. Mandatory documents don’t seem to exist. And, most importantly, after the devastation, no one talks to residents. We have been treated terribly by the private companies who profit from the development. The local authority have done an excellent job in stepping in and helping us”.
I started by noting that we have a record of 40 years of fatalities. Eight years after Grenfell, there is still an urgent need for everyone involved—government, public services, the private construction sector, housing management agents, freeholders—to really dedicate themselves to making sure that Grenfell can never happen again.
Lord Booth-Smith (Con)
My Lords, I begin by saying how much I share the sentiments of my noble friend Lady Sanderson, who spoke with great power at the start. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Porter, who proved that you do not need to speak for very long to make a powerful and important point.
Given the scale of the inquiry report—both the time span it covers and the breadth of its recommendations and subject matter—it is incredibly difficult to know where to start. Noble Lords in the Chamber have covered much of that ground and I do not want to be repetitive. In such circumstances, the best advice I ever received was to begin with the truest of the true, then the rest will take care of itself.
The truest thing I can think of is where I was on the night of the fire. I was living and working in Victoria at the time, and I remember coming home and opening the curtains of my apartment. The sky over west London was lit up. It was not the still-cold light that you sometimes see coming from stadiums or festivals; it was something very different. It moved. I turned on the television and the horror of what was happening unfolded in front of me. I remember, the next day, walking along Buckingham Palace Road near my office, in the late afternoon/early evening. There was ash falling from the sky that hit my coat and covered my shoes.
I share these things not because there is any profound policy insight to be drawn from them; clearly there is not. But any part of an enduring legacy requires the act of remembering—not in a corporate sense, where you check the date on a calendar, but as something personal and deep. If we can remember, we should, and each time we do, however innocuous or tangential it may feel—much as my memories are—the greater memory lives that much longer.
On the policy, like my noble friend Lord Porter, I have not been able to get through the 1,700 pages of the report, but I read through as much of it as I could on the morning of its publication and I have revisited it since. There are two points on it that I want to raise with the Minister, which are important for him to take away.
The first is this question of the pace of remediation. I know that the recent NAO report laid bare the sheer scale of what is left to be done, which the Minister noted at the Dispatch Box. In 2018, I worked on this issue at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and I know at first hand how incredibly complex it is. One of the challenges is that there are multiple different schemes, for want of a better word, for different types of buildings to access different sorts of support, funding and information. If we could go back in time and know everything then that we know now, we probably would not have designed it in that way. A critical part of helping to speed up the pace of remediation is a relentless focus on trying to simplify the process as much as humanly possible, so I encourage the Minister to take that away and try his best, working with the department, to make things simpler.
The second point is on transparency. Information breeds confidence, and one of the things that is important for people, particularly those affected who live in buildings that require remediation, is the feeling not just of frustration that where they are living is not safe but that they have been forgotten. Every time the Government produce an update, make a Statement in the House or generally do anything to show that they are still alive to people’s concerns, it genuinely breeds confidence in the people who are still affected by this. As my noble friend Lord Porter pointed out, the projections for remediation go quite far out—2035 is one I saw in the NAO report and it could go on for much longer, as new challenges emerge. I will leave it there.
The Earl of Lytton (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. The great advantage of being a fair way down the list is that it enables me to strike out some of the things that I would have said in more detail. I too pay tribute to Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s report, as I do to the forbearance of the families of the 72 people who died in the Grenfell tragedy.
The phase 2 report is weighty, forensic and sobering in its implications. As a chartered surveyor, a patron of the Chartered Association of Building Engineers and a member of the fire safety APPG, I find the implications very profound and far reaching.
I cannot not thank your Lordships’ Library, which provided a very helpful and useful briefing note, and all those who have written to me. I must also thank my eldest son, who is my researcher and has been doing some work for me on this, and fellow professionals who have been happy to share some very candid views.
I turn to a point that was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere: we were warned. There were earlier fires, here and abroad, coroners’ reports, reports in particular that followed the Lakanal House fire, and Select Committee and other public body reports. They were noted and filed, with responses made—but, sadly, lessons were largely unlearned. That has to change.
The phase 2 report, in its technical and forensic detail, speaks for itself. I fundamentally agree with all its findings and recommendations, but I need to look at the wider context.
Professor Shane Ewen notes in his book Before Grenfell—I recommend it to any noble Lord—that what he describes as the “neoliberal agenda” of burning red tape and moving to individual responsibility also failed to maintain consistency of oversight, enforce regulation or impose sanctions. The moral hazard that sits behind that arrangement does not need any further explanation from me, but there is a risk of doing this again. The principles of a proportionate approach to fire safety, a tolerable risk, and—it has become a further undefined term—“life-critical” fire safety are all untested. Arguably, they may make things less safe than the building regulations requirements that constructors were supposed to follow and adhere to prior to Grenfell.
This matters in particular to remediation and the requirements of what I can describe only as the rather equivocal PAS 9980. I think that needs a review to make its wording clearer. It is also particularly important to the building regulations’ assumption of “stay put”. Noble Lords will be familiar with fire-resistance criteria of half an hour, one hour or one and a half hours. They have been in regulations since 1965; they were the regulations I grew up with, as it were, when I studied for my profession. They assume that a building has sufficient fire resistance and compartmentation to enable firefighters to access and put out the fire. That is their fundamental purpose.
Adding to the fuel load by incorporating lightweight components—doubtless with the best intention to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—has altered that fundamental understanding entirely, and it has done so while nobody seemed to be taking any notice of what was happening or what the consequences might be. It has all sorts of implications for establishing adequate fire safety in existing buildings. One hopes that new regulations will deal with the ones that will be constructed in the future.
The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Porter of Spalding, on the complexity of buildings is apposite. I have always said that lower height does not necessarily equate to lower risk. I was glad to see the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, nodding, because she and I have argued that, up hill and down dale, in this House, particularly during the passage of the Building Safety Bill.
My point is that safe buildings—in other words, those that resist fire and its spread if it occurs—also protect people: that has to be the fundamental. So I cannot see that a risk-to-life approach that does not start with robust buildings makes logical sense. I invite the Minister to comment on that or perhaps write to me.
The people who had full agency here were those constructing the buildings. It was their choice as to whether they had a clerk of works, what specification they used, which architect and supplier they used, which product they substituted during the process, their relationships with their subcontractors and all the other things—many of which are highlighted by the Farmer report, Modernise or Die, and other reports about the construction sector.
These people need to be held to account, and I yield to no one on this point. It is not good enough to say that if you make a voluntary contribution of however many billions, we will let you off the hook. That must not happen. This has to be dealt with in a way that enables the funding mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, to be provided for somebody who may be made legally responsible for carrying out work but has no means to do so. That has to be dealt with as well.
We have inadequate information on residential block types and their construction risks, despite the seven years we have had to collect that data in detail. We do not account properly. The NAO report earlier this month does not take any account of non-cladding defects, which the House of Commons committee has heard are likely to be equal in scale and cost to the cladding defects. If you are talking about the budget for fixing cladding, you may need to double that figure for the rest of what needs doing.
We are doing nothing about buildings below 11 metres. We do not even know how many there are, how they are constructed or what the risks are, which goes back to my earlier point.
The report does not deal with the residual value attrition of life safety measures on the value of the building. It is all very well saying that something should be life critical. That deals with the human side of things but not the writedown of the property asset itself. It is the property asset that insurers are insuring. When they do not want to insure something, that is what they look at. They do not want the asset reduced to a pile of sticks. This goes back to my earlier point that we need robust buildings to protect people.
We do know some statistics. We have an estimate from the MHCLG of £16.6 billion as a low median figure to remedy cladding defects. According to my calculations, that represents around £50,000 per affected flat—or roughly a fifth of the average value of a flat in England, which is £254,000. To further contextualise, 1,300 buildings in London are under simultaneous evacuation orders as at September 2024. That is a departure from the building regulations “stay put” principle I referred to earlier. But in single staircase buildings, which most of them are, that has implications for people getting out in the event of a fire, and the fire services trying to get in, with fire doors being opened and closed, compromising the rescue process. That is where the second staircase argument comes in. How we will deal with that is an unresolved matter.
Some 11,000 people in England have been decanted from their homes because they are deemed too risky to live in—and the number continues to rise. To put this in a further economic context, house prices across the residential sector in general have risen by 34% since the Grenfell disaster, beating consumer price inflation which is 30%. Leasehold flat prices have risen by just 12% in the same period. If you take inflation into account, it is a negative return. That has significant implications for the inventory value. More to the point, it affects individual households’ spending power, their sense of well-being and their ability to build equity. It affects banks and lenders’ ability to generate money and has a significant effect on the overall economy. I have not tried to work that out, but it ought to be dealt with.
We are not out of the woods yet. The Grenfell report suggests bringing building control under a public body not driven by conflicts of interest. I agree with that but, needless to say, the industry out there is starting to shift as we speak. There is some evidence that those who have been involved in building regulation inspections are migrating to other roles. Why would they not? It is becoming a bit of a toxic area to be involved with. It is probably quite difficult to get professional indemnity insurance and so on. There is attrition going on in their numbers, and the training cannot keep up. If we are not careful, we will run into a situation where projects that might legitimately be expected to go ahead will be stalled because there is not the personnel to keep ahead of that.
There are other areas of specialist expertise—cladding, smoke extraction, staircase design and wider fire safety assessment. We are in deficit of people able to deal with them. Who is to do that and how is it to be funded? I am told that in the year ending September just gone, some 4,000 construction firms became insolvent. That is a very difficult thing to deal with.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, touched on the last point that I wish to make. Ultimately, we are talking about people in their homes—a place that should have been their secure residence from which they conducted their lives, operated their work/life balance, maybe brought up children, established friendships, put down roots and became part of society. The problems that we are faced with of unmortgageable property, sky-high insurance costs and very high fees for general maintenance and management—many of these things were imposed under the Fire Safety Act—are becoming a corrosive factor in what should be these people’s secure place. The mental stress and strain, the repossessions and sell-offs that are still going on, and the fact that people are not being allowed to extend their mortgages—putting them at a real financial disadvantage—must be the most terrifying things that affect home owners in this category. That really has to be addressed because I fear that a very large cohort—it may be 300,000, 400,000 or half a million homes—are affected by this. This has to be looked at most carefully, and I hope the Minister is taking good note of that.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, 72 people were killed by the fire that raged through Grenfell Tower in June 2017. It was the largest single loss of life in a residential building since 1945. That is the scale of the disaster and tragedy that we are debating, and we have heard a very powerful debate today.
Sir Martin Moore-Bick and his team have produced a forensic account of the events in phase 1 of the inquiry and a rigorous analysis of the causes in phase 2. There are 58 recommendations. All must be fully implemented if the 72 lost lives are not to be in vain. Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s powerful conclusion should be the stimulus for government action to address the failings he exposed. My noble friend Lady Pidgeon quoted what he has written, but it is so important that I am going to repeat it:
“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 conclusions of the phase 1 report clearly stated that the primary cause of the deadly fire was the ACM rain-screen panels and the use of combustible insulation foam, combined with a complete failure to comply with building regulations. Phase 2 of the report ruthlessly exposes those whose decisions resulted in 72 people dying. Key among them are the product manufacturers. Arconic produced the rain-screen aluminium composite material—ACM—which in fire tests was shown to be dangerously flammable, especially in the cassette form which was used on Grenfell. The report said that Arconic
“deliberately concealed … the true extent of the danger of”,
using the product “in cassette form”.
Then there were the manufacturers of the foam insulation. According to the report, Celotex
“embarked on a dishonest scheme to mislead its customers and the wider market”,
and Kingspan
“knowingly created a false market in insulation for use on buildings over 18 metres”,
by making claims it knew to be false—and 72 people died.
The report sought the evidence and came to the conclusion that the manufacturers have considerable responsibility for that appalling fire. Therefore, I have questions for the Minister. The Government have written to the manufacturers, but have they prevented them obtaining any further government contracts? Have they provided guidance to councils and other public bodies to do the same? The report clearly finds these product manufacturers culpable in the deaths of 72 people. When are they to be prosecuted for their actions, as the Prime Minister promised?
Other organisations are also culpable. Testing and certification bodies provided the necessary stamp of compliance for the use of the materials that enabled the fire to consume Grenfell Tower so rapidly. The British Research Establishment has a primary function to test whether materials can be used for specific purposes, including fire safety. Yet the report states that the BRE had
“a desire to accommodate existing customers”,
which is damning in itself, but a further comment in the report states that this was done to retain business at the expense of public safety.
The British Board of Agrément issues certificates for products and systems in construction. The materials used as part of the Grenfell Tower refurbishment needed a certificate of worthiness. The BBA published a materially wrong certificate covering the ACM cladding after the manufacturer refused to respond to requests for updated test results. As the report says, the BBA became
“the victim of dishonest behaviour on the part of unscrupulous manufacturers”.
The BRE was privatised in 1997, and the BBA is a regulated company working under a framework provided by UKAS, the national accreditation body. Are the Government considering the status of these companies that are critical to the building safety regime? Should the BRE return to being an organisation with government oversight where the profit motive is not the prime purpose?
The other main contributors to the tragedy are the tenant management organisation and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. My noble friend Lady Thornhill has exposed the culture of incompetence and indifference to the Grenfell Tower residents that led to the way that decisions were made without their interests being paramount. Given what has been said, does the Minister think it is now time to reconsider whether councillors should have a greater role in the governance of local authority housing?
My noble friend Lady Brinton has drawn the attention of the House to the appalling failures in complying with building regulations and to the lack of plans for those with mobility problems. She is of course right, but what is going to be done to put those errors right?
The recommendations in the report include a reference to the arbitrary definition of a high-rise building as being more than 18 metres high or having at least seven storeys, which it concludes is unsatisfactory. Given that this definition is used in funding allocations for remediation, will the Minister provide the reasoning for the definition and say whether the Government are willing to change it?
Since 2017, thousands of people have been living in buildings with dangerous, flammable cladding. The National Audit Office report published this month is critical of the snail-like speed at which remediation is taking place. It estimates that it will be at least 2035 before all buildings identified will have been completed. This is completely unacceptable. People are living in flats knowing that the cladding on the external walls is dangerously flammable, yet it might be another 10 or more years before remediation is done. That is unacceptable. The impact on people living in those flats is emotionally draining as well as financially ruinous, as the costs of a waking watch and extortionate rises in insurance and service charges take their toll.
As remediation occurs, deliberate building defects are exposed—for example, where construction companies failed to insert the fire barriers required by building regulations. These then have to be put right, and the question is who pays?
Leaseholders do not own the building. That is the responsibility of the freeholder, many of whom are finding as many loopholes as possible in the legislation to avoid their responsibilities. The campaign group End Our Cladding Scandal wants the Government to protect all leaseholders from costs to fix all fire risks, not just cladding. Liberal Democrats agree—do the Government?
Seven years on, after 72 horrific deaths and many lives ruined, over half the identified buildings still have not been put right. Over seven years on from Grenfell, we now know what happened and why. What we do not know is when the Government will bring to justice those who are culpable, or when they will force construction companies and developers to pay for their responsibility in building blocks of flats that were dangerously unsafe. When will the Government confirm that leaseholders will not be paying the price for the misdeeds of others?
Seventy-two people died. We have a duty in their memory to put these things right.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this important issue to the House to be debated. I also thank all those noble Lords who have given up their Friday to either take part in or listen to this important debate, which my noble friend Lady Sanderson and I know will be noted by the community of Grenfell. I have been involved with the community since just after the fire, first by working for the Government with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and then as the Minister responsible for the Grenfell community.
The date of 14 June 2017 is one that few of us will ever forget, least of all the wonderful, brave, resilient survivors and bereaved in the Grenfell community whose lives were changed for ever that day. The two reports produced by the inquiry answered some of their questions but left many unanswered, the most important of which are: when will we get justice and who is ultimately responsible? Can the Minister tell the House when he expects these questions to be answered? What engagement are the Government undertaking in the meantime with the communities, especially the bereaved and the survivors?
I will not repeat all the issues and questions raised by my noble friend Lady Sanderson, who, alongside the former MP Nick Hurd, has been a huge supporter of and friend to the Grenfell community, but I support and agree with everything she said. My noble friend and Nick Hurd have ensured that the voices of the Grenfell community have been heard at the very top of government over the last seven years. They understand the Grenfell community, and I urge the new Government to continue to listen to and engage with them.
In this debate we have rightly heard a great deal about the importance of safe housing. As this matter has been explored in great depth by noble Lords on all sides of the House, I will keep my comments about it short, but it is at the forefront of the Grenfell community’s minds. As they have said, no one is safe until everyone is safe.
As far as high-rise buildings are concerned, the Conservative Government allocated substantial funds to remediate and identify at-risk buildings. A £600 million fund was established to replace unsafe aluminium composite material—the cladding type used on Grenfell Tower—and a further £5.1 billion was allocated to the cladding safety scheme and the building safety fund. I hope this new Government will follow our lead and allocate the correct financial support needed into the future because, as we have heard today, there is much more to do.
Unfortunately, as we heard during the inquiry and testimony week, the tragedy of the Grenfell fire had its genesis years before the night of that terrible blaze. There are lessons that need to be learned, especially by local authorities, tenant management organisations and social housing providers.
That said, encouragingly, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has since gone through extensive change. Under the leadership of Councillor Elizabeth Campbell, its culture and commitment to its tenants have been radically improved. Even so, the council will admit that there is more to do, and it has just accepted all the recommendations from the inquiry.
The stigma attached to being a social housing tenant is real. Too often they are not listened to, and too often no action is taken regarding their concerns, and that results in an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness. The passing of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act by the previous Government was noted as a positive move in the inquiry report, and I thank all sides of the House, and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Best, for the support that the Bill was given.
The Grenfell community wanted the social housing sector to be further regulated, and the Conservative Government delivered that. The new regulator now in place is listening to tenants and has the power, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Best, to challenge providers which ignore their tenants’ concerns and provide poor or untimely services.
A further priority of the bereaved and the survivors was the future professionalisation of the social housing sector, ensuring that all staff are suitably qualified to work in that sector, with the skills to understand the tenants and their needs. I ask the Minister to update the House on the progress in implementing that part of the Act.
I also ask the Minister to update us on Awaab’s law. We are waiting for an SI to come through in order for that to be implemented, so I would be grateful for that update.
I thank the regulator. I have met its staff more than once, and their good work came into force very quickly. I encourage them to continue their strong liaison with the tenants and their voice, listening to those tenants for their valuable insights. In that Act we gave them the tools to deal with poor practice, but I ask the Minister to assure the House that those powers will be kept under review and strengthened if necessary.
Seventy-two people died in Grenfell Tower, but that terrible number is by no means the full extent of the suffering caused by the fire. Many others who survived or lived nearby are enduring the physical and mental effects of the fire. It is therefore important that health services for the community have been and will continue to be tailored to their needs.
Before leaving my post in DLUHC I was challenging the health service, both locally and nationally, to continue to provide a bespoke service for the Grenfell community, including monitoring of community health over years, if not decades. That included regular physical and mental health checks that can be easily accessible, including for those survivors who have moved out of area. I ask the Minister to assure the House that that work is continuing and is funded for as many years as necessary.
Of the 72 people who died in the fire, 18 were children. Those children had young friends who had to come to terms with their loss. Other children watched the fire happening that night and have had to live their lives in the sight of the tower ever since. They still walk to school past it every day. Schools and their teachers have played a crucial part in the lives and well-being of these children over the last seven years. These schools have supported, signposted, protected and cared for these children through very difficult times, and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude. However, additional services cost money. There was a question regarding how these school services were funded, and we want to know how they will continue to be funded to do this essential work. Therefore, I ask the Minister to ensure that these issues continue to be discussed and solutions found.
Many of the children affected saw things no child should ever witness. Now these children are growing up and taking their first steps into the world as young adults. It is important not only that we support them in their career choices and further education, but that we support their mental health as they traverse this stage of life, so that they can manage their trauma and stand on their own two feet as happy and thriving adults. I urge the Minister to ensure that services are readily available in a timely manner and that they are properly funded.
The Grenfell inquiry is a damning indictment of 30 years of successive industry and state failures. The previous Government started to put these wrongs right, and it is now up to our new Government to continue this important work. For the Grenfell bereaved and survivors, peace will come only with justice. I urge the Government to ensure this happens as soon as possible, while paying all due regard to the complexities of the legal process. We will, as His Majesty’s Opposition, ensure that the Government continue to make the Grenfell community a priority and that the recommendations of the report are delivered. We are always here, as His Majesty’s Opposition, to help.
My thoughts are, as always, with the bereaved, the survivors, and the wider community that is Grenfell. You are always in my prayers.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for the interest shown across the House. The points considered and the fulsome debate on the important findings and recommendations of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry have been very pertinent.
It is clear that there are strongly held views, and passionate arguments have been made. I am pleased that an update on our progress on several of the key issues raised, including on our plans to increase the pace and quality of remediation, will be made imminently in the other place. I am in an unenviable position, in that a lot of the announcements on the progress on remediation will be made in the other place, hopefully in the coming days. But I will respond to many of the points raised across the House today.
I am glad to see the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, on the Front Bench. She delivered an excellent speech and has done brilliant work for many years, working closely with the Grenfell community. The noble Baroness made numerous points. Let me start by talking about the Joint Select Committee and the inquiry into the national oversight mechanism. The Government are grateful to the House of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee for its inquiry into the efficacy of the law and practice relating to public inquiries. The Cabinet Office is considering the findings and recommendations in detail and will respond in due course.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, also asked for details on the delivery framework and the communication of implementation. I agree that it is vital that we carefully consider the inquiry’s recommendations and drive delivery at pace. We will not allow this important work to drift. We remain committed to tracking the performance and pace of reforms through regular assessments, data collection and analysis. We will ensure that any method of monitoring is extensive, transparent, unambiguous and accessible to the Grenfell community, as we have done for phase 1 of the report. We will set out monitoring proposals in due course, but we do take on board the noble Baroness’s feedback.
On the review of the civil contingencies mechanisms and the Act in particular, we are carefully considering all the recommendations in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 2 Report and have committed to responding within six months. We will be looking to provide answers to specific questions, but there is a clear commitment to respond to the recommendations within six months. That was made clear by the Prime Minister.
The Government are also supporting the community for the long term, an issue that was raised a number of noble Lords. The Deputy Prime Minister has already written to and met with some of the Grenfell community and is keen to continue to meet them to hear directly about the issues that are important to them. A number of noble Lords raised the issue of communication, especially talking to the bereaved, including victims’ families. We will make sure we keep that conversation and those discussions at the heart of the process.
The noble Baroness asked about the creation of one department. The Government are carefully considering this recommendation, as well as others.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, in a very detailed contribution, spoke about the lack of investment in social housing. We will bring forward details of future government investment in social and affordable housing at the spending review. We will work with mayors and local authorities to consider how funding can be used in their areas, and support devolution. We are committed to delivering 1.5 million houses in this Parliament, and the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation. The Government are also adding £500 million to the affordable homes programme to kick-start the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation.
Social housing reform was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Best—he was eloquent, as always, on this issue, of which he has vast experience—and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. Since the Regulator of Social Housing’s new regulatory regime went live in April 2024, routine inspections of larger landlords’ properties have begun, with the first new gradings published to make clear how landlords are performing. These reforms will help drive a transformational change in culture, a theme which has run through many contributions today. A transformational change in culture and behaviour is needed across the social housing sector. It is essential that everyone working in social housing treats tenants with empathy, courtesy and respect.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, has met with the Regulator of Social Housing. The regulator has begun inspections and will be holding everybody to account on the new standards, applying stronger enforcement powers where necessary. I know that the noble Lord has had that conversation with her.
In early 2025 we will take further steps towards ensuring that all social homes are safe, decent and warm by consulting on a decent homes standard and new minimum energy efficiency standards for the social rented sector. Also in 2025, we will direct the Regulator of Social Housing to set a new competence and conduct regulatory standard, to which I have previously referred. This will ensure that all housing staff have the skills and knowledge needed to carry out their roles effectively, and that they are held to account on treating residents fairly and with respect at all times. We will also direct the regulator to set new access to information requirements for housing associations. This will enable housing association tenants to access information about the management of their social housing and to hold their landlords to account.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, mentioned whistleblowers. I agree that it is imperative that workers feel able to raise concerns when they see them. As a whistleblower, you are protected by law; you should not be treated unfairly or lose your job because you have blown the whistle. You can take a case to an employment tribunal if you have been treated unfairly because you have blown the whistle.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Porter and Lord Carter, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, raised the progress and the pace of remediation. We will be setting out further measures soon through the remediation action plan to increase the pace of building remediation and deliver for residents and leaseholders. The Deputy Prime Minister has had a round table with mayors, regulators and national building and safety bodies to press the urgency of this work. Further steps to increase the pace of remediation will be set out soon in the other House.
It was important for the House to hear the passionate speech of the noble Lord, Lord Porter, who clearly has skin in the game. Where low-rise buildings have been brought to our attention, we are writing to freeholders and managing agents in affected buildings to make sure that any proposed works are necessary and proportionate, and that the rights to redress are being fully utilised. A number of noble Lords mentioned this.
Following the passage of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act, we are delivering an extensive programme of reform. I talked directly to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, about her particular points. The Chancellor reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to improving building safety, with the total spend on remediation in 2025-26 to rise to over £1 billion. This includes some new money in 2025-26 to begin to accelerate the remediation of social housing.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Porter, touched on the theme of justice. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government established a recovery strategy unit to use powers in the Building Safety Act to pursue the most egregious actors who have failed to make homes safe. The unit is seeking to recover £72 million of leaseholder and taxpayer funds to pay for remediation work, impacting 1,200 homes.
On the investigation, the Met Police and courts are independent. As the Met Police has said, this will take time. It is one of the largest and most legally complex investigations ever conducted by the Met Police, with around 180 officers and staff dedicated to it. Decisions on the level of special grant funding will be made as part of the considerations on the wider police funding settlement. The Home Office is working closely with the Metropolitan Police Service finance team to understand and manage the position on funding.
We have provided over £14 million to local authorities for them to take increased enforcement action against those whose buildings remain unsafe, as well as providing regulators with the powers needed to act. The building safety regulator has extensive enforcement powers and will hold those who are not complying with their responsibilities to account.
My noble friend Lord Stevenson talked in particular about manufacturers, construction products and the need for reform. We will bring forward comprehensive proposals for system-wide reform of the construction products regime to give consumers confidence and underpin supply chains and housing delivery. We are committed to working with the sector on this system-wide reform, including examination of the institutions that play a key role in the construction products regime, so that businesses and consumers can have confidence in the products and services they purchase.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, raised a point about freeholders who do not accept culpability. Where buildings are delayed, we will work to unblock this and our enforcement team will engage with local regulators to support them in using their enforcement powers where appropriate. Where freeholders are undertaking their duties appropriately and at pace, the department works to support them in unblocking factors beyond their control.
The noble Baroness also talked about justice for those affected by the tragedy. The police were not able to take legal proceedings forward with the CPS before the conclusion of this inquiry due to legal obligations, because the report was required to be considered as a third-party disclosure.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, raised a number of points. The first was about personal emergency evacuation plans—PEEPs. We must ensure that the most vulnerable in our society are protected. Following public consultations and engagement with organisations representing those with disabilities, the Home Office will soon bring forward proposals to improve the fire safety and evacuation of disabled and vulnerable residents in high-rise and higher-risk residential buildings. This will mean that residents with disabilities and impairments will be entitled to a person-centred risk assessment to identify appropriate equipment and adjustments to aid their fire safety and evacuation, as well as a plan involving a statement that records what vulnerable residents should do in the event of a fire. The Government have committed funding next year to bring this important work forward. More information on funding will be available when the policy for the residential personal emergency evacuation plans is published. On the timescale, the Home Office is planning to lay the regulations as soon as possible, with a view to the proposals coming into force in 2025-26.
A number of noble Lords talked about the duty of candour, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornhill, Lady Brinton and Lady Scott. As outlined in the King’s Speech, we will deliver on our manifesto commitment to implement a Hillsborough law to place a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities. The Prime Minister has made it clear that the Bill will enter Parliament before the next anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster.
On the culture point, which was also raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, the Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of all civil servants to uphold the Civil Service’s core values, which are: integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality. The code makes it clear that civil servants must
“set out the facts and relevant issues truthfully”
and
“must not … knowingly mislead ministers, Parliament or others”.
The specific scope of the duty in the forthcoming Bill is part of ongoing policy development. More information will be brought forward in due course.
On the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, about building control standards, making building control a regulated profession with a transparent register of registered building inspectors is just one of the steps that we have taken towards achieving improved standards in the sector, but we will continue to review the building control system to ensure that those aims are met.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, talked about the Hackitt recommendations. The Government accepted all 53 of Dame Judith’s recommendations in her Building a Safer Future report, and work has been done to implement these since 2018.
A number of noble Lords talked in particular about parliamentary scrutiny of public inquiries, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Sanderson and Lady Thornhill, and the noble Lords, Lord Carter and Lord Booth-Smith. The Prime Minister has already committed to responding to the inquiry within six months and to updating Parliament annually on our progress against every commitment that we make. The Government are also grateful to the House of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee for its inquiry into the efficacy of the law and practice relating to public inquiries more broadly. I know that the Cabinet Office is considering the findings and recommendations in detail and will respond in due course. The Government are grateful for all the work that this House is doing on that point.
I agree that it is vital that we carefully consider the inquiry’s recommendations and deliver at pace. We will not allow that important work to drift; we will remain committed to tracking the performance and pace of reforms through regular assessments, data collection and analysis. We will ensure that any method of monitoring will be extensive, transparent, unambiguous and accessible to the Grenfell community.
The noble Lords, Lord Porter and Lord Carter, touched on the “stay put” policy on evacuation alert systems. If a building requires remediation to address issues that could compromise the “stay put” building strategy, the strategy will change to simultaneous evacuation, with interim measures being put into place to support residents’ ability to evacuate. The building will revert back to a “stay put” policy only when the remediation is complete and it no longer presents a significant fire risk. An evacuation strategy can be changed during an incident by the fire and rescue Service, which can judge from the situation whether it needs to be changed.
On the issue of sprinklers, they are recognised as an effective means of controlling fire, but they are only one of several measures. There are other measures that can make a building safe. On the point from the noble Lord, Lord Carter, on Approved Document B, it makes provision for sprinklers in all new care homes, and for existing care homes some owners may choose to retrofit sprinklers as part of their overall fire strategy, while others may opt for alternative measures that may be more appropriate.
The Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government has accepted that successive years of deregulatory policy and financial constraints have impacted the ability of the department to do its job properly. Clearly, that is unacceptable, and the systems that we have today are not those of 2017. A few steps have been made to tighten regulations and enforcement, but more needs to be done. Some £16.5 million in funding has been provided to support the recruitment and training of 230 new building control surveyors, and an additional £3.5 million has been made available to support the upskilling of building inspectors in local authorities.
The Deputy Prime Minister has made it clear that the Government will work in partnership with local authorities to build the foundations of local government. The recently announced leaders’ council will give councils a voice at the heart of government; it will bring together local government leaders and Ministers to jointly tackle problems and deliver for communities that we serve. That approach will help to deliver recommendations from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, particularly those that have an effect on the point of the local authority-related areas.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, raised a point in relation to the construction industry. The Building Safety Act has created powers to introduce additional construction product regulations, including a general safety requirement and requirements for safety-critical products that will enable all construction products available on the domestic market to be regulated.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked about the Dagenham fire. Barking and Dagenham Council provided emergency accommodation in local hotels for all 31 households that needed it, with suitable move-on accommodation being secured.
The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, made a strong contribution and I really value the expertise that he brings. On the “stay put” strategy, which I have mentioned before, that depends upon buildings being properly constructed, refurbished and maintained to building safety regulations. If a building requires remediation to address issues that could compromise a “stay put” strategy, and therefore has not been built or maintained correctly, that strategy will be changed to simultaneous evacuation, with interim measures put in place to support the residents’ ability to evacuate.
The supply chain of skilled professionals who are able to meet the sector’s demands is delicate. Good fire engineers are in short supply, contractor capacity for remediation work may be insufficient and the rates of remediation are not rapid. We will address these issues in the plan that will be announced imminently.
In concluding, I recognise that I may not have covered all noble Lords’ points. I will write to colleagues on specific areas. What the inquiry has demonstrated, and what today’s debate has shown, is that the housing sector needs fundamental change. What happened at Grenfell Tower must never be allowed to happen again. There must be a rebalancing of power that gives voice and respect to every citizen, whoever they are and wherever they live.
But, unbelievably and unacceptably, seven years on people across the country continue to live in potentially unsafe homes. It has taken far too long to make their buildings safe. This Government will imminently set out plans to increase the pace of remediation, protect leaseholders from additional costs and ensure that those who are responsible for the building safety crisis pay to help put it right.
The housing sector must act now to fix the unsafe buildings that need fixing, to change behaviour and culture, to rebuild the confidence and trust of residents and to deliver the 1.5 million safe and secure homes that we have committed to delivering in this Parliament, which this country so desperately needs.
I am conscious that there is such expertise in this House and make clear my commitment to sit down with noble Lords across the House to have further discussions. I appreciate all the feedback from across the House in today’s very important debate and look forward to meeting a number of noble Lords on this area. My door is always open to make sure that we improve lives for everybody to live in safe, secure and prosperous homes.