High Rise Social Housing: Reducing Fire Risk

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Stephen Doughty

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter]

That is absolutely right. It is a triple whammy. There is the fear of living in an unsafe building with one’s life potentially at risk; there are the huge, unaffordable costs I have already mentioned; and there is the extra feeling of being trapped because one’s property may have a nil value, so it is impossible to move on with one’s life, start a family and so on. It is difficult to imagine a previous crisis with such an impact on so many people, and frankly that is why the Government’s response so far has been inadequate.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

As usual, my hon. Friend is making some excellent points, and I totally concur with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) about the mental health impact—I have heard similar things from my own constituents. In that regard, I praise the work done by Cardiff Council, particularly Councillor Lynda Thorne, in responding very quickly to the crisis in the council-owned blocks by taking action and carrying out the additional tests necessary to identify the problem; I also praise the Welsh Government for making £10.5 million available for social housing, which has benefited 12 blocks, including some in my constituency. But the problem remains, in that the Welsh Government still do not have clarity from the UK Government on the available funding for consequentials. As a result, they are unable to move forward with the wider building safety and fire safety funds that would operate for other social clients and those in the private sector affected by the same mental health difficulties as those social clients.

[Andy Slaughter]

That is another excellent point. I realise I am being quite critical of social landlords. We have to be, because sometimes they fall down on their duty quite spectacularly, as the documentary showed. However, I am glad that my hon. Friend has reminded us that most social landlords—councils and housing associations—are trying their best for their tenants and leaseholders, some of whom are very poor or have particular vulnerabilities. Whoever their tenants are, those landlords can only work with the tools at their disposal. The systematic cut in the housing subsidy over the last 10 years and the additional pressures that will continue, not just from fire safety, but from retrofitting in relation to carbon reduction, mean that we are often asking them to do the impossible—you cannot get a quart into a pint pot.

It is very easy for the Government to pass the buck, and that is exactly what the Housing Secretary did in the Hewitt documentary. “Nothing to do with me, guv”, he said, when asked about the fact that he, or his Government, had cut the budget of local authorities by 40% over the past 10 years.

Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Stephen Doughty

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) and my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), who have set out amendments to the Bill that are reasonable, proportionate and non-partisan, and I cannot see any reason why the Government should not support them. I do not intend to repeat the arguments they have made cogently; I will just add a few comments of my own.

As the hon. Member for Southend West said, he has chaired or been part of the all-party group on fire safety and rescue for more than 20 years. I cannot claim to have been a member for that length of time, but I have learnt a huge amount in the time that I have been. It is one of the most effective groups within Parliament. The all-party parliamentary group on online and home electrical safety, which my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) chairs, has equally made a huge contribution on this issue, with the support of professional bodies. I urge the Minister to listen to the advice coming from those sources.

I do not know anybody who does not support this Bill. It is a very short Bill, and it aims to do two things. First, it clarifies what is meant by “common parts”, particularly in relation to external cladding and the responsibilities therein. Secondly, it is permissive, in terms of the introduction of secondary legislation to modify and add different classes of building in the future.

Had we been debating this two or three years ago, I think everyone would have said, “This is very sensible. Well done to the Government for getting on with it,” but we are not. We are three years post Grenfell. It seems like a piece of emergency legislation, when we should be on to discussing the nitty-gritty and more comprehensive measures. These amendments achieve that in various ways. I will not go through each one, but I would like to mention new clause 1.

We now have the results of part one of the Grenfell inquiry, and new clause 1 effectively asks the Government to take some of those recommendations on board. They include: that information on materials and construction is available to fire and rescue services; that plans of high-rise residential buildings are available; that inspection and testing of lifts is done properly; that evacuation procedures and information to residents are carried out properly; and that there is proper inspection of fire doors. A lot of us would have probably thought, pre Grenfell, that those things already happened, but they do not, and they did not. It is about time that they did. It is about time that the Government legislated and implemented these measures, rather than put out general, catch-all clauses.

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend is making a very good point about new clause 1 and the responsibilities. Would he accept that there is a significant responsibility on the original developers, architects and those involved in construction—I mentioned Laing O’Rourke, Taylor Wimpey, Redrow and others—to make sure that they are providing and have available the original construction diagrams of buildings? We have had a huge problem in Cardiff South and Penarth of not being able to get hold of those and then very expensive testing having to be done. Of course, the cost is then passed on to leaseholders, on top of the bills they may face for rectifying these problems in the first place.

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is my experience from dealing with blocks in my constituency, and I am sure it is many other Members’ experience, that nobody wants ownership of this, nobody wants to pick up the tab and nobody wants to take responsibility—whether it is those who designed the building, those who built the buildings, those who manage the buildings or those who modified the buildings in ways that were not conceived. Somebody has to do that, and if they will not do that, it is Government’s responsibility to ensure that they do, and I do not think this Bill goes far enough in doing that.

New clauses 2 to 5—I am not going to go through those in detail—are, as I say, sensible and proportionate measures, which are designed to ensure that this legislation the Government are properly bringing forward works more effectively. I wait with bated breath to hear what arguments the Minister can put forward for not adopting those.

Let me come on to the amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Southend West, because I think that that is an important amendment. I am glad that it was found to be in scope and is being taken because he is absolutely right to say that, whereas a great deal of the focus has properly gone on construction and modification, particularly in relation to external cladding, insulation and so forth, it is also important that we look at the source of fires. It is rather a truism to say that, if we can control that source, we are going to get a lot fewer fires, whether or not they spread.

There are many issues that are being pursued here. Tomorrow, there is a ten-minute rule Bill from my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) on the registration of electrical appliances, so that where there is a need for recall, those matters can be in hand. What we are doing today is not comprehensive, but the two measures that have been proposed in the hon. Gentleman’s amendment and new schedule are entirely sensible. Yes, they are quite onerous because what we are looking for is both a register of white goods and that there are regular checks. Those have been found appropriate for the private rented sector, and I wonder why they are not appropriate for high-rise buildings where we know, as a consequence of fires such as Lakanal, Grenfell and Shepherd’s Court, that people are particularly at risk.

Let me say a brief word about that because it is in my constituency. It is just over four years since the very serious fire at Shepherd’s Court. A tumble dryer, which not just should have been recalled and had not been recalled, but was going to be repaired and was awaiting repair, was being used according to the manufacturer’s instructions—wrong instructions—and therefore did catch fire, destroyed somebody’s home, spread to several other flats and caused the evacuation of an 18-storey block. Had it not occurred in the middle of the afternoon on a summer’s day, the consequences of that would have been dire. As it happened, there were no serious injuries, but the trauma of being involved in a fire of that nature, I do not think can be imagined. If I were the Minister, this would give me sleepless nights every night until these matters are resolved.

What I fear is that the Government are continuing to take what I can politely describe as an incremental approach here. Yes, these are complicated matters and more issues come to light—every time an investigation takes place, we find more problems with more types of building—but that is the world we live in, and it does not excuse the Government from responsibility. We are looking at height, but we are also looking at the type of buildings, the type of users of buildings and the type of cladding that is used on buildings. They could be hospitals, hotels, care homes or schools; they could be low-rise as well as high-rise buildings. They all have risks attached to them.

It sometimes feels like getting blood out of a stone to get the Government to widen their ambit and look beyond the very narrow classifications they have already dealt with in terms of ACM cladding, possibly high-pressure laminate cladding and possibly buildings down to 11 metres. The Government are very good at giving advice to others, and we all know the problems that that has caused with the sale and remortgage of properties and the necessity for inspections when the professional staff are not there to deal with these matters. The Government should be better at directing those responsible and, where necessary, providing the means for those responsible to remedy the serious risks that are apparent.

That is the problem with the Bill, which the amendments go some way towards clarifying. Whether we are looking at the source, the construction or the modification, the consequences can be the most serious. They can be matters of life, of the destruction of people’s homes, or of people living daily in fear of the risks that apply to their homes. I cannot think of anything less reasonable than that, frankly, so more than three years on from Grenfell, will the Minister look seriously at what is proposed and either adopt the amendments or, at the very least, say that the Government will bring forward their own legislation soon?

It rather feels that we have been overtaken by events because we now have the draft Building Safety Bill. That is a much more detailed piece of work, but I already have some criticisms of it—I will not bore the House with those tonight—and I look forward to more discussions on that as we go forward. I know that the Minister takes these matters seriously, but I do not feel that the Government are addressing them with the rigour or the detail that they need to be. Let us make a start on that today by adopting the amendments that have been put forward.