Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 1 Report

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

rose—

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I had better make some progress, but I will return to my hon. Friend in a moment.

The Bill we will bring forward later this year will be the first step towards the new regulatory framework that will implement the recommendations of the phase 1 report’s legislative requirements. Under the Bill, building owners and managers will be required to share information with fire and rescue services on external wall systems, and undertake regular inspections of flat entrance doors. The Home Office will consult on the detail of the proposals in spring this year.

That legislative action will address many of the inquiry’s recommendations and forms part of the wider Government response to ensure that action is taken against unsafe cladding. My Department has already introduced a ban on combustible materials on the external walls of new buildings over 18 metres, and, as I have said, made available £600 million in Government funding to support that work.

Sir Martin’s report concluded that it was not just the materials of the building that contributed to the tragedy: more people could have survived the fire had the London Fire Brigade conducted a full evacuation earlier in the night. He recognises existing Government guidance stating that fire and rescue services should have contingency plans for when a building needs full or partial evacuation, and noted that the London Fire Brigade policies were in this respect deficient.

[Andy Slaughter]

In the Minister’s statement yesterday there was not anything that I saw about evacuation and changes to the stay-put policy, which would be a huge change that would have implications for means of escape, alarms, sprinkler systems and so on. When can we expect the Government to pronounce on that?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will come on to that point in just a moment, if I may.

Sir Martin recommended that the Government produce national guidelines for carrying out the evacuation of high rise residential buildings. I am now working closely with colleagues in the Home Office on those guidelines. My Department and the Home Office have formed a steering group with the National Fire Chiefs Council and other experts, which met for the first time in December. The group agreed on the scope of an evidence review into stay put and evacuation. Let me reiterate, however, that the advice from the National Fire Chiefs Council is that stay put remains an appropriate policy providing compartmentation is maintained. In fact, Sir Martin highlighted that effective compartmentation is likely to remain at the heart of fire safety and the response to fires in high rise buildings. I think that that is an important point that we should all bear in mind in how we communicate on these issues to members of the public.

A number of recommendations made by Sir Martin were for the London Fire Brigade, and for fire and rescue services more widely across the country. The firefighters serving that night showed exceptional bravery and dedication. I would like to pay tribute to their courage, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister did last year. However, the report made very clear that there were failures in the London Fire Brigade’s response. Significant changes are needed in its policies, guidance and training, including on evacuation procedures. We know that fire and rescue services across the country need to have the training and processes in place to be able to respond as effectively as possible to fires in residential buildings. The control rooms that co-ordinate emergency responses must have the processes in place to deal with all incidents effectively.

I am pleased that London Fire Brigade has already rolled out fire survival guidance training, and is reviewing its policies and guidance in the light of the inquiry’s recommendations. It is important that all our emergency services have proper protocols in place to ensure that they can work together and communicate effectively in an emergency. The Home Office is working with the interoperability board to ensure that those lessons are learned. While these recommendations are not aimed directly at the Government, clearly the Government have a role and we will not sit back.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I will begin by expressing my admiration and respect for the survivors and families of the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, many of whom I have had the honour of meeting over the past two and a half years. I also pay tribute to my friend and colleague, Emma Dent Coad, former MP for Kensington, who made Grenfell the focus of her two and a half years in this place. She will continue to do that as a local councillor, resident, and champion of Grenfell. In a way, it is not surprising that Grenfell became the focus of Emma’s life, because it is such an all-encompassing tragedy with so many aspects to it, some of which we are trying inadequately to explore in this debate.

I know that one of the first things Emma would say is, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) mentioned, what about the residents who have not been permanently and properly rehoused? What about the future of the site? What is going to happen to the tower? From my constituency a few hundred yards away, we see it every day. It is a very visible part of the landscape. I do not know why it was not mentioned by the Secretary of State in opening the debate. Perhaps the Minister, in closing, will deal with those points. We need to know, for the whole area and indeed for the whole country, how we are going to move forward.

I felt, with due respect to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), that yes, she is right to talk about issues of cladding and responsibility for those who manufactured, fitted, commissioned and so on, but that is only one aspect. We all have to share blame. The Government have to share blame, as well as local authorities, tenant management organisations, cladding companies and everybody else who has been engaged in this situation. I do not want to take too much time, so I will focus on just three issues—building type, evacuation policy and the cause of fires—but clearly there are many more.

The Government have only scratched the surface of what needs to be done. Perhaps in the first few months or even the first year it was not clear exactly what remedial actions needed to be taken, but I think it is becoming increasingly clear now. We have talked about height and the fact that there are types of high rise buildings that are not included. Yes, in terms of either the removal of cladding or a ban on combustible materials for new build, but what about offices, schools and hospitals? What about high risk buildings, of whatever height, such as care homes? Should we not be looking at all types of building with dangerous forms of cladding where there is a substantial risk? Should we not be looking at other forms of cladding beyond ACM and HPL—high-pressure laminate? Other dangerous building materials are in use at the moment.

There is a constant feeling that the Government are taking things very slowly and step by step, and perhaps getting there but not getting there nearly fast enough. Should we not look at the testing regime? There has been a lot of criticism of the BS 8414 test, because it does not necessarily replicate the conditions that exist in buildings as they have been constructed. Buildings sometimes have faults in construction, but also features such as vents and windows that are not reflected in that test. Why is the Euroclass classification system, which clearly differentiates non-combustible from combustible materials, not the driving force in deciding what is and is not fit for purpose? Why are we concentrating only on new build when there are so many existing buildings that have different types of materials with different degrees of combustibility? Yes, it is a huge task. As soon as one begins to look at it in detail, it ramifies in every direction. But surely if we are going to ensure the safety of the hundreds of thousands of people who live and work in high rise buildings—or stay in them, if they are hotels—we have a duty as a society to do that? There is a feeling that this is not being done at the speed it could be by the Government because it is too difficult, too complex and too expensive.

I mentioned earlier in my intervention the issue of evacuation. The Government have accepted the recommendations in part 1 of the inquiry report. They include, under evacuation, the development of

“national guidelines for carrying out partial or total evacuations”

and that

“fire and rescue services develop policies for…evacuation”.

It also recommends that owners and managers do the same and that there are alarm systems that can be used to alert residents about evacuation—indeed, that policy can specifically be developed for managing a transition from “stay put” to “get out”. Two and a half years on, I want to know when that will be done. When are we going to have that response from Government?

The situation is complicated and it has, as I indicated, many implications. If a building is going to be evacuated, residents clearly have to be alerted, there has to be an alarm system, and there has to be a secure means of escape. The problem at Grenfell was that there was one relatively narrow staircase. High rise buildings are being constructed now with one fairly narrow staircase. When will we get new design guidelines that allow for the possibility of secure evacuation?

I heard what was said about compartmentation. “Stay put” may well remain the general policy, but even if there are one or two exceptions a year, we have to be prepared for and be able to deal with them. It is unthinkable that another Grenfell could take place in this country in our lifetime, and that will only be the case if we deal with all the issues that have arisen.

Are we going to have sprinkler systems fitted, and not just, as the Minister indicated—I hope he will stick to this—for buildings of 11 metres and above? Are we going to retrofit? I spent the morning at the all-party fire safety and rescue group. We had an interesting presentation from the chief fire officer of Staffordshire, who said that there are 47 high rise residential buildings in Staffordshire—that is not very many; it is perhaps not a county that is renowned for its high rise buildings. Nevertheless, that has been taken sufficiently seriously, and by the end of this year—I think this is right—30 of the 47 will be retrofitted with sprinkler systems. Why is that not being done across the country? Why is that not being led by the Government?

There is no example in which, when sprinkler systems have worked in residential buildings, they have not worked to suppress fire. There are complications where there are leaseholders who decline to have sprinkler systems fitted in individual flats, but they can be fitted in communal areas and where leaseholders allow, or in tenanted properties. It is perfectly possible to have that done, at no great cost. I think it is unforgivable not to—that goes back to the point made by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead. We will wait to see what is in part 2 of the report, but it is very likely that flammable cladding and insulation—which had been put on the outside of Grenfell—was the primary cause of fire spread and that without that we would not have had the tragedy. However, if there had been evacuation plans and sprinkler systems in that block, it is also likely that a number of those deaths would have been prevented. We have to take every possible step that we can.

Finally, I think it is now accepted that the cause of the fire in Grenfell was a fridge-freezer. The cause of the major fire in Shepherd’s Court, a tower block in my constituency, the year before was a tumble dryer. We now have the second major recall within a year of electrical goods: over 500,000 Indesit washing machines have a fault and there have so far been nearly 80 fires —that we know of—or “thermal incidents”, as they are known. There is increasingly a trend where electrical goods, whether this is due to poor design, poor manufacture or faults in the way that they are operated, are causing huge numbers of fires. These can lead—particularly in high-rise buildings or buildings with dense populations—to tragedies of the type we have seen. It is not the Minister’s Department—it is the responsibility of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy—but it clearly needs work across Government. When will we see firm actions such as the compulsory registration of electrical goods so that recall can be done effectively? These issues are the responsibility of Government. The buck should not be passed on to anyone. We need not just firm but quick action. I hope that some of the lessons in part 1 of the inquiry will be learned and that the Minister and the Government will take action quickly.

Building Safety

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Yes, I think we may all welcome that in the coming months.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

There is confusion about the “stay put” policy and tall buildings being approved with single staircases. What has happened to the review of means of escape?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will write to the hon. Gentleman with an answer.

Social Housing

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) on his tireless work and campaigning on this incredibly important issue. I am sure that, as it is for me, 50% to 60% of the casework of every Member is on issues of social housing and the lack of it.

We can look back at Labour’s record and think that we could have and should have done more, but let us not take any criticism from those on the Government Benches. Under Labour, between 1997 and 2010, there were 2 million more homes, there were 1 million more homeowners and we saw the biggest investment in social housing in a generation. Fast forward to the present day and there are now 1.2 million people on housing waiting lists throughout the country. What was the Government’s response? Just 6,464 social homes in 2017-18—the second lowest total on record. At this rate, it will take 172 years to give everyone on the current waiting list a social rented home. That is simply a diabolical rate when compared with the 150,000 social homes that were delivered each year in the mid-1960s, or the 203,000 council homes delivered by the Government in 1953. The evidence is clear: it has been done before and it can be done again.

My constituency is in the London Borough of Merton —a borough that had just 255 lettings in the past year, including just 146 one-beds, 65 two-beds, 43 three-beds and, amazingly, just one four-bed. With figures like these, what hope do any of the 10,000 families on Merton’s waiting list have of ever finding a place to call home? I would be the first to criticise Merton for the level of importance it places on social housing—I do not believe the council concentrates on it enough or is innovative enough—but the Government cannot get away with just blaming Merton.

In 2010, George Osborne cut funding for social housing by more than 60%, leaving us reliant on private developers to provide social housing—the most expensive way to provide a social housing unit that could ever be dreamed up—or on housing associations developing on the basis of the new affordable rents. Surely we must all agree that it is a criminal act to the English language to use the word “affordable” in this context. I am not sure about other Members’ constituencies, but 80% of market rent is not affordable to the vast proportion of people in my constituency. This left housing associations with the dilemma: did they continue to endeavour to fulfil their historic mission to provide housing for people in need, placing themselves under the financial risk of having to charge those rents and to borrow so extensively on their assets; or did they simply give up the ghost? That was a really difficult choice to make and I criticise no housing association in that regard.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has made a very good point. Some housing associations behave well and some behave badly under those circumstances. This was not only about new build, but about the conversion of more than 110,000 existing social rented homes to affordable homes, taking them out. Was that not a deliberate policy by a succession of Conservative and coalition Governments not just to not replace social housing, but to diminish the quantity of social housing?

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I think that had many motives. One motive was to diminish social housing, but it had the consequence of putting housing associations at financial risk, leading to a terrible crisis and an expensive crisis. My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) informed us of the amount we are currently spending on housing benefit. If we reduce grant rates, we increase the rent and simply place more demand on housing benefit.

Let me give as an example a London and Quadrant development on Western Road in Mitcham. I met my constituent, Tracey. She was desperate to move for many reasons. She had got to the top of the list. I said, “Tracey, bid for this lovely new place, which has been built by L&Q on Western Road.” She said, “I would love to, Siobhain, but the problem is that my partner and I work and the rent is £1,000 a month. We simply could not pay it.” The very people for whom these properties were intended cannot afford to rent them because they go to work.

It is people’s real experiences that motivate me to be interested in this topic. It is about the hundreds of my hard-working constituents who are living in overcrowded conditions at private sector rents that leave them with little to live on and some without even enough to eat. Those families cannot afford to get on the housing ladder. There are not enough social homes to go round. For those who do make it into the private rented sector, they are always just one step away from finding themselves without a home. Not a week goes by when I do not meet yet another hard-working family who have been evicted from their privately rented property and threatened with homelessness just because the landlord can collect more rent from somebody else.

Ms A, with her two young sons, lives in a privately rented property. She pays £1,200 a month, less than the market rent. The landlord could get £2,000 a month. Her young son found his dad dead in bed. The importance of their staying in that home is paramount: so the kids can get to school; she can get to work; and they can get the support from our local church, Saint Joseph’s. She cannot afford to lose that home. When she came to see me, she said, “Siobhain, it’s in a terrible state of repair, and the landlord just told me to think myself lucky. Will you get environmental health involved?” Over the weekend, I thought about it. I know what the consequences will be if I get environmental health involved: six months later, that lady will lose her home. My alternative is to go back to my church to see whether I can find people in that church who will do some of those repairs for her.

Another lady, Miss P, has been a tenant of her privately rented home for the past 14 years. She has never owed money. She has three children and her husband has learning difficulties and a number of health problems. She has received her section 21 notice. It has expired and she faces two years in temporary accommodation at the moment. In two years’ time, who knows how much longer she will be in temporary accommodation. She is desperate to find a property in the private rented sector, but nobody is going to rent to her and she finds it unimaginable that she is in this position.

At 7.30 last Friday, a lady and her 17-year-old son came to see me in a distressed state. They said they were a homeless family from Lewisham who had been housed in Morden for the past year. They had received a phone call that day from Lewisham to say that they must leave their property next Thursday and move miles away. So the eldest son cannot continue his A levels, the middle son cannot continue his GCSEs, and the third son is going to have to move away from his school. This is a vulnerable family who are in temporary accommodation as a result of domestic violence.

Thankfully, Lewisham has changed its mind and it is leaving the family there, but how many families are uprooted, with children having to leave their school? As other hon. Members have suggested, a housing problem is an education problem, is a mental health problem, is a family breakdown problem, is a crime problem.

I am tired of the endless reports, the countless debates, the fruitless words and the lack of action. The Government have a house building target of 300,000 new homes per year, and they cannot simply keep willing the end of more homes without finding the means to provide them. So what will it be? Will we back here at the next debate offering the same ideas and hearing even worse statistics, or will this Government finally open their eyes and see the devastating reality of Britain’s 21st century housing crisis?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

May I add my thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), and for Stroud (Dr Drew)—the real midlands engine behind this debate? The fact that we have had speeches from Members from around the country shows that this is a national crisis. The problems are different, but housing supply goes to the heart of them.

In high-value land areas such as my constituency, the problem is particularly intense. House prices are more than 20 times earnings, and the average rent of all properties is more than £2,000 a month. The lowest quartile of house prices, which are the properties we would perhaps expect people on low incomes to be able to afford, reaches well over £500,000. Indeed, the only type of accommodation that is affordable to anybody on the London living wage, let alone the minimum wage, is social rented housing. That is why I am very pleased we are having a debate specifically on this issue. Yes, we need a greater supply of many different types of housing, including in the private rented sector, of good quality and at affordable rents, and we obviously need owner occupation, but the real crisis that has developed over the last 30 or 40 years is in the supply of affordable housing.

I do not want to talk too much about statistics, but there are two or three that I find particularly pregnant. One is the 165% increase in rough sleeping since 2010. There is no good reason for that to have happened, other than Government policy and neglect. Another is the number of social rented homes being built. I think the number was about 6,500 in the year for which figures are most recently available, compared with 40,000 in the last year of the previous Labour Government, but in the decades after the war, the figure was regularly 120,000 a year, year after year. Those disparities show exactly why it is no surprise that we have a crisis.

I would add another statistic. It is slightly more esoteric, but it is an indication of how Government policy has gone off the rails. The London Assembly member Tom Copley did a very good report recently on permitted development—in other words, the conversion, without the requirement for planning consents, of office blocks to residential accommodation, or the slums of the future, as they are now being called. I suppose a silver lining to that cloud is that none of those will actually be social housing slums, because not one of those properties is likely to be a social home. Of the 300 converted in Hammersmith since the policy changed five or six years ago, not one will be a social rented home.

That is one method by which the Government ensure that social housing is always the poor relation, and is never delivered. It is why, rather than talk about the statistics, I will talk in the few minutes I have about the politics. Unless we confront the political differences between the two parties, we will not deliver on social housing. There are obviously big differences on other areas of public policy—the NHS, education and so forth—but there is deeply ingrained in the post-Thatcher era Conservative party an antipathy to and a manipulation of social housing, which has ensured that it has declined over those 40 years.

It is interesting that we now hear Conservative politicians—I do not know whether these are the beginnings of an apology—talking about the stigma of social housing. I have never felt that there was any stigma attached to social housing. That may be because it accounts for a third of my constituency, so it is prevalent. It may also be because it is absolutely in demand, because of its affordability. There has not been such a thing as a hard-to-let property in Hammersmith since the 1970s, and there are long waiting lists for any particular type of home. That is also because, as in the case of many London boroughs—I do not know about the situation outside London—a large proportion of our stock is what are called acquired properties. These are on-street properties that are now very valuable—Victorian and Edwardian houses that were bought up when they were cheap in the 1970s and 1980s—and they are giving life to the mixed communities that we enjoy in London, and which have been imperilled, as I say, by Conservative Government policies.

We heard the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) refer to the policies of the Thatcher Government and the right-to-buy policy. However, if that had been just about home ownership—about enabling people to buy their home, which is a popular and perfectly justifiable policy—we would have had the replacement of those homes. The demand for social housing did not suddenly go away overnight in 1980s; it continued. However, that replacement has never happened, and it does not happen now. Even now, despite a lot of attention being drawn to the issue, only two social homes are replaced for every five that are sold off.

The policy was actually about politics and social engineering. It was about trying to outwit the Labour party through what was perceived to be a part of its own electorate, by saying to people, “We will give you a very valuable asset for way below the value of it”, and that is perhaps why in Basildon it became popular on all sides. The policy was about something else as well. It was about saying—going back to the point about stigma—“You can do better than that,” and, by implication, “If you don’t buy your own home, but stay in a council house or housing association property, there must be something wrong with you.” The policy was taken up and developed in a more and more aggressive way, particularly in London, by Conservative politicians in the 1980s and 1990s.

I am thinking of the era of Shirley Porter—that was about straight political advantage as well, but it was not just about that—and about what Wandsworth Council did, as well as what was later done with my own council houses and those in Fulham. These cases are prime exponents of how to manipulate what should be the most important asset in people’s lives for political, social and, in some cases, moral purposes. People were told that council housing created a dependency culture, and that people should be paying market rents. As my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) said in an intervention, we saw that extraordinary and damaging shift from subsidising land and building to subsidising private landlords, primarily through the extraordinary increase in housing benefit, with billions of pounds every year being wasted in that way.

There is a document that I often refer to, and will go on referring to until it is better known. It was written about 10 years ago by the then Conservative leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, and it had wide currency and gained a lot of favour with the coalition Government. In effect, it proposed the end of council housing based on four principles. The first was that we should have near-market rents, and not have below-market rents. The second was that we should have no subsidy to allow the building of social housing. The third was that there should be no security—no more lifetime tenancies, only fixed-term tenancies that were renewable. Finally, there should be no legal duty on local authorities to rehouse people, as there is under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 for those who fall into vulnerable categories.

The explicit aim was to reduce over time the volume of social housing to about 5% to 10% of what it currently is. That may sound like fantasy, but three and a half of those four principles were quickly adopted by the coalition Government, and we have seen the effect of that in the 10 years since then. There are now affordable rents that are 80% of market rents, and short-term tenancies that mean that families grow up in insecurity, not with a home, but with temporary accommodation for that period.

The cut in subsidies that my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) referred to cut away at a stroke the ability of councils to build new homes, and led to the massive decline that has been mentioned. We did not quite get no duty towards homeless people, but we got a duty that could be discharged in the private rented sector. The effect of benefit cuts and other measures introduced by the coalition Government was that people were placed in temporary accommodation or in the private rented sector and were often—because of the cost of renting in high-value areas—sent a long way from home. Those policies may have been dreamed up in policy forums in west London, but they got the ear of the then Minister of State for Housing and Planning, now Chairman of the Conservative party, and quickly became policy, and that has led to the parlous situation that we are in.

Let me be a little more specific and concrete by describing what happened in my area when there was a change of political control. We had eight years of the Conservatives running Hammersmith. Social housing was not only a low priority, but was sold off as it became vacant. More than 300 council homes, which tended to be the larger, more expensive three and four-bedroom street properties, were sold off, so that they were no longer available to rehouse people. In most cases, there was no requirement on developers to provide any social housing. There was a policy not to build any more, and to reduce the quantity of social housing in an area that had more than 10,000 people on the housing waiting list—a problem that was resolved by abolishing the housing waiting list.

Let me contrast that with the current situation in Hammersmith under a Labour council whose first and clearest priority is to resolve those problems, and whose second priority is to provide decent-quality, affordable social housing for a new generation. In partnership, it is building 440 new affordable homes, with the possibility of another 300 on top of that. Through development deals, and as a result of the council pushing developers hard to ensure that a large proportion of new housing is affordable, there could be another nearly 2,400 homes. Over the current four-year planning period, we expect more than 3,000 new affordable homes to be built in a borough that has some of the highest land prices in the country. At least a quarter of those will be new social homes—the first to be constructed for many years in the borough.

That development will make a profound difference to the lives of my constituents. The difference between living in insanitary, overcrowded and insecure housing, and having a proper, secure, assured tenancy of a property that is well constructed and maintained, cannot be overestimated. That should be a priority for this Government, but it simply has not been a priority for Conservative—and indeed Liberal Democrat—Governments over the past few years.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman’s point about safe, decent housing goes to the heart of the concerns of my constituents in Deans South. Decades ago, they were sold substandard housing by West Lothian Council, and many of them have had to live there for many years. They include a constituent who has bronchial issues, as does her son. We are close to a resolution, but it will take the will of the council, the developer, social housing, and local politicians. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when there is an opportunity to right the wrongs of the past, we should work across the political divide and do everything we can to do that?

[Andy Slaughter]

I agree, and it is good to hear that message coming from different parties, regions and countries. I hope that we will also hear it from Conservative Members. Hon. Members might have gathered that I am not entirely persuaded of the bona fides of the Conservative and Unionist party on this matter, but if it genuinely wishes to change its spots there is now an opportunity to do that. That must, however, involve a large-scale building programme of social housing in this country. Frankly, I do not see that aim among the current incumbents responsible for the job, but I would be delighted to be proved wrong.

Even in the past few years, the Housing and Planning Act 2016 attempted to allow the sale of housing association homes; I am glad that attempt has been abandoned. The prospect of means-testing for council tenants created more insecurity and led to the treatment of social housing as second-class housing. That idea has also been abandoned. We have seen a change in recent years, in that the Government are less willing to take up extreme right-wing and radical policies, but we have not seen any alternative. I am sure that when the Minister responds to the debate, he will have statistics prepared by his civil servants, but such statistics never persuade anybody. We will believe there is a commitment to social housing when the Government start to build it, enabling and motivating local authorities and housing associations to build houses at an affordable rent. Without that, everything else is rhetoric.

Grenfell: Government Response

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I can say to the hon. Lady that I have been to Manchester and met some residents previously in relation to this very serious issue and the profound impact this has on people’s lives. It was why I did make the decision to commit to fully fund the remediation of private sector high-rise residential buildings with ACM, except where a warranty claim has been accepted.

The hon. Lady rightly says there is a need for certainty as quickly as possible. That is why we did write to all relevant building owners on 17 May to set out the initial steps, the documentation and all the aspects, so that we are able to move quickly on making decisions in relation to this. The point about non-ACM is also very relevant, and it is why we are undertaking the relevant steps that we are with the different testing and, indeed, the advice and guidance that were being provided. I am certainly happy to talk to her and other colleagues about the impact, which I know is significant in a number of different ways, and about support for local authorities or what other action can be taken to assist.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is always humbling to meet the Grenfell survivors, because often they want to talk about others who are in a worse condition than themselves or to ask what the Government are doing to prevent further tragedies in relation to cladding and other matters. Often, however, as I am sure the Secretary of State found today, if we talk to them in some depth, we find that they themselves are still suffering. After two years, despite the fact that there is an appearance of a full support structure, it often breaks down and people are being forced—or, at least, given ultimatums—to go into accommodation that is not suitable, and they do not know whom to turn to. What advice does the Secretary of State have for me and other Members when they are confronted by survivors of that kind, and where can they go to get justice, because not in every case is that being done at the moment?

[James Brokenshire]

I would be very interested to hear any further details from the hon. Gentleman in relation to cases he is pointing to. I know the Minister for Housing has had regular surgeries with a number of the families involved about the decision process and the support they are receiving, and indeed from the taskforce itself with the challenge and the information it gives me. I would be very pleased to meet the hon. Gentleman and talk to him about those cases. He is right: it is hugely humbling to meet the survivors and the bereaved, and see the dignity and humility that they show. I think many of us who were at the Speaker’s reception earlier today will have felt that very keenly, with the profound impact it certainly had on me and I know on others in this House, too.

Grenfell Tower Fire

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad) on securing the debate and on the work she has championed since she was elected. She was plunged into this catastrophe just days after being elected—probably one of the biggest challenges any Member of Parliament has had to face. She knows how much it matters to me, too. My previous constituency boundary included Grenfell Tower. As the neighbouring constituency, many residents in my constituency watched in horror from tower blocks around Harrow Road as the fire claimed those lives. The trauma affects my constituents, too.

The night that Grenfell burned and 72 people died in a modern, refurbished tower block, at the heart of one of the wealthiest communities in one of the most prosperous cities the world has ever known, is seared into our national consciousness. It is a defining moment of modern British politics. It should have been the event that changed everything. It should have brought about a wholly new attitude to housing, social housing and meeting housing need, the duty of care we have to people in high-rise accommodation, risk and deregulation in housing. I let myself believe that that would be true. It should have been a defining moment and it has not been.

Of course, some action has been taken, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Select Committee, said: the inquiry is under way; we have had the interim report from the Hackitt review; and the Government have today launched a consultation. I am grateful for the fact that the Government backed my private Member’s Bill, the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, which allows tenants legal recourse when their homes, including the common parts of flats, are unfit and threaten their health and safety. That includes fire risk. We have also had the £200 million fund for cladding removal in private blocks.

What has not happened, however, is a seismic shift in attitude and action from the Government. That falls into two parts and I will briefly refer to both of them.

The first is the meeting of housing need relating specifically to Grenfell. On the day after the fire, we convened in Westminster Hall—Parliament was still prorogued; it was just after the election—and a number of us spoke to Ministers about the aftermath. I recall saying to Ministers that one of the things that needed to be understood was how many of the residents in Grenfell Tower and around Grenfell had direct or close experience of homelessness, and how critically important it was that immediate action was taken to provide permanent accommodation for them. In addition to the trauma of the fire, the dislocation of moving from one home to another and the experience of being in emergency or temporary accommodation would only compound what they had experienced. I remember placing that in the context of rising homelessness across London and the importance of not making other vulnerable families in housing need wait longer for a home because of the demands posed by Grenfell. Heads nodded.

We know now, two years later, that not all those housing needs have been met. Of the 202 households from Grenfell, 14 remain in temporary accommodation. Of the 129 evacuated from the wider area, 41 are still in temporary accommodation. That is unacceptable. It sits in the wider context of homelessness across London, which is detailed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington said, by the Shelter commission. That should also have been a wake-up call and a demand for immediate action to tackle housing need.

We have seen very little action. There has been a collapse in social housebuilding under this Government. It was inadequate beforehand—I am happy to say that—but there has been a collapse since then, with record lows in housing delivery and an acute homelessness crisis. The needs of the Kensington and Grenfell families should be seen in that context. In a new era for social housing that Grenfell should have generated, we have not seen action from the Government.

The second legacy, as we have heard, is the Government’s commitment that such a catastrophe should never happen again and that people should not fear that it will happen again. They should not live under the shadow of safety concerns in their own blocks, yet two years on that is exactly where we are. We know that 60,000 people live today in blocks with potentially dangerous cladding. We know that eight out of 10 of the blocks that had cladding have yet to have it removed. We know that 16,400 private apartments are wrapped in potentially dangerous cladding. In a question to the Mayor of London two weeks ago, Assembly Member Andrew Dismore found that London Fire Brigade paid 1,200 visits to high-rise premises with suspected flammable cladding, of which 316 confirmed flammable cladding. That is at its most acute in three boroughs: Tower Hamlets, where there are 65; Greenwich, where there are 45; and my own borough of Westminster, where there are 26.

The £200 million the Government recently announced is welcome—it came just under the wire for the second anniversary—but it is clearly not enough to ensure that either the ACM cladding blocks or those in potentially non-ACM flammable cladding can be dealt with.

We have heard from the Select Committee about the generally deregulatory attitude of the building industry. It was very, very concerning to see a survey in Building, which showed how little the business industry had risen to the challenge of safety concerns and how little change there has been in the way it works.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the industry has not taken responsibility. It is a shame that past Ministers are on record as putting the onus on industry, saying it is not for the Government to regulate but for the industry to self-regulate. Does she agree that we have to end that, and that if industry will not take responsibility the Government will have to act?

[Ms Buck]

I totally agree. People living in high-rise blocks wrapped in cladding find it inexplicable that the Government still have such a deregulatory approach and expect the industry to take responsibility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The horrific image of Grenfell is still very fresh in all our minds, almost as if it happened yesterday. I am sure that is true for every Member here, but it is particularly true for those of us who represent neighbouring constituencies. In many ways, the community across north Kensington, north Westminster, White City and Shepherd’s Bush is one community, and people there feel this very deeply. I would like to add my thanks and praise to my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad), who has had the difficult and traumatic job of trying to represent that community. She has done that brilliantly over the past two years, and indeed for many years before that. I would also like to thank the shadow Housing Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), who has doggedly pursued this issue and tried to ensure that there is action on the subject.

The truth is that Grenfell did not happen yesterday. It happened two years ago and, as we have heard from many Members today on both sides, there has been dragging of feet. Let me say a few words about the concerns being expressed about the inquiry. There are concerns about the order of issues and the fact that the inquiry has not even got on to looking at the building material, among other aspects, and will not do so until next year. The tone of the inquiry has also raised concern. We have other major inquiries, such as the contaminated blood inquiry, going on at the moment, which might have got that better. There is also the issue of cost. I have heard—I do not know whether this is absolutely right; I ask the Minister confirm or deny it—that the police costs for the Grenfell inquiry are not being covered by the Government and that up to £30 million may be coming out of the Metropolitan police budgets. If that is true, it is a disgrace that adds insult to injury.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am happy to provide some clarity. As I understand it, on costs, the Metropolitan police service was awarded £11.4 million in 2018-19, of which it has spent £5.9 million. The expected costs in 2019-20 will be around £6 million, which will be provided from the special grant budget. So there is no intention that there should be any shortfall on investigatory costs.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am grateful to the Minister for intervening, but I would like to feel absolutely certain on that. I would be grateful if he could to write to me to guarantee that any additional costs for the police will be covered from central funds and not from their own budget.

The key point I want to make on the inquiry relates to its longevity. The fact that it will take time means that it is being used as an excuse. We are not short of good advice from people at the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Fire Brigades Union and the London fire brigade about what needs to be done now, but actually things are not being done now. An example is the fact that a consultation has just been published in the middle of this debate. In fact, I was tipped off by the fire brigade about five minutes before the debate started that there was a 200-page document to be read. Why could that document not have been published yesterday, or even the day before, to inform the debate? The terrible suspicion is that this has been done in order to capture a headline, so that, rather than the Government’s inaction on this subject being highlighted, they appear to be doing something.

I had a chance to read the written statement and the Government’s press release, which contained the welcome comment that

“too many in the building industry were taking short cuts that could endanger residents in the very place they were supposed to feel safest—their own home.”

I could not agree more, but who is responsible for this? Within the last five years, Ministers have said in relation to the important issue of sprinklers:

“We believe that it is the responsibility of the fire industry, rather than the Government, to market fire sprinkler systems effectively and to encourage their wider installation.”—[Official Report, 6 February 2014; Vol. 575, c. 188WH.]

The right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) has stated:

“The industry itself has an opportunity to make a case. I am not convinced at the moment it is for the Government to make a case for private industry”.

That is typical of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman said that when he was the Housing and Planning Minister, but I am sure I could have quoted many others. We have to get rid of this ideology, and the Government have to face up to their responsibility on this matter.

In the short time I have, I will cover a number of topics, although necessarily very briefly. Individual Grenfell survivors are not being well served. I am not going to name her for reasons of privacy, but I have a constituent who escaped with her daughter from a high floor in Grenfell Tower on the night. She then spent a year in hotel accommodation and a year in temporary accommodation in my constituency. She appears to be no nearer to getting rehoused. I may pass that case to the Minister, because he may want to intervene himself, because this clearly is not working. It is not working generally for survivors. I would like to see an open book approach to how the rehousing has been dealt with. It happens that Kensington and Chelsea was the richest council in the country; I wonder what would have happened in Northamptonshire or somewhere of that kind. To some extent, the Government have been let off the hook there. We still hear reports that people are not in permanent or suitable housing, or that housing has been purchased but is in such a state that it still needs to be got ready. People have gone into permanent housing because they felt pressurised to do so and have then had to come out of it because it turned out to be unsuitable. That is entirely unfair.

Issues of causation have not been addressed, such as that of the fridge-freezer—the plastic back is still legal, despite the fact that it is prone to fire—the fridge-freezer, manufactured by the Whirlpool company, who have a terrible reputation for white goods of this kind. We will not find out until the end of this year exactly what the cause of the fire was. Everyone suspects that the cladding was the major form of spread, but we are no further forward in knowing the exact sequence of events in relation to that. On all the other fire safety issues around regulation, means of escape, fire doors, and building security—fire alarms and matters of that kind—we are really as in the dark now as we were two years ago.

There were issues around what happened on the night, and the fact that clearly—not just Kensington and Chelsea, although they were utterly, utterly abysmal, to the extent that they could not even accept offers of help from other authorities, but generally speaking—we were not in a state to deal with a major emergency of this kind. If it happened again tomorrow, would we be any better off? I would like to know the answer.

I am grateful that the Chair of the Select Committee and others have dealt with some of the complex issues of fire safety; I do not have time to do so. I am glad to hear from the chair of the all-party group that they are pursuing this matter as well. To have dealt with ACM cladding only, and not with high-pressure laminate cladding—which can be twice as combustible as ACM cladding—over the last two years is negligent. Not to have heeded the advice of the fire brigade and others in relation to sprinkler systems is negligent. Not to have looked at the testing processes, and the combination of materials—not just cladding but insulation, and how they work in situ, not just in test circumstances—is equally negligent. I am afraid there is still a terrible stench of complacency from the Government, even after two years.

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend is making some important points about the inadequacy of what the Government are proposing, but in the written ministerial statement that they have issued—during the debate rather than before it—they are proposing not to consult on whether 18 metres or six storeys is the appropriate height, and therefore they are not even going to consider whether a ban on flammable cladding below that height should be looked at. Does he think that is acceptable?

[Andy Slaughter]

It is absolutely not acceptable, and my hon. Friend has made some points in his excellent speech about the lacunae—all the missed opportunities to deal with existing buildings, including other types of high-risk and high buildings, which are not even within the Government’s purview here, despite many experts’ having pointed out the necessity of that.

Let me say a few words about housing. In the decades following the second world war, we were building an average of about 125,000 social homes a year. In the past year, we built 6,000. I would like to know what will happen on the site of Grenfell. The sooner the building goes, the better. Yes, we can have a consultation on what should be on the spot. It is a sensitive matter. Why are we not specifically replacing the hundreds—it is not just the tower itself—of social homes that have been wrecked by the fire?

The year before the Grenfell fire there was a serious fire in Shepherd’s Court, a tower block in Shepherd’s Bush, in my constituency, and the fire spread; so I am only too aware just how traumatic fire can be for residents. Thankfully, there were no injuries. But incidents like that should have been warning signals; they were not heeded. Grenfell is a nightmare. I can think of no worse way to die—waiting for rescue, hoping for hours that it was going to come, and then the slow realisation that it was not going to, and that you were going to have the most horrific death. If that is not a wake-up call to this Government, I do not know what is. I would like to see much, much more action to ensure that this never happens again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

Yes, indeed, and that is the case.

Although I understand the concerns about the speed of the remediation, I hope that Members will be aware that this work requires significant amounts of engineering and construction work, which will necessarily take time. On numbers, at the end of April, of the 175 residential buildings, 15%, or 27, have finished or started their remediation, and a further 116, or 66%, have plans in place. I have asked the Department to report to me as soon as possible on what a timetable might look like to ensure that we can reach completion of that programme within a reasonable length of time. I hope that Members will appreciate that, while there is a requirement or a desire to press me for an end point, it is more complicated than just fixing a date and time, because there are obviously capacity issues. There are planning and engineering issues that need to be taken into account, but I would like to get to that place in pretty short order. The money has only just been provided, and what I would like to get to in pretty short order is a sense of what the industry is capable of achieving and some benchmarks for performance that we can hold it to.

A number of Members also asked about the testing regime for other materials and that work is now under way. We hope that that will be completed before the summer, and that we can publish the results shortly thereafter. As I have said in previous debates in this House, we have a commitment and a strong imperative to investigate the materials that are being used in these circumstances in a systematic and methodical way. Although there is a range of cladding products, they are used in a range of circumstances and in combination with a range of other materials. That matrix of possibilities creates many dozens of combinations that will need to be assessed over time. We have to start with the cladding itself, and, as I have said, that testing is under way at the Building Research Establishment, and we should be able to publish results soon.

The fourth area of work is obviously the building safety programme itself. After the tragedy at Grenfell, it became obvious that things had to change around building safety and change very significantly. The Government responded quickly with the Hackitt review, and it has given us an important root and branch look at building safety. We have been vociferous in calling for a culture change across the industry and backed it with serious action. We have consulted on a clarified version of Approved Document B and issued a call for evidence as the first step towards a technical review. As part of that review—a number of Members raised the issue of sprinklers—we obviously can review the requirement for sprinklers in buildings.

We have also established an industry early adopters group made up of key players in the construction and housing sector who have just this morning launched a new building safety charter calling for all of industry to commit to putting safety first.

[Andy Slaughter]

Will the Minister also tell us what the Government will do about the “stay put” policy? According to Inside Housing and the FBU briefing for this debate, 209 residential buildings in London alone have changed from “stay put” to evacuation, which has all sorts of implications for guidance, alarm systems and so forth. What are the Government doing to make sure that these matters are addressed and are clear to everyone?

[Kit Malthouse]

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman understands, fire safety policy does not fall within my remit and is effectively a Home Office issue. I did recently meet representatives of the fire service, who said that this policy is under constant review but remains valid. However, I am happy to write to him with details of what the Government are doing with regard to “stay put”. I understand the concern that that policy has produced in the light of the Grenfell disaster and it is important that we are transparent about it. As I have said, I am more than happy to write to him with some details.

On building safety, we are determined to bring forward meaningful legislative reform. Just today, we launched a consultation on the new building safety regulatory system. The written ministerial statement was not actually laid, as the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) said during the debate. It was raised at 10.30. I asked Doorkeepers to distribute it if they could, and it is now available for Members to read if they wish. In that review, we have accepted all 53 of Dame Judith Hackitt’s recommendations and in some areas we intend to go further. What we are proposing is a radically new building and fire safety system—a system that puts residents’ safety at its very heart. It will be a challenging but essential step to help drive the long-term culture change that we need and restore confidence in our country’s building safety system.

Housing

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

On no issue save housing is the chasm more evident between the platitudes we heard from the Dispatch Box and the reality that MPs experience every week in their constituencies. One in seven homes in my borough is overcrowded, and housing conditions are the worst I have seen in 30 years, in particular in the private rented sector. That is why we needed the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 of my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), to call out those absolutely disgusting and appalling conditions in which families are living every day in my constituency.

As for affordability, for the bottom quartile of homes—that is, the ones that should be most affordable—the average price is more than £500,000 in my constituency. Average monthly rent is over £2,000, and the ratio between house prices and earnings is over 20:1. And yet, because of the way in which the Government implement policies like the benefits cap, the reality is that people simply cannot afford to live in areas where they, their families and their communities have lived for decades. The only remedy is the sort of radical programme that my right hon. Friend the shadow Housing Secretary has set out.

It is possible to make a difference locally. We do not have local elections in my area this year, but for those who do, I will just outline the difference between having a Labour council and a Conservative one. My council was Conservative until 2014. In its last four years, it sold off more than 300 empty council properties because they had become vacant. That included three and four-bedroomed houses, and many two-bedroomed houses and flats. These properties were sold off on the open market, putting them out of reach of families forever and a day. Cynically, that council then took a housing waiting list of over 8,000 families and reduced it to over 1,000, simply by knocking families off the list. In many cases, the council did not even have the courtesy to tell them. That degree of cynicism and that type of social engineering has gone on not just in my borough, but in many boroughs across London and elsewhere—and it is a moral crime, not just bad policy.

I contrast that situation with the position of my council under Labour. This issue is one of the reasons that Labour was elected in Hammersmith and Fulham, and was then re-elected with a landslide last year. Labour-run Hammersmith and Fulham Council stated this month that it

“has recently secured more than 1,600 genuinely affordable homes in the borough at zero cost to taxpayers after negotiating a series of deals with developers.”

That is the difference that Labour makes in local government, and I believe that in national Government—with this sort of programme of housebuilding, and the crackdown on poor landlords and poor conditions—we can actually tackle this crisis. It is not just that this Government are complacent; as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) said, they simply do not care to solve the housing crisis in this country.

Fire Safety and Sprinkler Systems

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, and to follow so many Members who are experts in this field. In particular, I thank the all-party group, which I have been a member of for some years. I have learned an extraordinary amount, especially from the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) and my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick). I will do my best to follow those contributions.

As we have heard, there is a great deal of consensus not just in this Chamber but among experts with an interest in this field—the insurance industry, fire safety professionals, including the London Fire Brigade, local government in London and England, architects and surveyors. We have also heard about the good practice in the devolved Administrations, which are substantially ahead of England. This very much seems to be an English problem now.

The first point is that, as many Members have indicated, sprinkler systems work. According to the London Councils briefing for today,

“automatic fire suppression systems…operate on 94 per cent of occasions and when they do operate they extinguish or contain the fire on 99 per cent of occasions. They reduce fire injuries and fire damage by 80 per cent. They also reduce the environmental impact and the economic cost of fire.”

Also, as has been said, no one has ever died from a fire in a fully sprinklered building.

The relatively minimal cost—1% of build costs—of installing sprinklers has also been mentioned. In addition, as the London Fire Brigade reminds us, sprinkler systems on average use 90% less water than hoses, and can prevent costly water damage. Introducing such systems seems to be a bit of a no-brainer.

I can think of two examples from my constituency. In 2012, opposite the BBC Television Centre, we had a major fire in the Dairy Crest warehouse, which had a huge amount of combustible material in it—explosive material, too. It needed 15 fire engines and 75 firefighters. I think about the unnecessary risk to the lives of firefighters on such occasions. In 2016, a year before the Grenfell Tower fire, there was a major fire in Shepherd’s Court, overlooking Shepherd’s Bush Green. There were fortunately no casualties, but there was a full evacuation of the building. Six flats were substantially damaged by fire, but I think another 20 were substantially damaged by water. The consequence of fires, even when successfully extinguished without injury, is often huge costs and disruption to people’s lives over many years.

All that indicates the way in which we ought to be moving, and where we hope to see the Minister moving us. However, I have one other point to make, which is also made by London Councils:

“While…sprinkler systems are very important, it is important to point out that they are not a substitute for a holistic, whole buildings, risk-based approach to fire safety.”

The Royal Institute of British Architects makes four recommendations on where it thinks fire safety should be going. They will not be a panacea and cover everything, but looking at those four areas will go far towards reducing risk. No. 1 on the list is sprinklers:

“a requirement for sprinklers/automatic fire suppression systems in all new and converted residential buildings…and in all existing residential buildings above 18m from ground level”,

as already required in Wales.

The other three recommendations are equally or more important. One is alternative means of escape. Buildings, including in my constituency, are still given planning consent although they have only a single means of escape—blocks that in effect replicate Grenfell Tower: 20-storey blocks of flats with a single means of escape—and that is purely for commercial reasons. It should not be tolerated.

The third recommendation is for centrally addressable fire alarms. That deals with the stay-put policy and what happens when it fails. Is there a fail-safe method of warning people when a building needs to be evacuated?

The fourth recommendation, which will come as no surprise to the Minister, is an extended ban on the use of combustible cladding. That is not the main topic today, but it is one that we return to time and again, because the Government’s measures are wholly inadequate. We have taken a long time to deal just with the issue of aluminium composite material cladding, and the Government are only now getting on to other forms of cladding, often more combustible than ACM, that are estimated to be on more than 340 high-rise buildings out there. Even the ban on use for new build or refurbishment projects is inadequate. It does not cover hotels, office buildings or lower-rise buildings used by vulnerable people, such as hospitals and care homes. Until we have a comprehensive approach not only to fire safety generally but to the removal and installation of cladding systems—not just cladding, but cladding and installation together—we are not seriously tackling the problem, or seriously dealing with the legacy of Grenfell.

Unhealthy Housing: Cost to the NHS

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. My hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), who is sat to my left, also had constituents who passed away a few years ago due to carbon monoxide poisoning. That was in a holiday home, but it was none the less a problem. We in the APPG will take the comments of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) on board, and we look forward to working with him.

Let me detail some of my concerns arising from the evidence that we heard. The effects of poor housing are estimated to cost the NHS £2.5 billion per annum; that rises when we consider all housing throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The true cost lies in human misery and lives lost. Some of the figures are quite extreme, but they underline the issue. Some 43,900 excess winter deaths occurred in England and Wales in the winter of 2014-15, with cold homes causing one fifth of those. That is more than the number of deaths caused by road accidents, alcohol or drug abuse, which puts into perspective the need to make sure that homes are healthy. Children in cold homes are more than two times more likely to suffer from a respiratory problem. Cold homes increase the incidence of cold and flu, and worsen conditions such as arthritis and rheumatism. Again, we see that every day in our constituencies.

One in four adolescents living in a cold home is at risk of multiple mental health problems, so we are not always talking about physical issues; there can be emotional and mental issues as well. Those in poor-quality homes that lack effective ventilation suffer from indoor air pollution, which has been linked to allergies, asthma, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease and, more recently, dementia.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate and on championing this cause. I apologise: I will not be here for the whole debate. I am double-booked. There have been steps forward on this issue, such as the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, which was recently taken through Parliament by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck). However, are conditions not getting worse for a lot of people? My experience is that there are two principal causes—the failure to build social housing, and the benefit cap—that force people into substandard accommodation in the private rented sector. Given the hon. Gentleman’s party’s special influence over the Government, could he persuade them to change those two egregious policies, which cause so much human misery?

[Jim Shannon]

If only we had that power! That is not to take away from the importance of the issue of social housing, which I will touch on later. Let us be honest: many people go into the housing that their pockets allow. As a result, they end up in housing that is not particularly in the right category, the right condition or the right shape. The hon. Gentleman is right that the benefit cap also dictates where someone can go. I will give the Minister plenty of time to get her thoughts together on that. However, that is an important point, and I will touch on it later.

Poor indoor air quality has an annual cost to the UK of more than 204,000 healthy life years. It causes thousands of deaths per year, and gives rise to health costs in the order of tens of millions of pounds. One third of people in the United Kingdom suffer from mould in their homes and are at increased risk of respiratory problems, infections, allergies and asthma. Just last week, I saw three constituents with mould growth issues in their houses—mould not caused by condensation, but ingrained in the walls. Sometimes ensuring that the housing associations or housing executive take those issues on board is quite a job.

There are more than half a million overcrowded households. The issue affects one in 10 children—something we cannot ignore. Overcrowding is linked to health and development issues, including meningitis, respiratory conditions, slow growth rates, accidents in the home, stress, anxiety, depression and poor adult health. Occupants of poor-quality housing are more likely to suffer from restricted daylight and noise pollution.

We cannot ignore noise pollution. In the news this morning someone put forward the idea of building houses and flats over railway lines. I am not sure if any hon. Member saw that. The first thing that came to my mind was the noise of the trains continually going underneath. How could those homes be adapted to mitigate that? We need to address noise pollution. Natural light helps to improve the recovery times of long-stay patients and reduces anxiety and the need for medication. Noise pollution can cause long-term health issues and increase stress and the risk of cardiovascular effects.

It is clear that there is a lack of public awareness of these problems, and limited knowledge of the facts. Too often, the homes we live in are, in so many ways, causing or aggravating health problems.

Rough Sleeping

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention; I picked up on that point, which the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, my co-chair on the all-party parliamentary group, also made. I think it is a little misleading, if I dare say so, on the basis that the past year is the first year in which a number of interventions kicked in, the largest of which is the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, so it is not necessarily correct to say that we will see a 2% decrease; we should see a much sharper decrease this year, next year and the year after. Of course, the key is ensuring that we stay on top of those figures and, through further debates such as this one and through the all-party parliamentary group, we continue to hold the Minister and Secretary of State’s feet to the fire to ensure that those ambitions are met.

However, I think we need to go much further. To tackle homelessness and rough sleeping, it is important that we truly understand it. The hon. Lady mentioned the statistics; the reality is that we do not entirely know, because in nearly all cases they are estimates. We have some reasonably good estimates for London, but for the rest of the country they are often based on a headcount on a single night, at one point of the year. As the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark rightly pointed out, numerous people will come into a town centre of an evening or during the day, because they can beg, and people will be kind and generous. However, because of the danger of violence in the evening, they will actually head out of town to parks and recreational spaces to sleep in tents, so may not be picked up in rough sleeping headcounts.

We know that the reasons for homelessness and rough sleeping are numerous, varied and complex. I wish it were as simple as saying that the answer is just more money, but money is only part of the answer. To some extent—I err on the side of caution when using this phrase—homelessness is a little like an illness. Successive Governments have thrown huge amounts of money at the problem, which, a bit like a painkiller, has worked in masking the pain but has not actually treated the underlying condition or, even better, actually cured it.

An old adage that works just as well for homelessness and rough sleeping as for anything else is that prevention is always better than cure. We need a two-pronged approach that covers both. In order to prevent homelessness and to help those currently homeless, we have to truly understand them, looking at those numerous, varied and complex reasons and then putting in place timely interventions to address each and every one of them, otherwise we risk regression.

The all-party parliamentary group goes to all parts of the country, and I have seen too many cases, particularly in London and my constituency of Colchester, of rough sleepers who have been through the council system. They have had support and been through temporary accommodation, and in many cases have been given social housing, but for so many reasons that has failed. That is one of the biggest problems, and if we do not address those underlying issues that cause homelessness at the outset, the likelihood of regression is sadly very high.

We need much better data—as I said, we have reasonable data for London but not for the rest of the country—in order to understand those root causes of homelessness and then address them. We know some of the causes. They include poverty, debt, eviction and section 21 notices to end assured shorthold tenancies, which are now the No. 1 cause of homelessness. They also include relationship or marital breakdown, domestic violence, landlords not letting to those in receipt of benefits, alcoholism, drug addiction, mental health issues, leaving prison or care, being LGBTQ—a particularly vulnerable cohort—hospital discharges and leaving our armed forces, which the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark mentioned.

We also have to consider the wider context. In 2017-18, we built 6,463 social homes, yet nearly 1.2 million people are on council housing waiting lists. Successive Governments have not built anywhere near enough social homes.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I do not disagree with the point the hon. Gentleman is making. Would he like to comment on the opinion of the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government that the Mayor of London should build fewer affordable homes and more luxury homes, as he said yesterday?

[Will Quince]

I had not seen that, so it would be ill-judged to comment on it. I can point the hon. Gentleman to a very fine article from only last week in, I believe, the Colchester Gazette, authored by the local MP, on why we need the most ambitious Government investment in social housing since the second world war. I will touch on that in a little bit.

Sadly, we have an estimated 4,677 people sleeping rough on our streets, and 277,000 homeless households. That is due in part to a lack of security in the private rented sector, which, as I mentioned, is now the biggest single cause of homelessness. We have areas where demand massively outstrips supply, including some of our major cities and large towns, with Colchester being a prime example, so landlords will not let to those in receipt of benefits.

The Government have done some great work, which is starting to make a difference and gives some reason for optimism, including the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. I was pleased to speak at all stages of its passage and to sit on its Bill Committee. There is also the £28 million Housing First pilot, the rough sleeping initiative and the Somewhere Safe to Stay pilot. There is funding for non-UK nationals sleeping rough. There are rough sleeping support teams and mental health support outreach workers. Improvements have been made to StreetLink and there are homelessness experts in jobcentres. Those are all part of that £100 million package to support the rough sleeping strategy announced last year.

My concern is that, worthy, important and valuable as those programmes are, they treat the symptoms, not the cause. What do we need to do? The first thing I should say to the Minister is that I do not have all the answers. However, I have some suggestions on ways in which we can start to prevent homelessness and address the issue. First, we need a full nationwide roll-out of Housing First as quickly as possible. The three pilots were important and a great start, but we know that it works; we have seen it work in other countries, particularly in Scandinavia, where rough sleeping has been entirely eradicated. Secondly, fewer than half of local authorities have a night shelter, so we need to fund and build more of those. Regional hubs are hugely important.

As the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark mentioned, we need to lift the freeze on the local housing allowance, which was introduced in 2016. We also need to embed and fully fund the Homelessness Reduction Act. It is a great piece of legislation, but we must monitor it to make sure that it is working and is fully funded and, equally importantly, that local authorities use it to its full and interpret it in the right way. That is hugely important, particularly in relation to the duties it places on them. As the hon. Gentleman also mentioned, we need a help-to-rent scheme. We need to look at people who have no recourse to public funds. In London and some of our big cities, between 30% and 40% of rough sleepers are non-British nationals and are not entitled to any support, so we need to find a solution for those individuals.

We need to start treating homelessness, and particularly rough sleeping, as a health issue. I mentioned alcoholism, drug addiction and mental health issues. We need mental health support workers to go out with every outreach team up and down the country. I am pleased to see that £30 million will be invested in that regard, which will make a huge difference. For the Minister to say at one of our all-party parliamentary group meetings that the Department very much sees rough sleeping and homelessness as a health issue was an important step change.

--- Later in debate ---

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Lady for the intervention. I mentioned that the issue is in part about money, but it is not wholly about money; it is also about getting the right interventions in place. The hon. Lady may not have been listening entirely. I would very much welcome her coming to some of our APPG meetings, because then she would know that it is not just about austerity. Austerity may be part of the issue, because of course if we cut back on services up and down the country, everything has a consequence, but the reasons for homelessness and, in particular, rough sleeping are complex, varied and numerous. It cannot be put down to just one thing.

We need to address the availability of high-strength cheap alcohol on our high streets. I appreciate that doing something about that is not within the Minister’s gift, but I hope that she can take the issue away.

I know that this will be a controversial point, but we need to try to rechannel the generosity of the British public. Too many people are, understandably, giving money to people on the streets. My message to them is this. That generosity is incredible, but please direct the money to the amazing charities that work in our towns and cities up and down the country. By all means, support people with food, blankets and all sorts of other things, but not with money, because in too many cases, as we find if we speak to rough sleepers, it ends up going on drugs and alcohol, and sadly that is helping to perpetuate their rough sleeping. It is making the problem worse, not better, so I encourage people to support charities that are working on the ground and not to give money to individuals.

I want to come back to what the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) said. Yes, we can throw money at an issue, but unless we address the underlying cause, we will not solve it, and the underlying cause of this issue is that successive Governments have failed to build anywhere near enough social housing. That is as true of the last Labour Government as it was of the Government before them and of the Government before them. That is why I genuinely believe that, finally and most importantly, we need the most ambitious and largest Government social house building programme since the second world war. I refer the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) back to that rather punchy article on this issue.

[Andy Slaughter]

Again, I cannot fault what the hon. Gentleman is saying about social housing. It is what all the homelessness charities are urging on us. I just hope that he can have some influence on the Government whom he supports. But perhaps he can explain, then, why rough sleeping fell by 75% in the last 10 years of the Labour Government and has gone up by 165% in less than 10 years of his own party’s Government.

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. There are many reasons for what he refers to. The Government could tomorrow invest tens of millions of pounds—well, it would be more than tens of millions—in more temporary accommodation, and that would get more people off the streets, but it would not address the underlying problem, which is that we need long-term, permanent, secure accommodation for people up and down our country.

I come back to the fundamental point about social housing. I want us to get back to building in the region of 100,000 social houses a year. The Office for Budget Responsibility has estimated that in 2018-19 the total housing benefit bill is likely to hit an incredible £23.4 billion —£23.4 billion—and it is only going in one direction; it is only increasing. That means that we are spending more than £20 billion a year to mitigate the effects of a housing shortage brought about by successive Governments, without finding a long-term solution to the problem. Arguably, what is worse is that, because of the lack of social housing, those who need homes are being housed in the private rented sector, so taxpayers’ money is being transferred into the pockets of private landlords, which in turn only increases demand in the private rented sector and drives up rents for everyone else. I suggest that investing in social homes is a far more efficient use of public money. Once built, those social homes would be public assets that would appreciate in value.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Buck. I know you would be speaking on the issue if you were not chairing, and I congratulate you again on the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, which received Royal Assent recently.

I will not take up too much time; I will deal with just two issues. Rough sleeping is the tip of the iceberg. I agree with the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince) that it is a complex issue, so I will say a bit about that. It is also a solvable issue, however, which was not entirely solved, but was largely reduced, by the application of skill and resources, so I will also say something about that and where we go with it.

Many hon. Members have mentioned the fact that some short-term solutions and immediate measures could be adopted to relieve the pressure of rough sleeping, as is often done at this time of year. I pay tribute to the Mayor of London for his initiatives and the specific action that he has recently taken in the cold weather to make sure that, on compassionate grounds alone, people who are forced to sleep outside on very cold nights have somewhere to go. That is good.

Equally, I pay tribute to the fact that the Mayor of London has made the expansion of affordable social housing a priority in London for the first time in many years, because London is severely affected. As has been said, even as the high numbers of rough sleepers flatlined nationally last year, they went up by 13% in London. Since 2010, rough sleeping has, I think, tripled in London, while it has gone up by about 165% overall. Yes, there are a lot of emergency and temporary measures that can be taken, but in reality we will not resolve this problem unless we address the underlying causes. I think everyone agrees on that, and it is good that there is consensus across the Chamber.

Some of those underlying causes are to do with the individual—I will come on to that in a moment—but a lot of them are to do with the housing system in this country, the instability of housing and the associated risk. I was struck by a figure from Crisis, which says that

“there were more than 170,000 families and individuals experiencing the worst forms of homelessness…This includes people sleeping on our streets, sofa-surfing with strangers, living in hostels, and stuck in other dangerous situations.”

That is an intolerable situation, but the trend in housing policy means that it has simply got worse over the years, because there has been huge growth in the use of temporary accommodation.

The ability of local authorities to discharge their housing responsibility into the private sector permanently under the Localism Act 2011 is one factor in that growth. As I have suggested, it is also about housing conditions—the very poor quality of housing and the attitude of landlords. Landlords may be willing to evict tenants who complain about the conditions they are in, or those conditions may simply become too bad and the properties unfit for habitation.

The problem is also related to restrictions on benefits. The cap on local housing allowance—one of the two key issues that Shelter identified in its briefing for this debate—makes it very difficult for anybody on who is on benefits to find housing in significant parts of the country, particularly in areas such as mine in inner London where housing costs are so high.

Universal credit is causing extraordinary problems. I met representatives of the Shepherds Bush Housing Group, which is one of the big housing associations in my area. They said that about 4% of their tenants are in some form of arrears, but the figure is three or four times that for those who are on universal credit. People are being evicted simply because the universal credit system is letting them down.

There is this fetish of relying on the private rented sector to solve problems that it simply is not designed to solve. The massive growth in the private rented sector and the decline in both owner-occupation and social housing, as a deliberate arm of Conservative Government policy, are at the root of these problems.

The other key point that Shelter makes—Members on both sides of the Chamber have also made it—is that we must have a significant commitment to social house building, including in expensive areas of the country. Social house building is very difficult because of land prices, and that is not just the case in London anymore; in other major cities and significant parts of the south of England, it is extremely difficult to achieve social house building.

How on earth did we get ourselves in a situation where £24 billion can go, with no long-term benefits in housing terms, into landlords’ pockets? I am sure that there are good landlords who use some of that money to invest, and landlords with property portfolios who are prepared to take on difficult tenants or tenants who are reliant on benefits. Neither of those scenarios reflect the picture that I find in my constituency, nor is that how the system is designed to work.

My second main point is that although the situation may be complicated, it is not a difficult one to resolve. We know what the solutions are, because we have a very sophisticated group of organisations—the big ones include St Mungo’s, Crisis and Shelter—which have huge reservoirs of knowledge about how to tackle the difficulties involved in homelessness. Homeless people are often very vulnerable people or people with complex problems, often related to addiction or mental health.

I know that there is a move now towards the Housing First model and I do not disagree with that, because putting a roof over somebody’s head is—I think this is fairly self-evident—key to ending homelessness. That model did not find favour previously because those tenancies would often break down, because people who were not used to managing their own lives in that way were unable to sustain tenancies.

The Housing First model obviously has to go hand in hand with a lot of support, but that support is generally there. We are dealing with people who are used to dealing —in an extraordinarily compassionate way but also in a professional way—with people with complex problems every day.

Two weeks ago, I was at one of the St Mungo’s hostels in my constituency. I go to those hostels often and we have hour-long sessions with their residents, and I get asked all sorts of questions. They are sophisticated, educated and intelligent people who happen to have fallen through the cracks and on hard times. I made my excuses and left when I started being asked why Gordon Brown sold the gold reserves and why Labour adopted private finance initiatives, which gives people an idea of where the debate was going. At that stage, I decided that I had another appointment and needed to move on.

Nevertheless, there is a willingness among residents of such hostels and among people who are sleeping rough, as well as among the organisations that look after them, to resolve these problems. The resources to do that have to be available, however, and I am just not finding that to be the case at the moment. Immediate investment is what is lacking.

I know that the Minister will talk about the Government’s rough sleeping initiative, which has the aim of reducing rough sleeping by half by 2022 and reducing it fully by 2027. Of course we will support the Government in that aim, but it means that in about five years’ time we will be in the position that we were 10 years ago. I find that a bit depressing, to be perfectly honest.

I will try to be positive. We all know the large organisations that we work with on this issue. As other Members have already mentioned, there are also a lot of small organisations in our own constituencies. I will mention one—I am a patron of it, so I am obviously biased towards it—called The Upper Room, which is in my constituency. It started in 1990 as a group of local people who were concerned about rough sleeping, both by British citizens and by a lot of European citizens, at that stage. The problem has not got any better, particularly with the increase in “no recourse to public funds”.

Simply out of sheer compassion, those local people got together and raised funds; they are now raising about £350,000 a year from individual donations and charitable giving. Every day they provide a hot meal for about 1,500 people, but they have also gone on to provide an employment service and—particularly for ex-offenders—a service that teaches people to drive. That is a very good skill to help people to get into employment.

Nobody asked those people to do that. It is not a state enterprise; this is people simply seeing a problem and trying to resolve it. The good will is there and the expertise is there. However, with all due respect to the Minister, I do not feel as though there is yet sufficient will to challenge the immediate problems of rough sleeping or to address the issue of housing policy.

It is gratifying that I am now hearing Conservative MPs talk about that issue, and I try not to intervene every time a Conservative MP tries to teach me about the benefits of social housing. It is good if there is going to be a cross-party consensus on that, but there needs to be a sea change in Government policy, not tweaking at the edges. It requires investment of billions of pounds, year on year, to turn things around. We are starting from a very low base, with a very low level of house building. It is not just about identifying the land, reforming the planning system or bringing developers to heel regarding what they want to build.

Frankly, the comment that was made to ITV—I think it was made yesterday—by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, who I normally have a lot of time for, was a disgrace. To say to the Mayor, “You should concentrate more on building market housing and less on building social and affordable housing in London”—I mean, come and look at the problems in London of trying to get anybody housed, given the sort of conditions that people are living in and the length of time that people are waiting for a permanent home; it can be 10 or 15 years. Only by putting ideology to one side and saying that social housing is an absolutely key part of the housing market in this country will we ensure that these problems are not temporarily dealt with in a sticking-plaster way, but resolved for good.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Coyle]

I thank both Chairs and everyone who contributed to the debate.

I asked several questions in my speech. The Minister referred to her team, and I hope they are busy drafting their reply to the inevitable letter in which I put those questions again, because not all of them were answered. Will the funding for the pilot be continued? Will the data be improved? Is the Minister still committed to resigning if rough sleeping rises again? Will there be changes to legal aid and the Zambrano restrictions? How can we ensure that safeguarding adult reviews are more routine? Councils are simply not carrying them out. Even in the example I gave, that did not occur.

There were several running themes in the debate. The first is shame. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) and the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) both touched on that powerfully. People are ashamed that the system in our country has compelled so many people to sleep rough. It simply should not be happening. There is a public appetite for change, but sadly not in the Government.

The second theme that came out strongly is ambition, which the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince) and my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) touched on. The Government’s target is simply not ambitious enough. They are not on target to meet their weak, unambitious target to halve rough sleeping by 2022. Their figures show that they will not meet it. The risk is that this problem will continue for far longer than necessary. There was some complacency in the Minister’s response. She did not listen to the debate.

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend, who opened the debate brilliantly, is summing it up brilliantly. I am afraid that I heard the Minister read out a prepared speech that just seemed to say that everything is going terribly well. It is complacency. We have heard very good speeches from hon. Members on both sides of the House advocating an immediate solution to the problem.

[Neil Coyle]

Absolutely. There were some warm words, but they will be cold comfort to those who are living in these extreme conditions. The Minister said that three quarters of councils in the pilot areas have done better than average at reducing rough sleeping. That means that, even in the pilot areas, a quarter of councils have seen rough sleeping increase. That is simply not good enough. There may be pilots, but there does not seem to be a cockpit or even a plane. The Government must properly address this problem. I will end on that and start drafting my letter to the officials.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered rough sleeping.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is to be applauded for the constant pressure he keeps up on the Government on safety issues. He is right that we are looking at the introduction of carbon monoxide detectors. We have gathered evidence, which we are looking at, and we will be coming forward with a response shortly.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

We had two debates in the Chamber last week on dangerous cladding, which shows the incompleteness of the Government’s response. Can we have a comprehensive strategy from the Government this year that deals with all types of building, all types of cladding and all types of landlord?

[James Brokenshire]

We provide regular updates that specify the work taking place through the remediation programme to deal with this very serious issue of combustible cladding. The hon. Gentleman will well know the work that is in place, both in the public sector and in the private sector, but I underline to him the urgency I attach to this and how I am not keeping anything out of consideration in making sure that people are safe and feel safe.