Fire Safety Bill

Bob Blackman Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 29th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me in this important debate. I start by expressing my heartfelt sympathy for the victims and their families in the Grenfell Tower disaster. I thank successive Ministers on updating the House on progress in remedying the disaster and in legislation, but it is sobering that almost three years on from the disaster we are considering this Bill.

I have had the opportunity of going through the various different updates and reviews that we on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee have conducted and, indeed, I have heard at first hand evidence from Dame Judith Hackitt. I would echo, therefore, all the remarks of the Chair of the Select Committee in drawing attention to the work that the Select Committee is doing on this subject.

I want to mention first and foremost the problems of the testing regime. It is easy to test cladding by directing a flame or heat straight on to the surface, but the problem is that both ACM cladding and other forms become a huge fire risk when holes are cut for windows and other such purposes. The regime must test all forms of cladding and other building materials properly and safely.

There is another issue on which I would echo the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon). From serving on the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority before coming into Parliament, I know that who is responsible for signing off the different safety regimes must be clarified. I am afraid that the Bill as it currently stands needs further clarification, because it could lead to confusion. I hope that that be rectified in Committee.

I have a further concern, which I hope will be flagged up by Ministers dealing with the other legislation that is required: what we do about electrical fittings in general. We have very strict regulations for who can fit gas appliances, but the regulation on who can fit electrical fittings is very loose indeed. People who fit the gas appliances must have proper training and certification, but electricians merely need three days’ training. I think most people would think that that is bizarre in this day and age, because those people will be at huge risk.

I also ask for clarity on what we mean by some of the specific definitions in the Bill. For example, references to buildings could be interpreted to mean semi-detached or detached properties of only two storeys. I am sure the definition is intended to cover multi-storey buildings. We will have a huge problem with fire assessments for householders and the fire authorities if it is not clarified.

The definition of “common parts” is normally considered to cover entrance halls, corridors and suchlike, but it needs to be extended to cover other areas of high-rise buildings, such as lift shafts and other systems. At present, there is doubt as to whether they would be in scope. There is of course also the issue of structure. At present, we are clearly thinking of particular types of structures, but we will have problems if that is not clarified by definition.

There are clearly some issues that need to be resolved, but a lot is left to secondary legislation. I trust that, during the passage of the Bill, we can clarify some of these issues, so that we can include them within the scope of the Bill without putting them in secondary legislation, so that everyone is clear.

In summary, I strongly support this Bill, and I hope we can speedily push it through to its conclusion. I look forward to the other legislation that is going to have to come through to improve fire safety in this country for all people in whatever type of housing they live.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

The last speaker before our half-hour suspension is Daisy Cooper.

Fire Safety Bill

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab) [V]]

It is shameful that this modest Bill is the Government’s legislative response thus far to Grenfell, almost four years after that tragedy took place. We might expect, therefore, that it would at least address the most significant and urgent wrongs that the Grenfell fire brought to the Government’s attention. The purpose of the Bill is to update the fire safety order and better manage and reduce the risk of fire. What better and more straightforward way of achieving that than to implement the recommendations of part 1 of the Grenfell inquiry, which deals with issues such as the inspection and maintenance of lifts and doors, and having proper systems of evacuation in place and communicated to residents? It is impossible to imagine those steps, backed by the moral and legal authority of the inquiry, not becoming law. That is the purpose of Lords amendment 2.

Although safety is the paramount concern, the treatment of leaseholders and tenants living in unsafe blocks is a wholly new scandal that this Bill will fail to address unless Lords amendment 4 is agreed today. Those tenants should not bear the cost of remedial work to their flats where they did not and could not have known the risks posed by their construction. The Government do not seek to deny that, but instead make a series of partial concessions. That is the wrong approach. We should start, as amendment 4 does, with the presumption that remedial costs attributable to the Bill should not be borne by leaseholders. They should not be borne by tenants or social landlords either, or by the rents of the least well off or the limited funds set aside for the provision and repairing of social homes.

The cynical disregard for the lives of our fellow citizens that Grenfell exposed will take years, billions of pounds and the concentrated efforts of the Government and industry to address. Building design, materials, construction, maintenance and inspection are all in the dock. Height is a factor, but so is who the occupants and users are and how they are taught to behave, especially in an emergency.

For the Government constantly to adopt a reductive approach to the crisis is irresponsible. This is not just about one or two types of cladding, buildings over 18 metres or residential buildings. Today is an opportunity not to address all those issues, important as they are, but to show a serious intent to act now on the most obvious faults and injustices. The Government should take it by accepting all the amendments before the House.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). This is a horrendously complicated issue involving cladding—ACM, high-pressure laminate and other forms of inflammable cladding—fire safety measures and the height of buildings. I warmly welcome the fact that the Government have come up with the money to remedy the most unsafe buildings—tall buildings—and the cladding that was put on them, which fails to provide safe accommodation to residents.

The reality is that the £5.1 billion will remediate only the unsafe cladding and will not do the comprehensive work. The issue then becomes one of the fire safety work that has to be carried out as well. There is no funding to provide for that, so it has to be paid for by someone.

I have a series of suggested tests that could apply. The first is that, emerging from the Grenfell inquiry, it is quite clear that the ACM cladding was illegal, so those responsible for developing the cladding and putting it on the building must pay for the remediation in all other buildings where that is the case. Similarly, for other forms of unsafe cladding, if those people fail to accord with the building regulations that exist at the time, they should pay the cost of removing and correcting it.

Leaseholders could not reasonably have been expected to foresee the fire safety issues when they bought the leases on their flats, so the fundamental issue is that they should not have to pay the cost of remediation, either of cladding or of fire safety defects. My hon. Friend the Minister said that he finds the amendments defective. My challenge to him, when he responds to this debate, is to make it clear from the Dispatch Box that the Government will bring forward proposals in the Lords to amend the Bill to make sure leaseholders do not pay.

The defence seems to be that the Building Safety Bill will eventually come through and be implemented. The problem is that we have sat through the pre-legislative scrutiny of that Bill and recommended at least 40 changes to it. It will take probably 18 months for it to reach the statute book, and then we have the secondary legislation. Leaseholders do not have the time: this work needs to be carried out now. The industry estimates that it will take some four years to implement all the safety works required. It must be made clear that the leaseholders are not the ones to pay.

Currently, leaseholders cannot insure or sell their properties and no one wants to buy them. We are in danger of freezing the housing market because of this problem. I urge the Minister, when he responds, to—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. We will have to leave it there.

Fire Safety Bill

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab) [V]]

Nearly four years after Grenfell, it is very disappointing that the Government still have not finalised support to make people’s homes safe, and that leaseholders are still waiting for the protection that Ministers promised multiple times, and that the Lords amendments could help deliver.

I am in touch with more than 3,000 households affected in my constituency, and hundreds of leaseholders have completed my online survey. These are people left in limbo by our Government, but already facing the cost of service charges or waking watches. There are also those facing costs where there is an uncertain timeline for the work. Seven out of 10 people who completed my survey said that works had been identified as necessary but they had yet to get the date for repairs. There are also people whom the Government deliberately excluded from help with compartmentalisation safety measures, and people living in buildings less than 18 metres tall. I am working with people living in 28 such buildings, and with people who have seen delays in Government action, despite the Government having failed to ensure that regulations meant that house building and renovations were safe. Of course, other people have seen Government guidance needlessly affect their insurance or mortgage.

Today, I am supporting the Lords amendments, but I am also asking the Government not to profiteer from this situation. I am seeking, with cross-party backing, including from the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith), who has already spoken, a VAT exemption on essential works required through fire safety surveys, in line with VAT changes made three years ago for some new builds. If that measure is adopted, the Government’s building safety fund will go 20% further, as money will not be lost to VAT. That fund goes on not luxury changes, but essential remedial works required by the Government to make people’s homes safe. Put simply, we cannot go from dishy Rishi eating out to help out last year, to rip-off Rishi profiteering from people’s misery today. I hope that this cross-party request will gain further support, and that Ministers will meet campaigners on this issue.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle). The Government have moved swiftly to try to remediate the cladding on tall buildings. There has been slow progress, but progress is being made. In medium-rise buildings—those below six storeys—leaseholders will have to bear a cost, but we do not know what that cost will be, and we do not yet know the results of the proposals for the loan scheme. It is quite clear that the Government are trying to find a way forward, but we have yet to see the details.

There is also the issue of fire safety in buildings. The Bill is vital to preserving fire safety across the country in all buildings, whatever their structure. The Grenfell inquiry lifted the lid on the scandal of the tall buildings erected in this country without following proper fire safety regulations. Once a survey is carried out on a building, we know the extent to which work is required, whether regulations were followed, when the building was put up and whether the materials used in the building were correct. The people who provided substandard materials should be made to replace them free of charge. If builders put buildings up without following the proper regulations, we should go back to them and required them to carry out the remediation.

The one set of people who are completely and utterly innocent is the leaseholders. They did not build their building; they bought their lease in the belief that it was safe and secure. We should send out the strongest signal tonight that leaseholders should not have to pay a penny piece towards the cost of remedying things that were not their fault.

The Minister may say that the Bill is the wrong place to put that provision, but it will take at least 18 months—possibly two years—to bring the building safety Bill to fruition. Leaseholders do not have time to wait for us to deliberate, so let us join together and send the signal that leaseholders do not have to pay a penny. If the Government believe that Lords amendment 4B is somehow flawed, let them come forward with an amendment that is satisfactory and will result in the key outcome: not requiring leaseholders to pay.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD) [V]]

I am pleased to see the Bill back before us, and proud that it was an amendment that I tabled last June in Committee—new clause 3—that first introduced the principle that leaseholders must be protected from the extortionate costs of fire safety remediation. I am very grateful to my noble Friend Baroness Pinnock for taking up the idea in the other place, and to the hon. Members for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) and the Lord Bishops of St Albans and London for improving it along the way.

The arguments for and against protecting leaseholders in the Bill are now well established. The Government continue to attempt to fob us off with the inadequate and flawed remediation fund, but fire safety experts have debunked the fund’s arbitrary 18-metre cut-off. Meanwhile, leaseholders keep trying in vain to tell the Government that it is not just about cladding; buildings of any height would still be left liable for non-cladding remediation of missing fire breaks, flammable balconies or dangerous insulation, as well as having to pay for waking watches and additional alarms.

I have listened with interest as Ministers continue to reject the amendment. We hear time and again that it is not sufficiently detailed, that it would require substantial drafting of primary legislation and that it could cause litigation, delay remediation work and have unintended consequences—that is a new one. The Government claim that it is Members who back the amendment who are apparently responsible for causing delays to the Bill, when it is the Government who have taken almost four years to bring forward a two-page Bill. Not once have the Government acknowledged the risks of the Bill passing without the amendment. Not once have the Government addressed the fact that financial costs will be incurred by leaseholders from day one if the Bill goes through without the amendment.

The Government have spent nine months finding fault with the amendment, but at no point have they brought forward their own. Leaseholders cannot rely on the flawed building safety fund, nor can they wait any longer for promises of hope in a building safety Bill that may or may not help in the future. Ministers can see the strength of feeling in this House, even among those on their own Benches, and they can hear the pleas from millions of desperate homeowners. This amendment may not be perfect, but it is the only proposal on the table to protect leaseholders from the financial repercussions of fire safety defects that are not of their making. I call on all Members to do the right thing and support it.

Fire Safety Bill

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab) [V]]

Four years have passed since the Grenfell tragedy, and once again the House is debating whether or not to protect leaseholders from the costs of remedying fire safety defects caused by a failure of regulation and negligence, as well as by deceptive practices in the building industry. Meanwhile, the Government continue to dither and delay, and order their MPs to vote against amendments designed to protect leaseholders. Make no mistake, the funds that the Government have made available thus far have taken too much time to come on stream. The money will not ultimately be enough to meet the scale of the crisis and, crucially, interim costs are not covered.

On top of all those costs, today we have heard about the cost of insurance. I have lost count of the times that I have pleaded with the Government to do something about insurance costs. In my constituency there have been insurance increases of 1,000% in affected buildings. Those are shocking figures, and this shocking situation is falling on deaf ears as far as the Government are concerned. Long before any cladding is removed from these buildings, the people living in them will have been ruined by the costs of insurance and interim measures such as waking watches to keep their buildings open. There is simply nothing left to remedy the internal fire safety defects as well. Leaseholders need the protection that the Lords amendment would offer.

We should never forget that at any point, a further tragedy could—God forbid—occur. That is a terror that leaseholders in Brindley House in my constituency have had to face, because on 31 January this year there was a fire in a flat in their building. I have seen the burned-out husk of that flat for myself. The fire service said that the residents were only two minutes away from the fire engulfing the whole of their building. Two more minutes and the windows in that flat would have shattered, and the cladding wrapped around that building would have caught fire. When I heard that, my blood ran cold. Can the Minister imagine what it must be like for the people who live in Brindley House? That is the risk, that is the fear, and that is the scale of the financial ruination that people in my constituency and all over the country are trying to cope with.

One of my constituents recently said to me that he now thinks it will be less stressful to declare himself bankrupt and become homeless than to try to find a way to carry on as a leaseholder. At the very least, the Government could and should support the Lords amendment, or indicate a clear way through the crisis, so that we send a clear signal to all leaseholders that we will stand with them.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

I start from the principle that successive Secretaries of State and Ministers have said from the Dispatch Box that the leaseholders are the innocent parties in this scandal and that they should not have to pay a penny piece towards the costs of remediation. I applaud the Government for coming forward with £5.1 billion of public money to support the remediation of unsafe cladding, but our problem is that it is not enough. The estimate now is that £15 billion will be required and that the extra £10 billion will have to come from leaseholders as the last resort, because building owners will naturally pass that on to leaseholders wherever they possibly can. They are the ones in situ; they are the ones facing these huge bills.

The Government say that further proposals will come forward on the forced loan scheme. We were promised in the earlier statement in February that the loan scheme would be announced at the Budget. Now, I did make the assumption that that was the Budget in 2021, not the Budget in 2022 or 2023. The reality is that the evidence given to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee and other bodies suggests that the forced loan scheme is nowhere near being available. We as Members of Parliament are not even able to scrutinise the proposal, so those who are living in blocks of flats of six floors or less do not even know how that scheme will work. My estimate is that many people will end up with a bill that will last for 100 years, therefore factoring in, almost inevitably, a dramatic reduction in the value of their properties. Equally, we know that the fire safety remediation required in addition to the remediation of unsafe cladding almost dwarfs the costs of remediating the cladding. All those costs will once again be passed on to the innocent leaseholders.

I understand that my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench has to defend this position and clearly wants to get the Fire Safety Bill on the statute book. Let us be clear. I do not think any MP wishes to prevent the progress of the Fire Safety Bill. What we do need, however, is surety and assuredness, because the draft Building Safety Bill will almost certainly take 18 months to two years to bring to fruition. The leaseholders do not have that time to wait. My right hon. Friend the Minister has made it clear on a number of occasions that he finds the amendments defective. Well, there is still time. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) that there is a solution. If the Government reject that solution, let them come forward with their own solution in the House of Lords. Let us agree that the leaseholders do not have to pay a penny and the Fire Safety Bill can go on the statute book, as we would all like to see.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab) [V]]

The Minister should be very careful. The speeches in this debate today are an example of Parliament at its best and Government at their worst. The Minister has heard Members from across the House, and from his own party in particular, criticise what the Government are doing. He would be a very wise Minister to listen to Parliament. If he refuses to listen, I think he should think about his future.

In March this year, leaseholders in Wembley Central apartments in my constituency were told that in response to the publication by the Government of the Building (Amendment) Regulations 2018, a waking watch system would be implemented as soon as possible. The cost of the waking watch patrols would be recovered from leaseholders in the sum of £91,380 a month. The cost of the remedial works to the fire alarm system across Central Apartments, Ramsey House and Metro Apartments is estimated to be in the order of £250,000 to £300,000. The owners said that they were unable to say the total cost of all four recommendations and that they therefore could not advise the liability of each leaseholder.

I find it unacceptable that the Government are imposing billions of pounds of costs on leaseholders retrospectively to remedy misconduct by others, such as the developer, the builder or those producing the Government’s own advisory documents and in particular building regulations control. The fire survey for these particular buildings said:

“There is evidence that the junctions between compartment floors were inadequately fire stopped…as there were gaps at mineral wool fire barriers at steel framing. There were no visible fire barriers at vents or around windows/door frames and it could not be confirmed that the window/door frames themselves formed cavity barriers.”

That indicates that at the time of construction the building regulations then in force were not followed. That means that these people were sold a building that was not fit for habitation, yet the Government are not pursuing the people responsible; they are making sure that it is the innocent parties who will pay. Their lives are being ruined, as Members in all parts of this House have said. It is vital that the Government address this and accept the Lords amendment. In particular, they need to focus on addressing the very real issues in building control regulations that allowed this scandal to happen in the first place.