Grenfell Tower Inquiry

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Mike Hill

Monday 14th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I am pleased we are debating Grenfell—though it took 150,000 members of the public to bring us here—and I am also glad that we will debate it again on Wednesday, when it is the Labour party’s Opposition day debate subject. Speaking for myself and my constituents in Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush, we could debate it every day until we get justice for the bereaved, the dead and the survivors, and real assurance—not just words—that it will never happen again.

As a neighbouring constituency, we experienced Grenfell in three separate ways. First, we experienced it directly. I will never forget waking up at six o’clock that morning when Grenfell was still burning to hear messages on my phone telling me what had happened and watch it. I went down there later that day and spent most of the rest of the week there, to try—I do not think I was very useful—to give some moral support to my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad). She has shown today that she does not really need that. At the time, I think she had been an MP for four days, and she dealt with it fantastically, as her speech, which pulled no punches, showed. Many of my constituents were there, including volunteers from the al-Muntada mosque in Parsons Green offering spiritual, moral and practical comfort every day. Many of my constituents watched Grenfell unfold from their own high-rise blocks, a mile or half a mile away. It affects us profoundly.

Secondly, it affects us as neighbours. Let me give an example. Our local authority offered help on the day in the form of accommodation and assistance but received no response. We found out later—we were not told—that 52 households were placed in budget hotels in Hammersmith and, nearly a year later, 17 of them are still there. Only six have been made permanent offers of accommodation. Those are real failings, and I cannot help but agree that even now—this is a party political point in a way—I wish the same faces were not still in charge in Kensington town hall, because I do not think they have learnt their lessons. There is still a role for commissioners if we are actually to take it as seriously as Government Members as well as Opposition Members say they wish to do. There were such singular failures by that authority, and they continue to this day.

Given the limited time, let me talk about two aspects—there are many others, particularly on the physical and mental health of survivors and the wider community—of the wider consequences: social housing and fire safety. Grenfell is the result of a systematic denigration and demoralisation of the social housing sector in this country over 30 years. We experience that in Hammersmith, where insecurity is introduced through short-term tenancies and there no longer being a duty to discharge housing duty in the public sector. Social housing is second or third-class, so the people who lived there were ignored. Their views were not taken into account. What was good enough for them would not have been good enough for other people. That continues to happen.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) said, the sale of social housing properties is deliberately making the housing crisis worse, and none are being built. There has been no money for investment in social housing across London since 2010. Then we are surprised that the housing crisis is as bad as it is.

Let us look at fire safety, which has many aspects. I am still waiting for what I was promised six months ago: information on the cause of the fire. We know it started in a particular type of fridge-freezer in a particular flat. That is a common electrical fault that affects hundreds if not thousands of properties across London and the country, yet we know no more about that.

We know there are substantial problems with cladding and insulation, but the response on that has been entirely inadequate, as it has been on means of escape, and on other fire safety measures and advice such as the “stay put” policy. I do not regard the Royal Institute of British Architects as a radical left-wing organisation, but it is a good organisation and it has asked that we use only non-combustible cladding. Is that unreasonable? Yet I had an instance of a landlord who wanted to replace one type of partially combustible cladding that had failed a test with a type of partially combustible cladding that had passed a test. I am pleased to say that, in response to me and residents protesting, they backed down.

We need buildings with more than one means of escape, but in my constituency buildings on the Grenfell model of design have been proposed and approved since the fire happened. We need sprinkler systems in blocks, and not on the random basis of whether an authority can afford it.

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Andy Slaughter]

If my hon. Friend does not mind, I will not, because there is very limited time.

We also need to stop this farce of desktop studies and all of that. It is insulting, as my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) said, that the Hackitt inquiry may propose business as usual, and the police inquiry, leaked to the Standard, may say, “It’s all the fault of the workmen who put the stuff up in the wrong way.” I am sorry; the fault will go far, far beyond that. And we are here today because even now the public inquiry has not got the full confidence of the residents. I support a public inquiry, doing a thorough investigation, but there are more urgent matters that need to be dealt with before that, in relation to social housing and fire safety. We need to get on with them. I have heard warm words today, and have been hearing them for the past year. Frankly they do not get us anywhere. What gets us somewhere is action, which is lacking at the moment. I hope we continue to debate the matter every day.

I apologise for the fact that I shall not be here for the winding-up speeches, Mr Wilson. I wanted to speak because of the close relationship I mentioned, but also, particularly, because I want to say that the debate must continue until the action we require is taken to ensure justice for Grenfell and the safety of the millions of people living in Grenfell-style conditions across this country.