Grenfell Tower and Building Safety

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, there was an emphasis in the Statement on the involvement of Grenfell residents in future decision-making. As the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, pointed out, part of the problem lies in the fact that the residents were not listened to in the past when they raised concerns about problems with the building. I was at the memorial meeting here last week, where I got the sense that many felt they were still not being listened to by local officials. Thinking about lessons for the future, what are the Government going to do to ensure that residents of social housing are listened to?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for her question and for her attendance at the meeting. It was a very moving meeting indeed. As she said, there were understandably some raw feelings about the way residents had been dealt with. Looking to the future, in the aftermath of the Grenfell tragedy we have established there a victim support unit. Ministers are there on a regular basis—to be fair, so is the royal borough. We have responded very positively by ensuring the NHS is there to look to the health needs, not least the mental health needs, of the people there. On her wider point about ensuring that lessons are learned, they will be learned. We are looking to the future for a Green Paper on the social housing sector. We can expect some of these points on the obvious questions raised by the Grenfell tragedy to be taken up in it and some of the answers we have learned.