Building Safety and Resilience

Debate between Alex Norris and Emily Thornberry

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I endorse what the Minister says about our hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). I, too, had the great honour of serving on his Committee many years ago, and at that time the focus was very much on housing.

In relation to building safety in Islington, where we all live on top of each other in flats, in 2021 there were 31 dangerous blocks of flats, which was terrifying for my constituents, many of whom were in fact private tenants, not social housing tenants. We did an audit in my office, and have been pushing. We now have only four blocks left, but it ought to be put on the record how terrifying it was over the years for those local residents, who had to pay for fire watches, could not sell their flats, and did not know what was going to happen. I have not been known for praising the Department over the years, but we are very grateful in Islington South for the support that we have been given by the Department until now.

[Alex Norris]

The right hon. Lady has put that on the record. It speaks to my earlier point about the importance of political will in this space. If we just wait for something to happen, we are not going to see it. There needs to be political grip at the national and local level, and we will certainly play our role in that. On her point about what her constituents lived with, she would have been sitting on the Opposition Front Bench seven years ago—I was behind her—when everybody said, “Never again. What action can we take? No job is too big or small.” But that is not what happened. It was a huge broken promise to the British people—her constituents and beyond.