Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Catherine West Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab) [V]]

Just as with covid, the Government are too slow to deal with the unravelling building safety crisis. Three and a half years on from the devastating Grenfell tragedy, hundreds of thousands of people still live in unsafe homes, and millions are caught up in the wider building safety crisis. Government inaction has left innocent leaseholders facing lockdown trapped in flammable homes and paying colossal bills for repair work—in some cases leading to bankruptcy—as well as hundreds of pounds per month on interim safety measures such as waking watch.

Fifteen times, Ministers promised to protect leaseholders, and today a vote will be forced in Parliament to ensure that costs are not passed on to residents, and that those responsible for the cladding scandal will be pursued. The motion is a good one. It calls on the Government to establish a proper audit of the risk, to provide up-front funding, to protect leaseholders from costs by pursuing those responsible for the cladding crisis, and to get the job done.

I have constituents in London and Quadrant apartments, including West Point and Saxon Chase. Those people cannot sell their homes because fire safety inspections have not been carried out or an EWS1 completed—the Minister referred to that point, which I thank him for. I look forward to the RICS survey and its outcome. Residents in properties in Wood Green have been asked by their freeholder to pay £10,000 between them for a fire risk assessment. One states:

“If I cannot pay the bill for remedial works, the freeholder can bankrupt me and make me forfeit the lease, making me homeless in retirement. I worked for over 45 years paying Income Tax, National Insurance, mortgage payments, service charges, council tax and other housing costs, yet I now face possibly losing my home because the Government decides that leaseholders should pay for the failings of builders, freeholders and Government regulations.”

Residents in the Clarion property 1 The Roundway have not been able to sell or remortgage following an EWS1 assessment in 2019. Furthermore, some residents in Muswell Hill are living in a new block where internal fire safety protection was not put in properly and is incredibly costly to put right. The residents are making a claim to the NHBC through a solicitor, but are worried about what the outcome will be.

We are all aware of the immense stress of coronavirus and the public health crisis, but let us today not add more pressure to people already under strain. Let us vote for the motion and get this done.