Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am delighted to accept the thanks of the hon. Gentleman. I have to say that it is really thanks to him and the Scottish National party that we have been able to keep our wonderful United Kingdom together, because it was the sheer incoherence of their position, their refusal to address the tough questions of what breaking up the UK really means—the impact on our budgets and our economy and the impacts on Scotland and on our whole country—and their manifest inability to explain what they actually mean that meant that the people of Scotland voted in 2014 to remain part of the UK. They were right then, and they will be right in the future to stay.

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

It is now three and a half years since the Grenfell fire tragedy that cost the lives of 72 people, yet there are still 3.6 million leaseholders living in potentially dangerous, unsaleable and unmortgageable properties. The Government rightly set aside a billion pounds towards the remediation of non-aluminium composite material cladding, but that expires on 31 December this year. It is clear that it will be insufficient to cover the costs, so will my right hon. Friend set out for the House what the plan is for next year to remediate the cladding? Will he give a cast-iron guarantee that leaseholders will not have to pay a penny piece towards the cost of replacing this unsafe cladding?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to this injustice and what is happening with leaseholders at the moment. That is why we have put £1.6 billion into removing unsafe cladding. I do not want to see leaseholders being forced to pay for the remediation, and I can assure my hon. Friend that we are looking now urgently—before the expiry of the current arrangements—at what we can do to take them forward and support leaseholders, who are in a very unfair position.