Fire Safety Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[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.