Fire Safety Bill

Baroness Fookes Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my relevant interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a member of Kirklees Council.

This has so far been a very good debate, with the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, using his expertise to detail the problems and suggest solutions to them since, as he says, they have yet to be resolved and need to be resolved, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans with his passionate exposé of the real difficulties facing individuals in this position.

We know that a property purchase is the largest single financial commitment that the majority of us ever make, yet the guarantees, the warranties and even buildings insurance for leaseholders fail to provide anything approaching adequate provision for those who find themselves living in a home where building regulations have been openly and plainly breached. Those living through this construction crisis and cladding scandal exposed by the awful tragedy of Grenfell are left with nowhere to find redress for the inexcusable failings of the construction companies.

That is in stark contrast to manufacturers of, for example, cars and white goods; where faults are discovered, even where the goods are out of warranty, the manufacturers call them in and make the repairs at their expense. What a difference with the construction industry, where only some of those involved have made any provision for remediation works—the bare minimum that they feel they can get away with. The total estimated cost of remediation so far is £16 billion. The Government are expecting construction companies to pay £200 million a year towards the remediation costs. With the government-funded scheme, that leaves a full £9 billion to fall on those who, throughout, are the innocent victims.

The purpose of the amendments in my name and that of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans is to extend the principle already agreed by the Government: that this serious problem can be successfully fixed only with up-front funding from the Government that can then be recouped from developers, construction firms and manufacturers.

Throughout this debate I have sought to draw the attention of the House to the real and serious consequences for the individual leaseholders and tenants. Take Alison, who has recently had a bill for £28,000. That is just her share of the costs of putting right the construction errors in her block. It is not for cladding removal; the other construction failings are not covered by the scheme that the Government have introduced, but they still have to be remedied. How is that bill to be paid? She carefully budgeted for the costs of her mortgage and the service charges but has no means of raising the finance needed. Where on earth can she turn to save her home?

Another flat owner has written to me, as they apparently have to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, about the further consequences of the scandal. They told me about their buildings insurance premium, and it is so shocking that it is worth sharing again. The insurance premium for their block was just £11,963 last year but that has rocketed to £242,400. How on earth can people living in that block of flats have budgeted for that sort of exponential rise in their insurance premiums? Further, how on earth can they have budgeted or indeed find any finance to pay the bill, which they expect within a week, of £6,000 for each and every one of them without the Government doing what Governments can and should do, which is to protect individuals from situations where they are the innocent victims?

As a consequence of the complete lack of effective government action, bankruptcy has been the only route out of this scandal for many already, while others are on the brink of choosing that as the only option left. Yet these are the very people who have done everything right and nothing wrong. Some are even those who have been supported by the Government through the Help to Buy offer. What are the options after bankruptcy, when everything that you have worked for has been taken away? For those without dependants, the situation is very difficult. They become homeless through no fault of their own. It cannot be right that the Government are allowing this to happen.

I do not envy the Minister his task today as he seeks to defend the indefensible. I feel sure that he will point to the building safety Bill as the cure-all for the failings of the construction sector, but that Bill has yet to start its deliberations so its potential remedies will come far too late for those caught up in this crisis.

The Minister has argued that the Fire Safety Bill will fall if agreement is not reached. He argues for the need to act, but he fails to say at what cost and indeed at whose cost. I thank him for reminding me of my words at Second Reading but he has been a bit selective. I have always said throughout the passage of the Bill that leaseholders must not be asked to pay. Yes, across the House we support the Bill, but equally its consequences need to be thought through as well. The Government constantly state that they are helping leaseholders; indeed the Minister has repeated that today, but he failed then to say that that is unfortunately at a minimal level and the extent of the help is not adequate.

I have asked the cladding groups whether they would suffer if the Bill fell. Their view was unanimous. They concluded that they would be no worse off if it fell and they say that if it does not pass, to some extent it provides them with precious time to get the issue properly addressed.

Yesterday, the Government announced that they would change the law to refund investors in the London Capital & Finance mini-bond scheme. The Government have accepted that the FCA failed to regulate the firm properly. The similarities with this construction scandal are many. Innocent victims are set to lose out due to the failure of regulatory control. However, in the case of the cladding scandal, innocent victims are set to lose everything they own and have worked hard for. That is not right.

The amendment in my name seeks to put right this awful wrong and to establish the rollcall of statistics of bankruptcy, homelessness, mental ill-health and worse, of relationships broken and careers lost. Hundreds of thousands of individuals and families are watching and waiting for the decision of this House. They are willing us on to help find a fair and just solution to a problem that is not in any way of their making. Yet they are the ones who are being asked to pay the price.

If the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans wishes to divide the House, the Liberal Democrat Benches will fully support him. If, however, he chooses not to do so, then I will wish to test the opinion of the House.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

My Lords, the following Members in the Chamber have indicated that they wish to speak: the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, and the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Cormack. I will call them in that order. First, I call the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is with some reluctance, especially at this late stage of the Bill, that I have decided to speak in support of these amendments. I do not want unnecessarily to delay legislation that aims to make homes safer and I am very sensitive about the dangers of undemocratic overreach and defying an elected Chamber. However, I speak because there is an urgent risk that rather than this well-intentioned, important Bill being remembered as a law that will save lives by tackling the fire safety defects at the heart of the Grenfell tragedy, instead, if passed unamended, it will become known as the Bill that ruins lives and makes tens of thousands bankrupt and homeless, their homes transformed from places of safety to sites of anxiety, stress and penury.

I have not spoken on the Bill previously but have followed the debates carefully. I have heard eloquent, passionate, evidence-based and constructive interventions from noble Lords on all sides of the House patiently explaining to the Government how the Bill, unintentionally no doubt, has weaponised fire safety measures and targeted not developers, freeholders, cladding manufacturers or builders but the most blameless constituents in all this—leaseholding home owners. They will pay horrendous, mind-boggling amounts of money to foot remediation costs to cover defects in order to make their homes safe when they have purchased those flats in good faith.

I assumed that the Government were listening and that they understood, after all this—Ministers here and elsewhere have given lots of public assurances—that leaseholders would not become the fall guys. I believed them. I was pleased to welcome the £5 billion long-term loan scheme and the £50-a-month cap on repayments. That reassured me. But I am speaking today in desperation because I am utterly shocked to discover that this government scheme is not yet operational and that no date is available for when it will be. Yet, at the very moment that the Bill comes into force, if unamended, leaseholders will be landed with even more astronomical bills and demands to pay within days or weeks. That is on top of the immiseration already occurring, caused by ensuing costs.