Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry

David Amess Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

The House struggles on occasions such as this to get the tone of the debate right. When Members of this place awoke on 14 June, we were all horrified by what we witnessed. How on earth the residents are coping with this tragedy, I just do not know.

I pay immediate tribute to the local Member of Parliament, the hon. Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad). She has not been here very long, but in no time at all she has done her very best to support local residents. So I congratulate her, and I think that the House will come together at least on that point.

There are no words that are adequate to describe our feelings about this horror. The fire started on the fourth floor at one in the morning, when most of the residents were asleep. Within half an hour, a towering inferno took place. It was truly shocking to turn on our TV screens in the morning and see what had happened. This was just a month ago.

This House has a huge responsibility in terms of how we deal with this matter in the debate, and the tone must be moderate. Recently, an article was written by Nick Ross. He is not someone I know personally, but he appears on TV as a commentator. He said:

“no one has a right to a monopoly on anger, or grief…For 15 years I have been campaigning to update building regulations in England to improve fire safety and to have sprinklers fitted routinely to council and other social housing, and I can’t recall a single Government minister or Opposition frontbencher—Labour, Conservative or Lib Dem—who ever campaigned with us…Three times I’ve addressed the Local Government Association…pointing out how the risks are disproportionate in subsidised housing—‘It’s the poor wot gets the flame’—as three times they applauded and did nothing.”

Now, I come to my hon. Friend the Minister. Mr Ross continues:

“Ministers are mostly here today, gone tomorrow”,

although I hope my hon. Friend will be around for a little time,

“and few would claim to be expert in their briefs. Except for those who know it all because they are gripped by rigid ideology, most ministers do listen to their advisers…If there is any group whose actions allowed the catastrophe to happen it was these advisers”,

and Ministers took their advice.

Finally, Mr Ross says:

“Sprinklers are not invincible. They can’t function if the water supply fails. But—and this is the truth that makes me so angry—no one ever dies from fire when a home is protected by automatic sprinklers. That’s why in the U.S. they’re installing 40 million a year.

But let’s not be persuaded that the risk is only in high-rise towers. There are 300-400 fire deaths a year and most victims live in low-rise properties.

We need sprinklers in all social housing, care homes, and multi-occupation premises including schools—and let’s not forget our hospitals…There is a terrible anger after Grenfell. Instead of trading political insults we must put it to good use.”

We politicians are often criticised—we take the blame for most things that happen—and we have been criticised for not acting on this issue. However, that cannot be said of the all-party group on fire safety rescue, and I am delighted that a number of its very active members are present. Unfortunately, we lost one or two members in the last election, but the group has been going for a long time. I do not know whether colleagues here today are experts, although we found out this morning that one newly elected Scottish Conservative Member is a former firefighter, and he will no doubt bring his expertise to this. Most of us are not experts, however, and since 1986 the APPG has depended on two marvellous secretaries. First we had Douglas Smith, and then, in 2013, Ronnie King took over. Time after time—as was mentioned earlier by the group’s vice-chairman, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick)—we asked Ministers to look at the Lakanal House recommendation about the retrofitting of sprinklers, and we asked for the building regulations to be reviewed after 11 years.

The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), who I think will be replying to the debate, has already met members of the all-party parliamentary group, and this morning it was agreed that I should put a number of points to him, which I hope he will consider. They are as follows.

“Without prejudice to the public inquiry or the police criminal investigation, the all-party group…want to respond to the Secretary of State’s invitation to submit measures which can be put in place immediately to keep people safe”.

I entirely accept the frustration felt by Opposition Members who feel that something needs to be done now, and that we need not wait until the outcome of the public inquiry for that to happen. I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will reflect on that.

The APPG said:

“One such measure is to commence the long promised review of Approved Document ‘B’ to the Building Regulations, forthwith, and in particular to seek an immediate reinstatement of the provisions of Section 20 of the London Building Acts insofar as they are required a one hour fire resistance to outside walls of blocks of flats”.

It is crazy that we no longer have those regulations. The Minister will face a test: he will be given advice on the matter, and I hope that, unless it is in the affirmative, he will make his own decision and will agree with the recommendation from the all-party parliamentary group.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend obviously understands these things better than I do, but one thing has really worried me about this tragedy. If there had been sprinklers inside the building, and the outside of the building had caught fire, would people have survived although the outside of the building was aflame? That worries me. I do not know whether there is an answer, but it seems to me that they might have survived.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir David Amess]

That is an interesting point. All I will say is that people do not lose their lives when sprinklers have been fitted. That is the point.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Does it not speak volumes that in 2007 we said that every new building should have a sprinkler system?

[Sir David Amess]

I will come to that point, but I also want the Minister to hear this, because it is not the responsibility of his Department. It is crazy that it is not mandatory for all new school buildings to have sprinklers fitted. We must address that, as a matter of urgency. Again, I hope that, if the Minister is not given the advice that I certainly want him to be given, he will make a contrary decision and recommend that all new school buildings have sprinklers fitted.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman has said about sprinkler systems in schools, but does he agree that it is also imperative for the regulations to be changed to cover student accommodation? I understand that tower blocks more than 30 metres high will now be fitted with sprinklers, but that student accommodation more than 30 metres high will not qualify. I hope my hon. Friend agrees that that cannot be right.

[Sir David Amess]

I certainly do agree. The Minister has heard what has been said. I understood that every building more than 30 metres high would have to have sprinklers fitted. I hope that at some stage when the Minister is winding up a note will be passed to determine whether or not the hon. Gentleman—he was at our meeting this morning— is right, but as far as I understand, that cannot be the position.

The APPG also agreed on the following:

“without prejudice to the public inquiry or the police criminal investigation, the all-party group…wish to support the recommendation of the coroners at Southwark and Southampton arising from the Lakanal House and Shirley Towers tower block”

—which was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey)—

“whereby both coroners recommended in a letter to the Secretary of State that the Department for Communities & Local Government, encourages providers of housing in high risk residential buildings containing multiple domestic premises to consider the retrofitting of sprinkler systems”.

I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will deal with that as well.

The APPG said:

“a letter to the then CLG Minister, dated 1st May 2014…drew the Minister’s attention to”

Ronnie King’s

“personal involvement with the Lakanal House Coroner’s Inquest, where clarification was given from the Department that the current Building Regulations allowed the composite panels under the external wall window sets of such tower blocks not to have any fire resistance”

—that is absolutely crazy—

“and that this weakness in the Regulations remains uncorrected today; despite the upward spread of fire which occurred, resulting in the deaths of six people.

(Under the current Building Regulations guidance Approved Document B, the external walls of Tower Blocks need only have a classification “O” Surface spread of Flame, with no fire resistance)”.

The House would not expect the Minister to be an expert on all these matters, and he will have to take advice from somewhere, but I hope he understands the frustration that has been caused by the ignoring of the APPG’s recommendations. This fire should never have happened, and it would not have happened if notice had been taken of our recommendations.

The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service —who is not in the Chamber at present—said:

“we are maybe looking at a system failure, built up over many years, which we now have to address urgently…over many years and perhaps against the backdrop of, as data shows, a reduced risk in terms of fire, in terms of number of incidents and deaths…maybe as a system some complacency has crept in.”

Well, it certainly has not “crept in” as far as the APPG is concerned.

[Ms Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

I understand that the Fire Brigades Union has talked a great deal about the cuts in services and about deregulation, and the hon. Gentleman has talked a great deal about sprinklers today. Does he agree that the cuts and what has happened to the fire regulations cannot have failed to have an impact, and that they happened on the Conservatives’ watch? Let me add that I am a bit disappointed to see how many Conservatives are missing from this debate. It is a crucial debate, and Conservative Members should be here.

[Sir David Amess]

I know the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, and I shall be meeting him shortly to hear in more detail precisely what his criticisms are. I can assure the hon. Lady that the APPG will raise any issues that the union mentions to us. As for attendance on the Conservative Benches, in time the hon. Lady will have a view on attendance in the House. A long time ago, all the Benches were packed. I can only say that I regret that that is not the case on this occasion. Given that the general public can see our proceedings on the parliamentary channel, it is always disappointing when the Chamber is not packed, but I am afraid that, in recent years, that has been the trend.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Fire Brigades Union should have core participant status in the inquiry?

[Sir David Amess]

The Minister will have heard what the hon. Lady has said. I cannot believe that there will not be very close involvement. I do not want to trip myself up if there has already been a discussion about the matter, but I certainly do not see why there cannot be real participation in the inquiry. Perhaps the Minister will take up the point when he responds.

Finally, I want to highlight three points to my hon. Friend the Minister. The first is that building regulations no longer include a requirement for one-hour fire resistance for outside walls, as was the case under the London Building Acts. That has got to be corrected. Firefighters were horrified by the way this disaster took place. The second point relates to the testing of cladding. It costs £10,000 to fire-test a 30-metre cladded wall. Most testing is done on the desktop, which does not take into account materials used underneath or between cladding, such as wood. I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will look at that point. The last point is about the retrofitting of sprinklers over the past year: in 100% of cases where sprinklers have been activated, they have controlled or extinguished the fire. I welcome the fact that there is a public inquiry, but I again ask my hon. Friend the Minister not only to listen to the recommendations of the all-party group, but to act on them.

[Several hon. Members rose—]