Building Safety

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for standing up so well for her constituents, as she always does. Actions have to have consequences. The overwhelming majority of developers have done the right thing by signing this contract. It would be wrong for anyone who has wriggled out of their responsibilities to be allowed to continue to make a profit when others are shouldering these responsibilities. It is the case that if a company is not on, as she puts it, the goodie list, that will be it—development will have to pause, and we will make sure that their shareholders and investors pay the price for the irresponsibility of their directors.

On the broader point, if the hon. Lady, on behalf of her constituents, would like to get in touch with my Department and, in particular, our recovery strategy unit, there may well be developments or buildings in her constituency that are not covered by this where there are freeholders or other people responsible whom we need to track down. We look forward to working with her.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on the progress he is making. Leaseholders are the most important people we have to look after. There will be people who have paid out huge sums of money to companies that are on the goodie list of those who signed this contract. They will want to know what happens to them. There will be people who have received estimates for huge amounts of money they are expected to pay. What happens to them? Most importantly, there are leaseholders who reside in buildings the developers of which we do not know and are not covered by this. Will my right hon. Friend set out the position for those people and give us a guarantee that, if we cannot trace the developers, the Government will step in and put this right for the people who live in these properties?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. One thing that I was aware of before doing this job but have become clearer on since is that there are actors in the property market operating in the UK who hide behind opaque corporate structures, operate offshore and set up special purpose vehicles in order to get building done and then disappear from their responsibilities afterwards. That is why we set up the recovery strategy unit, and it is no criticism of any of our predecessors, because we have not faced a situation quite like this before. The whole purpose of the recovery strategy unit is to identify the ultimate beneficial owner of the building who should take responsibility. Developers who are operating as responsible plcs have all signed this contract. That is great and a real step forward, but there is still more to do.

On the point about leaseholders, we have a system that we have legislated on—it is not perfect, but it is a big step forward—which means there is a cap on the individual liability of any leaseholder, and the taxpayer has committed significant sums. I think—and I suspect this is a view shared across the House—that the building safety crisis shines a light on sharp practice by a small minority of people in the broader property sector that we need to take several steps to deal with, including improved land transparency legislation and other steps that will ensure we do not have a butler economy in this country, whereby people operating in the property sector put profit ahead of people.