Building Safety

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, as this is the last business, I wish all noble Lords a restful and peaceful Easter.

I thank the Government for this update, given yesterday in the House of Commons. There are more than 4 million people in the UK living in buildings over 11 metres tall, including 1.3 million in buildings over 18 metres. That is why it is of the utmost importance that this building safety issue moves forward without any further delay.

As my noble friend Lord Kennedy and other noble Lords pointed out in the debate this afternoon, we are now more than seven years on from the tragedy of the fire at Grenfell Tower and the loss of 72 lives. It seems, at last, some progress is being made to address the multitude of issues that arose from that catastrophic fire and previous dreadful fires, such as that at Lakanal House in Camberwell—which I remind noble Lords was in 2009.

I pay tribute to the determination and commitment of the survivors of Grenfell and other campaigners, such as the Manchester Cladiators, the National Leasehold Campaign, End Our Cladding Scandal and the UK Cladding Action Group. Their powerful voices and front-line witness have kept the issue right at the top of the agenda and enabled the progress of which this Statement forms the latest step. However, it is just not good enough that they have had to wait so long. Will the Minister tell us whether the Government are now going to set a deadline by which remediation work must be completed?

It is important that both Houses are updated regularly on progress to tackle the scandalous building safety crisis, and this Statement indicates some progress. However, I hope there is no complacency in moving this forward at greater pace, because the figures produced by the Government last week showed that only 21% of high-rise blocks have been fully remediated and that hundreds of thousands of families are still stuck in flats with dangerous, flammable defects, whether that is cladding, missing fire breaks or wooden balconies. We cannot underestimate the seriousness of the impact on their lives. Dreams of home ownership are shattered as they battle with freeholders to get this remediation carried out, and family finances are broken by remediation costs, exorbitant insurance and the nightmare of being trapped in flats that people are too scared to live in but cannot sell.

What progress is being made in working with lenders to ensure that properties caught up in the cladding scandal can be sold or remortgaged? Even those that have had remediation done are suffering from problems with this. Progress remains slow. What progress has been made, for example, on the registration of building control inspectors? The deadline had to be extended by an additional 13 weeks from the original deadline of 6 April. What assurances can the Minister give that that extended deadline will be met?

This building safety Statement refers only to buildings over 11 metres. I know from the discussions on the Building Safety Act and subsequent statutory instruments that your Lordships’ House remains concerned about buildings up to 11 metres in height. Indeed, it was raised again today in the debate on leasehold. I would be grateful if the Minister could reiterate to the department that we still have outstanding concerns in this regard and would appreciate a full response in due course. Although in the leasehold debate the Minister said that the Government were taking the risk to life most seriously, lenders and mortgage providers are taking a much more risk-averse approach than the Government.

The Minister will know that I have mentioned before the dreadful situation that residents of Vista Tower in Stevenage face, so I was pleased to see the Minister in the other place specifically mention in this Statement that legal action against Grey GR in that respect is imminent. We note that other legal action is pending, but can the Minister please let us know how quickly leaseholders who have been forced to use their own money for remediation, and that spent by taxpayers, will be able to receive recompense following remediation contribution orders? Will there be any accountability for the manufacturers involved in building safety defects, so that all those responsible for the building safety crisis have to face the financial consequences of their actions?

Can the Minister update us any further on the long-awaited second staircase guidance? I note the Minister in the other place said it would appear this week, but as we are right on the last sitting day before recess I thought it worth flagging up again that it is still due. Absence of this guidance is holding up the construction of thousands of safe homes across the country.

At last, we are moving to a point where the respective responsibilities for resolving the crisis between the construction and development industry, freeholders, statutory agencies and the regulator are becoming clearer. Importantly, we are moving to a point where those responsible for failure can be held accountable for their actions, although we must keep our eye on enforcement processes, as it seems they are not the strongest part of the new regime. For example, although additional funding for councils to undertake enforcement is welcome, we must not forget the backdrop of the extreme funding pressures councils are under, which continues to make the increasing regulatory and enforcement burdens an added strain. I hope the whole burden of this will not be forced on councils and that the department will continue to play an active and robust role.

Lastly, I raise the issues relating to the extraordinary burden being placed on leaseholders because of shocking increases in insurance premiums—up to 1,000% increases in some cases—even after buildings have been remediated and made safe. Can the Minister update us on what discussions the department has held with the insurance industry to set out the Government’s expectations in this regard and how they plan to mitigate this awful further burden on leaseholders?

We are grateful to the Minister for her constructive approach to working with opposition parties on this issue. It is clear that the will across your Lordships’ House is to move this on at pace and to continue to press for full remediation for all building safety defects to be completed as quickly as possible. Everybody deserves to feel safe in their own home, and it is taking too long. Those who have profited from not paying enough attention to that safety need either to put matters right or to be brought to justice without any further delay.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, in reference to the Statement, I have to say how irritating it is that statistics are selected to project a positive picture of progress made on the remediation of building defects as a result of the Building Safety Act and how refreshing it would be if the Government were able to reflect on the poor rate of progress, instead of trying to spin a success story. Spinning the progress made is not doing anybody any favours. It is certainly not helping the thousands of leaseholders who are still stuck in limbo in flats where work has not been started and where even an assessment of whether work is needed has not been made. Perhaps an honest appraisal of the situation would put some government energy into trying to resolve this issue. As the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, has just asked, what is the timetable? How long have leaseholders to wait while this scheme is making snail-like progress towards some remediation?

In Inside Housing last week, a piece by the investigative journalist, Peter Apps, provided some very different numbers from those given by the Government in the Statement. I am not accusing the Government of having inaccurate figures, but they were very selective. I have no reason to challenge the report in Inside Housing, which says:

“As it stands, of 3,839 buildings above 11 metres being monitored by the government due to the need for cladding remediation, 2,286 have not even started works yet”.


The terrible Grenfell Tower fire was nearly seven years ago, and 2,000-plus buildings have not even had work started yet. But the report in Inside Housing went on to say that

“the 3,839 figure could eventually rise by as much as 5,000”.

based on the Government’s own estimates. We really do not know how many are in desperate need of remediation.

So my question to the Government is: can we have a full and final estimate—which surely should be possible nearly seven years after Grenfell—of how many blocks of flats are in need of remediation? How many of them are over 18 metres and most at risk? How many are over 11 metres? What consideration is being given to those under 11 metres, given that many thousands of leaseholders and tenants live in such flats, which the Government regard as being relatively safe but which insurance companies and service charges and all the rest do not? They are in total limbo, waiting for some action to unlock the situation that they are in. That is my first question.

Secondly, in January, there was a fire in Petworth Court in Wembley, which is a social housing building. The social landlord knew that work needed to be done and the original builder accepted that work needed to be done, but they have been in dispute ever since about how much responsibility each should take for it. That is another issue which desperately needs to be addressed because, at the end of it, it is leaseholders who are stuck in this awful situation of going to bed every night knowing that their buildings are unsafe and vulnerable to very serious fires. So another question that I want answered, please, is about how the Government are going to resolve the disputes between what are sometimes leaseholders and sometimes social landlords and the developers and builders.

My third point is this. According to the Statement, the Government are going to drip another £6 million of public money into council enforcement action. Now, I am absolutely fed up with the answer to any problem being that the Government will spend another bit of money trying to do something about it, instead of accepting what the fundamental issue is here. If you do not fund the public services on which we all rely—such as building regulations and building enforcement—properly in the first place, when there is a problem we are forever going to have the answer, “We’re going to drip another £2 million or £3 million in to try to solve it”—and it will not. It will deal with a little bit this time, but nobody can plan with little bits of money being dripped into public services in this way. So, please, at least take this back to the Government: fund the thing properly rather than dripping in money.