Building Safety

Claire Coutinho Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I completely understand and appreciate the concerns expressed by the hon. Member. We are seeking to avert additional costs in the future. It will be difficult for us to make good all the injustices that have been visited on his constituents and others. I do not want to oversell what we are putting forward. It is a significant step forward, but it cannot resolve every issue from the past. I enjoyed listening to the conversation that he and the Father of the House had on Times Radio at the weekend, and I echo the very generous comments that he made about the Father of the House.

[Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his actions today, particularly scrapping the loan scheme for medium-sized buildings, which will help constituents of mine such as Susan Seal and the Russell Square residents in Horley. I really welcome the onus that he is putting on developers. Does he agree that, along with the other things he has talked about, transparency can be an effective tool in getting people to do the right thing? Would he speak to whether naming and shaming could be part of the solution?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the things that we saw just before Christmas with the Kingspan-Mercedes deal is the way in which public pressure from the Grenfell community meant that a very big corporate—Mercedes—did the right thing. I am very grateful to Toto Wolff and his team for doing that. We need to use a variety of tools, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right that transparency is critical.