Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 2 Report

Debate between Angela Rayner and Helen Hayes

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Member is absolutely right to raise the oversight mechanism. I think I have addressed some of that and the wider issues, not just in terms of this inquiry, but all the inquiries that we have had. There have been far too many inquiries into tragedies, in the sense that these scandals and tragedies should not happening in the first place. We are committed to looking at oversight mechanisms, and I have detailed the oversight mechanisms I expect from my Department and the recommendations from Grenfell. I am happy for her to share that information with my Department, and I will take those considerations into account.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

My thoughts today are with the survivors of the Grenfell Tower disaster and the 72 families who are still mourning the loss of a loved one. I pay tribute to their immense dignity, as they continue to fight for justice.

I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s clear commitment to implement all of Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s recommendations. I have constituents living in blocks with fire safety issues. Those are often not cladding-related issues, but issues identified as part of the wider scandal in the construction industry uncovered by fire safety inspections post-Grenfell. In some cases there have been terrifying fires in these blocks, leaving residents feeling unsafe and leaseholders trapped in unsellable flats, as building owners and construction firms argue over who is responsible for the fire safety defects and fail to resolve the issues. Can the Deputy Prime Minister therefore say, as she moves forward to implement Sir Martin’s recommendations, when she would expect my constituents to have a clear plan, with a timescale attached to it, for the remediation work needed in unsafe buildings? Where is the accountability in the meantime?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that, nearly eight years on from the tragedy of Grenfell, it is completely unacceptable that people are still living in unsafe buildings. I respect and pay tribute to what previous Governments have done. That legislation has enabled authorities to take action, and we have been supporting them in making sure that action is taken. Our remediation acceleration plan will also outline how we can ensure that those responsible for remediating buildings, whether that relates to fire safety or any other defects, are held accountable, so that we can take those actions and get that remediation done as quickly as possible. I do not want it to take another eight years before people are living in safe and secure homes. I expect to do it as quickly as possible, and action is already being taken.

Government PPE Contracts

Debate between Angela Rayner and Helen Hayes

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He made two points, which I will come to in greater detail in my speech, but one was the lack of PPE for those on the frontline, as well as the total disrespect in the way that contracts were handed out through the VIP lane, at the expense of businesses up and down the UK that had experience and could have helped during the pandemic, but which were not party to WhatsApps or whatever else got them to Ministers and access to the VIP lane.

Take the mystery of a PPE company with links to a Tory politician. While it is for the authorities to decide whether any law is broken, and I will not comment on the ongoing investigations, we do know that PPE Medpro was referred to the VIP lane by a sitting member of the Cabinet after lobbying from another Tory politician five days before it was even legally registered as a company. The House may recall that that particular company was subsequently awarded two contracts worth £203 million to supply PPE, with £81 million to supply 210 million face masks awarded in May 2020 and a £122 million contract to supply 25 million surgical gowns awarded in June 2020. The face masks were bought by the Government from PPE Medpro for more than twice the price of identical items from other suppliers, and the surgical gowns were rejected for use in the NHS after a technical inspection. All of them were never even used. It points to a total failure of due diligence and the rotten stench of cronyism.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

During the early months of the pandemic, I was contacted by PPE suppliers known to the NHS—they were long-term suppliers—who told me that their offers of help were being rejected. One wrote to me and said that before April 2020

“there was a degree of total incompetence about government handling of PPE purchases. However, by the way they scrutinised our own offers, thereafter, we believe they knew, at least specification-wise, exactly what they were doing and that senior managers were taking steps to use ‘preferred suppliers’, even though they were aware these suppliers had neither the track record nor the level of competence to produce compliant goods”.

What does my right hon. Friend think about that?

[Angela Rayner]

I think it absolutely stinks, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right, in that the public can see through it, as can those businesses, who are pretty angry. They knew that Britain faced a situation with a global pandemic that it had not faced before and they wanted to do the right thing by doing their bit. The frustration—my hon. Friend is right to quote her business—is that there is no question that the specifications should have been known. Therefore, why was all this PPE bought knowing full well it could not be used?