Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Newby and Lord Bishop of Rochester

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 28th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Rochester]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelates the Bishop of St Albans and the Bishop of London have both been involved in earlier stages on the Bill and, regretfully, neither is able to be in your Lordships’ House this evening. However, I come with my own background and interests, as a former board member of various housing associations over 25 years and as the former chair of the charity Housing Justice.

As noted by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans has been heavily involved in this matter and has been persistent. He said yesterday that none of us wanted to be in this position at this stage. But while so much of the Bill is welcome—not least the £5 billion which has been referred to—there are continuing and serious concerns, some of which have already been expressed in the debate this evening, about the position of leaseholders and tenants, and particularly certain groups of leaseholders and tenants.

Yes, remediation is a complex matter, but I am sure that it is not so complex that it cannot be worked out. I want to believe that Her Majesty’s Government are sincere in the express desire to protect leaseholders and tenants. The proposed amendments, including one here tonight, are designed to provide time for the Government to bring forward their own statutory scheme. It is the absence of clarity about that scheme and the timetable for it which is the cause of continuing regret on these Benches. Mention has been made already of the loan scheme in relation to buildings under 18 metres and the fact that that is likely to come forward in the context of another Bill. But, of course, that leaves open the questions of the detail and timescale and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, has just observed, there are leaseholders facing those bills today.

We have heard many tragic stories of people with unpayable bills and crippling insurance and service charges. One concern of Members of these Benches is the effect of all that on people’s health and well-being, as well as on their financial capacity. These are important matters; they affect people’s daily lives, mental state and financial futures. While the Bill tackles a number of really important things, it leaves open some others which leave people facing uncertainty and potentially very significant liabilities.

Whatever happens this evening, I know that many in this place and elsewhere will continue to make the cause, because this issue will not go away. I dare to hope that if the Bill does pass this evening, Her Majesty’s Government will bring forward their proposals as soon as possible in the new Session to remove the uncertainty from those who are finding it really difficult to live with. These Benches continue to hold out hope for a more empathetic attitude towards leaseholders.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I begin by declaring my interest as a leaseholder affected by fire safety remediation costs.

This afternoon, I decided to listen to the debate on the Bill in another place to see whether I had been missing something, by just hearing debates here, about the Government’s real reasons for not taking any appropriate action. Instead, I found that the key challenges that have been set out by noble Lords this evening were being made most eloquently by Conservative Back-Benchers. Bob Blackman made the key point that leaseholders have no luxury of time to deal with the demands dropping on their doormats today. Sir Robert Neill made the logical and consequential point that bridging provisions to fund remediation were needed, until the Government had put in place measures to recoup the costs from developers and builders—costs to be met, in the interim, by the Government. As a former Minister, he also made the telling point that the Government would have had time to produce their own amendments, if they had put their mind to it.

The response from the Government was from the right honourable Christopher Pincher, who replied with all the empathy and grace of a Victorian miller faced by workers’ demands to install expensive safety equipment on all the machinery. He also put the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, to shame in his ability to ape Sir Humphrey. Unlike the noble Lord, who at least shows a certain lack of conviction in some of his adjectives, Christopher Pincher had none. In describing this amendment, as we have heard before, he mentioned the uncertainty that it would cause, the lack of clarity and the litigation that would flow, which would be voluminous. He had us almost in tears at the prospect of these terrible consequences.

There was not a word of explanation as to why, given that the Government allegedly want to do what is right, in the seven months since this Bill’s Second Reading they have made no progress whatsoever in bringing forward their own proposals to deal with the issues now. There was not a scintilla of a suggestion, from him, of when there would be certainty for leaseholders. He said that the building safety Bill would be brought forward as quickly as possible and that it would protect leaseholders “as far as possible”. Those two statements are of literally no comfort to somebody facing a bill today. We all know that those phrases “as far as possible” or “as quickly as possible” allow the Government to do whatever they want or not very much at all.

He also had the temerity to say that the Bill should now pass,

“so that people can get on with their lives.”

The one thing certain is that, if this Bill passes unamended, hundreds of thousands of people will not be able to get on with their lives, because overwhelming uncertainty will remain over their financial position and their ability, if they wish to do so, to sell the property in which they live.

The truth is that the Government have shown themselves indifferent to the mental and financial anguish faced by these people today, or else they would have made a meaningful commitment to the timetable for lifting the burden of costs and uncertainty from them. In these circumstances, how can we, in all conscience, pack up our tents now and let the Bill sail into the night? We on these Benches will not do so, and I urge Members across the House to vote for my noble friend’s amendment to bring tenants the relief that they so richly deserve.