Grenfell Tower

Dominic Raab Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Dominic Raab)]

I welcome the powerful and poignant contributions to the debate from all sides, in particular the very moving personal speech by right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy).

May I pay tribute to the bereaved and the survivors who continue to suffer the anguish of having lost so many loved ones, who continue to suffer personally in countless scarcely imaginable ways and yet who, through their tenacity and determination, can only inspire every one of us in this House? As sobering as it has been over the past four months to hear at first-hand the piercing pain of this precious community, it has also been an honour to get to know the Grenfell United community, the survivors and bereaved, and a privilege to try to serve them in a ministerial capacity. If I could sum up the task at hand, it is to support the survivors and bereaved to move into new homes, but also, more broadly, to help them to move on with their lives in as positive a way as possible after such a harrowing ordeal.

The Government are committed to ensuring that all former residents are supported into permanent new homes as swiftly as possible and we continue to work hard with the council to achieve that. Of the 210 house- holds from Grenfell Tower and Grenfell Walk, there are now 201 who have either moved or accepted temporary or permanent accommodation. Two thirds of them have moved out of emergency accommodation. The council is working intensively to support the remaining nine households in finding homes that meet their needs. We will not rest until all of them have moved into the right homes.

Further to the comments by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) and the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), I am grateful to the work of the independent taskforce for scrutinising the process and bringing some extra pressure to bear. It has been difficult and arduous. I have had several meetings with the council to go through individual cases. I have met residents to understand the barriers that remain and to offer Government support to overcome them. Contractors have been appointed to ensure that any necessary repairs and safety checks are carried out as soon as possible.

The Government have invested and committed £80 million to support the recovery and to support victims, including on their mental health, an issue touched on by the hon. Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad). I have personally agreed with Grenfell United on a mechanism for escalating cases of undue delay directly either to me or to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service.

The decision to wrap the tower has been a particularly difficult one for the bereaved and the survivors. After consultation with them, the decision was taken to protect the building and reduce the visual impact, while respecting the view that the tower and what happened inside it must never be forgotten. No decision has been taken on the long-term future of the site, but my right hon. Friend, who is the Minister with responsibility for Grenfell victims, has worked with the community to agree the principles to guide the way forward, so that the bereaved, the survivors and the north Kensington community will lead the decision-making process on the future of the site.

Finally, I understand that the forthcoming final report by Dame Judith Hackitt on building regulations and fire safety will be published tomorrow. I reassure the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) and others that it will set out recommendations for far-reaching reform of the regulatory system. We will also publish our Green Paper on social housing by the summer recess. That follows the social tenant workshops that we have conducted across the country; the final one, which I attended, was hosted by Grenfell United. That Green Paper was inspired by the cri de coeur from the Grenfell community—a challenge to reform social housing and address the stigma and prejudice that too many social tenants face up and down the country.

I share the restlessness of hon. Members across the House to relocate the survivors more swiftly, to bring accountability and justice to this most horrific of tragedies and, ultimately, to bring some solace to those brave souls picking up the pieces of their lives and determined to move on to a brighter future.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes the commitments given by the Government that all survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire of 14 June 2017 would be permanently rehoused within one year, that all other tower blocks with dangerous cladding would be made safe, that councils would get the funding needed to carry out remedial work and that there would be significant reform of the current system of building regulations; and calls on the Government to make good on those commitments, to lay a report before Parliament and to make an Oral Statement by 14 June 2018 setting out how it has met those commitments and discharged its wider duties in response to that national disaster.