Building Safety

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on and that is what we will seek to do.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has been asked by both sides of the House about protecting social landlords and tenants from remediation costs. Will he answer that point, bearing in mind that the biggest social landlords have said that their new housing programmes will be cut by 40% over the next five years if they have to cover fire safety costs themselves? Affordable housing is at particular risk, as yesterday’s fire in New York showed. Will he study the lessons from that fire, especially as some of the victims were on the lower floors, which he appears to say are at lower risk, and that lack of compartmentalisation rather than cladding was the cause of most of the deaths?

[Michael Gove]

I know that the hon. Gentleman, not least as a former council leader, has considerable experience in this area. He is right that the fire in New York reminds us of the range of risk, and he is also right that we need to take appropriate action to ensure that registered social landlords, housing associations and others are not hit adversely. We need to balance a set of competing goods, but ultimately—as he will appreciate—the most important thing is to make sure that people are in decent, safe homes and that there are more decent, safe homes built where people need them.