Building Safety

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I certainly can, and I thank my right hon. Friend for the work he has done on behalf of his constituents. We have corresponded many times on this subject. Today’s announcement will provide comfort and reassurance to hundreds of thousands of leaseholders. I also draw his attention and that of the House to the work we are doing with RICS, which will ensure that about 50% of those individuals who might have required and EWS1 form will now no longer need to go through that laborious and often expensive process.

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

When there was a failure of regulation in the City, the Government bailed out the banks in a matter of days, to the tune of £500 billion. In the face of a failure of fire safety regulation, when people are terrified of burning to death in their homes, the Government have taken three and a half years and offered only £6 billion. My constituents are still facing the costs of non-cladding fire safety problems, waking watches and more, so when will the Government accept the basic principle that cladding victims should not have to pay a penny to fix fire safety problems that are not of their making?

[Robert Jenrick]

Actually, the Government acted decisively in the immediate aftermath of Grenfell Tower. Expert opinion has evolved over time. The first expert advice that the Government received was, as I said earlier, to focus on ACM cladding—the type of cladding on Grenfell Tower—and on those buildings over 18 metres. We put in place the funding to do that where the building owners and the industry were not able to, or would not, pay themselves. The expert advice then said that there were other materials that were somewhat less unsafe but which, none the less, still could be unsafe. That work is under way, and the Chancellor gave an extra £1 billion to do that at the Budget a year ago. Now, we have brought forward this very substantial intervention today. We are working intensively and extensively to tackle the issue, and I hope that today’s intervention will be a permanent and lasting settlement.