Grenfell Tower

Debate between Lord Adebowale and Baroness Evans of Bowes Park

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am afraid that I will have to write to the noble Baroness because I do not know the answer to her question about the fire union’s request. I apologise but I will write to her.

[Lord Adebowale (CB)]

Having listened to the Statement and the comments from the House, I cannot help thinking, as a former housing officer, that this dreadful tragedy is a terrible episode in a systemic failure. I recognise that the Government are making every effort to respond to the tragedy—albeit too late—but I wonder whether the Minister might respond to the systemic issues. There is evidence that a letter was sent to the Housing Minister by the APPG—which consists of experts who know about fire safety in buildings—asking for the regulations to be updated. That advice and request should have been responded to some time ago and it would be a shame if a public inquiry stopped it being responded to now. Equally, the concerns that the Grenfell Tower residents sent to their landlord appear to have been ignored, and it would be a shame if a public inquiry stopped those concerns too being responded to immediately. Similarly, the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Bird, about ethnic cleansing cannot be ignored. I cannot help but notice that the skin colour of a number of the people affected by the tragedy happens to be nearer the shade of my skin than that of others. If we are to respond to the systemic issues of this tragedy as well as the episodic ones, we have to look at the allocations policy in local government housing, at the design of social housing and at the paucity of policy leadership in this area. Perhaps the Minister would care to respond to that.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I can certainly reassure the noble Lord that, although the findings of the public inquiry will of course feed into the work that we are doing, that work will not stop, and we are continuing to work on simplifying the guidance on the fire safety building regulations. Therefore, there will not be a stop on the action but the public inquiry will of course play an important part in helping us to ensure that we have a suitable response across all the issues that have led to this tragic accident.