Grenfell Tower Inquiry Report

Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts

Friday 22nd November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, it is rather difficult to follow such a speech and its insight into the industry and what has gone on.

I have no doubt that everyone in this Chamber can remember the horror at waking to the tragic news of the Grenfell Tower fire and the haunting images on TV. It is one of those significant moments in history: such a horror in our capital city, where 72 people tragically lost their lives. Our thoughts continue to be with the families and the community who lost loved ones and continue to grieve to this day.

The inquiry has rightly looked, in painstaking detail, at the facts leading up to the night of 14 June 2017: the underlying causes of the fire, where mistakes were made, the condition of the tower and the responses of the public and emergency services. While some specific recommendations are about Grenfell, there are lessons for every authority in the land. Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the chair of the inquiry, bluntly said that

“the simple truth is that the deaths that occurred were all avoidable and that those who lived in the tower were badly failed over a number of years and in a number of different ways by those who were responsible for ensuring the safety of the building and its occupants”.

The inquiry is absolutely damning about the construction industry, building management, inspection regimes and the public authorities involved, including the local council, the London Fire Brigade and the Government. As one reads the report, the perfect storm of dishonesty in the sector around the suitability of products to insulate high-rise buildings, alongside the failure of the inspection regime around the certification of such products, is truly shocking.

There are many recommendations for the Government on the regulation of the construction industry, fire risk assessors and the statutory guidance. I hope the Minister will be able to update the House on progress in these areas. The huge issue that remains is the number of buildings with dangerous cladding and other fire risks that remain across the country, particularly in our big cities. I remember the worried emails I used to receive as a London Assembly member at City Hall from people who were scared to live in their own homes, facing crippling bills for waking watches and remedial works and unable to sell their home. They had increased insurance premiums, mortgages and service charges, alongside the impact that this has had on their mental health and their lives. While the previous Government provided funding, which is gradually being allocated, for remedial works, many homes remain left in limbo. How can anyone live their life when they do not yet know when their building—their home—will be made safe?

I have spoken over the years to many housing association officers who have been unable to access previous government funding, as to do so meant that they had to show that their organisation was bankrupt. That cannot be right. As we have heard in today’s debate, our social housing sector needs support to ensure that housing is made safe quickly for tenants and leaseholders. The Budget last month saw over £1 billion allocated in 2025-26 to help with the remediation of unsafe housing. I understand that this figure also includes money to spend on the remediation of social housing, which is obviously welcome. Can the Minister provide more details of this in his response?

The Minister quoted some new departmental figures, but I have been looking at the recent National Audit Office report, which stated that

“remediation works on most tower blocks over 18 metres with the most dangerous form of cladding are now complete or nearing completion”.

However, it also estimated that 9,000 to 12,000 residential buildings over 11 metres need remediating, and as of August—this may differ from the Minister’s figures—just 4,771 buildings were in a remediation programme, leaving up to 60% of buildings still to be identified. Of all the buildings that may be in scope, work has been completed on only around 12% to 16%. This is just not good enough. We need a step change to make sure that people’s homes are safe. I think it is clear to us all that the scale of the cladding and wider fire safety crisis is far greater than we first thought.

I praise the work of the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign group, and I fully support its calls for the inquiry’s recommendations to be implemented in full and without delay. It is clear to me that leaseholders need to be protected from fixing all fire risks, not just cladding, and that the remediation fund process needs to be streamlined and faster.

If we are to consider how we prevent this happening again, we need to look at the regulatory regime. I was pleased to hear the Minister mention his commitment to regulatory reform, but there are multiple regulatory routes to remediation; several regulatory regimes can be used to compel a building manager to act. For example, the fire service can serve a notice under the fire safety order; the local council can enforce via the housing, health and safety rating system in the Housing Act 2004; and central government itself can apply to the First-tier Tribunal for a remediation order under the Building Safety Act 2022. These all produce the same thing: a legally enforceable order to remediate the premises so that it is safe, on pain of criminal sanction, including fines and even prison. However, there is no clarity over which agency, be it fire, council or government, should lead on any particular premises. Indeed, I understand that all three have been done successively.

Regulators would really like some clear guidance from the Government on which organisation should lead, especially as each case is potentially expensive and could involve litigating against an unwilling building manager. Without that guidance, it could be all too easy for agencies to assume that another will lead, and a dangerous building could fall through the cracks.

Another area where issues remain is the freeholder who could fund the remediation works but who does not accept that they are at fault or culpable, saying that the builder, the materials supplier or some previous freeholder is to blame. Such freeholders might ultimately receive government funding or be able to recover the costs from whoever was at fault, but they will not begin the remedial works without some assurance of this. I would welcome a clear statement from government that this is not acceptable and that regulators should be able to mandate that freeholders with the resources to fund remediation should do so straight away.

This is a sobering debate and a serious moment, as we look at what needs to be done to ensure that everyone can live in a safe home. I look forward to the Minister’s responses to these points.