Flammable Cladding Removal

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Rushanara Ali

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Would the hon. Lady mind saying, “Would the hon. Lady agree” rather than “Would you agree”?

[Rushanara Ali]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. As the Minister can see, this is a short debate but there is a lot of interest and concern, and I hope that he will hear these concerns and address these points, and that he will really look carefully at how we can unblock these issues so that people can get the results they need so that they can live safely.

One of my constituents said:

“I spend all day stressed at the thought of losing my home. At night I am anxious about the possibility of fire. I haven’t slept well for months and do not see any end in the situation. I am trapped. I cannot sell and I am not allowed to rent the flat out. I am forced to stay here. It now feels like a prison.”

Another said: “I feel suicidal.” Another said:

“I can’t sleep from worry. Because of covid-19 I could lose my job any day now, and when that happens I won’t be able to pay my mortgage or sell my flat. Because of the cladding, I will end up losing everything I have worked for. It’s a big worry that affects my mental health and sleep. It is not fair for the Government to allow housing associations and construction companies to sell us unsafe houses, and we are now getting punished for their mistakes.”

Housing providers have an obligation to ensure that they are doing everything they can to make buildings safe, but the Government have the ultimate responsibility to ensure that they have access to the funds needed to do so. The Government took a long time before providing the funds and gave private developers and freeholders plenty of time to get their act together, but they have not done so. It is time the Government used their powers to make this happen. Ministers have said repeatedly that private owners of buildings have the responsibility to act, but the Government are shirking their responsibility by leaving it to the good will of building owners—many with complex ownership structures based in other countries, including for tax avoidance purposes—to apply for a limited first come, first served fund or to pay for the works themselves. Many have found cunning ways to avoid paying anything, leaving our constituents high and dry, unable to live safely in their homes. This is unacceptable. It has to stop. Our Government must act and go after those owners. We have said this time and again, and it has not happened.

I call on the Minister to address the following questions. Will he explain what powers he will use to make private developers and freeholders end the delays and remove the cladding? Will he increase the building safety fund to cover the costs of removing cladding and other fire risks to all buildings in that position? Will he provide a clear timeline for remediation that the Government will stick to? What plans does he have for ensuring that upcoming legislation improves fire safety and building regulation? Will he consider primary legislation that goes far enough to prevent another tragedy, as well as increased funding and resources for the fire services to carry out vital preventive inspection work?

Finally, I draw the Minister’s attention to the recommendation of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee that the Government should give urgent consideration to the establishment of a new national body whose sole purpose is to purchase the freehold and manage the remediation of buildings with serious fire safety defects. Any residential building where works have not commenced by December 2020 should be subject to a compulsory purchase order. The national body would step in where overburdened local authorities are unable to act. Once remediated, buildings should be converted to commonhold and returned to leaseholders. In my view, that is a reasonable and proportionate way forward if companies do not act. I hope the Minister will consider that suggestion. If he will not, we just need action. If he comes up with another creative way to make things happen to keep our constituents safe, now is the moment to set out his plans, and I hope he will.

After Grenfell, the then Prime Minister said:

“My Government will do whatever it takes to…keep our people safe.”

Three years on, this Government have been found wanting. I implore the Minister and the Government to honour the commitments that were made by his party in government when this tragedy happened. It was a man-made disaster that should have been avoided. We need to learn from that and make sure that we all do everything we can to keep people safe. The Government must honour their commitments and honour those who lost their lives, make the funds available, and create the legal framework and the requirements to make sure that our constituents can live without fear safely in their homes.

Private Tower Blocks: Removal of Cladding

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Rushanara Ali

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

I have secured this debate to highlight the grave danger facing thousands of people living in privately owned high-rise blocks in my constituency—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We cannot have leftover conversations from the last debate getting in the way of the hon. Lady’s speech. It is important that she is heard.

[Rushanara Ali]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I secured this debate to highlight the grave danger facing thousands of people living in privately owned high-rise blocks in my constituency and up and down the country. I am referring, of course, to the presence of aluminium composite material—ACM—cladding on tower blocks that are owned by private companies, not council or housing associations. The danger is real and deeply worrying but can easily be alleviated if Ministers decide to take action. I hope that the Minister will today set out a firm plan of action with a clear set of deadlines to put the situation right.

It is unlikely that many of us would have been aware or known what ACM cladding was were it not for the terrible tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire. On the terrible night of 14 June 2017, 72 people lost their lives, and many more were injured, lost their homes and suffered a trauma that they are likely to carry with them for the rest of their lives. It was a trauma shared by the whole nation, which watched this needless tragedy.

It is clear that ACM cladding contributed to the speed with which the fire spread up and down the building, and to the loss of life. This was an avoidable, man-made disaster. Shockingly, the nation then discovered that this kind of cladding and similar flammable cladding is present on hundreds of blocks and other buildings around the country. In the immediate aftermath, Ministers promised swift action to replace ACM and other flammable materials on high-rise blocks, but instead, we have seen unacceptably slow progress, and 22 months later, 345 high-rise buildings with ACM panels have yet to be made safe.

Rohingya Refugee Crisis

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Rushanara Ali

Thursday 20th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali]

Let me start by expressing my gratitude to my hon. Friends and other Members, especially my co-sponsor the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), for taking time to contribute to this debate ahead of Christmas. Everybody has spoken passionately and with conviction and courage about the importance of the need for the British Government to act, and we have highlighted our own experiences of why we need to act. I am grateful to the Minister for the work he has been doing and for what he has said.

Let me sum up and reiterate some of the points made by my hon. Friends and Members in all parts the Chamber. The first is the importance of the reform of citizenship laws and the protection of all minorities—especially the Rohingya population, given the scale of the disaster, but also other minorities, including Christian minorities. There are conflicts throughout Burma that affect humanitarian access for other minorities, such as the Kachin.

Along with its humanitarian dimension, the particular focus of the motion is the need to seek an International Criminal Court referral through the United Nations. The Minister highlighted very well the complexities of getting such a referral, and we understand them, but we need to remind ourselves of some of the remarks that have been made, including “If not now, when?” If the Minister is not prepared to say when, for the reasons that he has explained—we fully appreciate the complexity and difficulty of international diplomacy—will he please make the commitment that he, and perhaps even the Foreign Secretary, will regularly report to the House, without our having to spend months trying to secure a Backbench debate that then gets delayed because of the wider crises that we face in this country, particularly given the uncertainties of Brexit and a potential no-deal situation?

The point about the referral and accountability and justice is well made and important. We are particularly passionate and determined that this foreign affairs team—the current Foreign Secretary, with the Minister and his colleagues—take action, because they have shown the greatest commitment so far. That includes the Foreign Secretary’s recent visit to Burma and his discussions with some of us before and after that. I am grateful for the time that has been given to involve Members of the House. This team has shown the most commitment to trying to get results, so we need to seize that opportunity, because we have had a lot of change, with a number of Ministers having moved. Although we have the Government’s commitment and understanding, we need action. Otherwise, we will keep coming back here to remind and re-educate subsequent Ministers, not because they do not care, but because they are having to learn fast, as this Minister had to do when, as a new Minister, he stood in this Chamber to respond to an urgent question when this crisis began. That is why we are absolutely determined to ensure that the Government take much stronger action and report back—every few months, I hope—with some results, rather than have us go round in circles.

The points on the issues relating to protection, particularly of women and children, are well made. I urge the Minister to make sure that DFID does more and that we do more to ensure that the outstanding funding is provided for the appeal, because without medium to long-term funding, the hand-to-mouth existence is going to cause further devastation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) mentioned the Jordan compact as a way of learning what else could be done and supporting host populations, as has been the case in Jordan in respect of Syrian refugees. It is important that DFID and the Foreign Office explore those options. On the conditions in the camps, the International Development Committee highlighted the 200,000 people who would have been at risk if landslides had taken place as a result of flooding and cyclones. There is a real risk that that could happen next year. I know from spending the first seven years of my life in Bangladesh that the climate is very difficult, so I hope the Minister will do more with the Department to ensure that more support is provided.

I want to thank all the international and domestic non-governmental organisations that have supported the efforts, both in Rakhine and in Bangladesh. I particularly thank the Burma Campaign UK and Refugees International, which first took me to Burma when I was a newly elected MP, in very challenging circumstances. I also thank the faith organisations—the mosques, synagogues and churches—which have raised so much money; British nationals have raised so much money and shown so much generosity. I echo the appeal made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) for people to donate ahead of this Christmas to support people who are struggling to survive. I thank all of my colleagues for giving their time and sticking with this very important issue, because genocide cannot be taken lightly. That is why we must act.

I wish to thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for indulging us, and me in particular, in allowing me to speak for a bit longer than two minutes. I wish you a very happy Christmas, and I wish all colleagues, especially my co-sponsor, a very happy Christmas and new year.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her good wishes. I have allowed speeches to take rather longer than they ought to have this afternoon because this is a very difficult subject, and some powerful and impassioned speeches have been made. It breaks my heart to think of the way in which this Chamber and this Parliament are criticised for what happens for half an hour a week, given that for the other 40 hours of the week that we sit here in this Chamber and this Parliament we do some very good and important work. I am grateful to everybody who has taken part in this debate this afternoon, and I only wish that those who observe us would look now and see how positive and beneficial this Parliament is to the nation and indeed to the world.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House is deeply concerned by the ongoing humanitarian crisis facing Rohingya refugees; agrees with the findings of the UN fact-finding mission that genocide and war crimes have been carried out against the Rohingya by senior Myanmar military figures; calls on the Government to pursue an ICC referral for Myanmar through the UN Security Council; and further calls on the Government to put pressure on the United Nations to prevent the repatriation of the Rohingya from Bangladesh to unsafe conditions in Myanmar and continue to provide assistance to Rohingya refugees.