Grenfell Recovery Taskforce

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I am sorry, that was the point I picked up on. I agree with her that culture has to be pervasive through the whole organisation. I am sure that that would be picked up, but again, that will be looked at by the inquiries. I do not want to prejudge what they will find.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend has not said anything—I wonder if anything is known about it—about the prevalence of the habit that was exposed by the tower fire of tenants of such social housing moving out and letting their accommodation at an extraordinarily large profit to themselves, which enables them to live in much better accommodation somewhere else, and all sorts of people who may have no entitlement whatever to social housing moving in. Are we thinking a bit more about what should be done about that?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, clearly those issues must be looked at at some stage. I am sure my noble friend will appreciate that the tenor of the department’s concern at the moment is dealing with the grief, anguish and injury, and getting people properly rehoused. I will make sure that he gets a response about what is being done by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, but I think the Government are right to ensure that the focus is on rehousing and putting these people’s lives back together. That is not to say that those issues are not important, but I do not think they are as important as these issues.