Social Housing

Emma Dent Coad Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Emma Dent Coad (Kensington) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) for bringing forward this debate, which has provoked really good comments across the House.

In my constituency, the council has, at last, initiated a programme of building homes for social rent. This depends on the Mayor of London’s funding pot of £33 million, for which we are very grateful, to provide 330 new homes. That will go some way towards replacing the 120 homes lost in the Grenfell Tower fire and housing 135 homeless households, as of yesterday, still waiting for permanent accommodation—those from the tower itself, those from Grenfell Walk, and those from the neighbouring walkways who cannot bear to continue to live there.

However, this is not just about numbers. Our council, I am afraid, has a poor record in providing new social rented homes. It entered into a devil’s deal with a developer partner whereby a number of homes for social rent, some intermediate and some for private rental, were built. Sadly, some were very poorly constructed. Construction standards in many were appalling. In one new development, the drains constantly backed up into the kitchen sinks. The homes had to be evacuated while the floors were drilled out and new drains fitted. In another, dodgy drains brought rats up into the building’s first floor, where they could run unhindered as the supposed fire doors had such large gaps underneath them. This was a building that some Grenfell survivors had been moved into. The roof leaked. A ceiling collapsed. The lift broke, and a traumatised resident was stuck in it for hours. Radiators were found not actually to be attached to the central heating system. These problems continue.

In some of our new housing association mixed developments, the story is the same. In brand new buildings, roofs have leaked, ceilings have collapsed, loos and hand basins have fallen off the walls, and even a floor has collapsed. Membranes were not fitted into the external walls, so damp came straight through, causing black mould. Balconies were not fitted with drainage, so they flooded. Badly fitted cladding and window surrounds allowed rain to come in. Some basement flats flooded as door jambs were set too low. These properties, which are just three years old, are just a few examples of a common problem.

Throughout all this, the council is powerless to act. We have spoken to environmental health, building control and health and safety, and they do not have the powers of enforcement they need to make a difference. These issues are endemic across the country. We have a generation of, frankly, grotty new buildings. Many may not last 50 years, as did their predecessors that were demolished to make way for them.

The drop in construction standards is due to the total lack of strategic forward thinking. We have relied on skilled workers from abroad for so long that we forgot to train our own. Now that tens of thousands have returned —many to eastern Europe—due to Brexit anxiety, we have huge gaps in our skills, and no one is planning to invest in training for employment in the construction industry. The other issue, of course, is developer greed. They specify the cheapest possible materials to make a larger profit. I do not need to list the horrors that that can produce.

If we are to build 1 million homes, we need not only changes to the housing finance system and Government funding, but a generation of skilled workers, as the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) said, and the building materials to create good-quality, well-built homes. Apprenticeships should be the answer, but many of them are poor quality. Some provide little training, apart from how to wield a glue gun; that is an actual case. The apprenticeship levy was a good idea but is poorly implemented. I believe that the pot has reached £1 billion, but contributing and receiving companies tell me that they do not have time to push through the complex bureaucracy, nor do many of them have the capacity to give good training, with all the best intentions. We must train our young people.

A specific Kensington-based problem is that of luxury developments left empty, which forces up the cost of everything, including social housing, and makes it even more difficult to build the homes we need for everybody. Many luxury homes, we suspect, are bought to launder illegally gained money. We hope that this matter will begin to be tackled next year, when the Registration of Overseas Entities Bill becomes law. I was pleased to sit on the Joint Committee that scrutinised the draft Bill. It will force beneficial owners to register their names and, we hope, will disincentivise the drug lords, people traffickers and other vermin who want to dump their dirty money in my constituency.

I will give an example of a luxury development with empty flats. On Kensington Road, almost opposite Kensington Palace, there was a 700-bed Victorian hotel, of Italianate design, in a perfectly good state. It was quite an interesting building. It was bought up by Candy and Candy, which flattened the site and was given permission by our fabulous council to build a luxury development of 97 flats. I pass that building regularly, and only four of the lights are ever on. Imagining that the flats had all been bought and left empty, I spoke to the staff, who said that some of them had not even been sold after four years but were being kept off the market to keep the price up. I find that absolutely obscene.

As we begin commemorations tonight on the second anniversary of the atrocity of the Grenfell Tower fire in my neighbourhood, it cannot be clearer that we need to create a new generation of social rented homes, with stable tenancies, of good quality, where families can fulfil their dreams, increase productivity and reach their full potential in security and safety.

Grenfell: Government Response

Emma Dent Coad Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

A number of agencies are working with the community. One of the issues that I have been very concerned about is mental health support. My right hon. Friend will have heard about the additional support and funding that is being provided in that regard. There are some amazing community leaders; I have had the privilege to meet them and to see the work they are doing and the difference they are making. The council clearly has a key role to play in terms of its recovery programme and how it is putting in place these further steps. That stance of working with the community and building trust will take time, but it is an essential element if we are to move on and make the progress we need.

[Emma Dent Coad (Kensington) (Lab)]

The time for platitudes is done. I am, frankly, shocked that Government Members have the face to wear a green heart—shame on them. How can they sleep at night when tens of thousands across the country cannot, living in homes that are potentially dangerous or with their investments worth nothing? I cannot sleep. Where is the leadership in this process? There is a whole generation of potentially unsafe buildings out there. It is hardly controversial to keep people safe in their homes. The Secretary of State talked about it being his mission. Please do not make it a mission—make it a legacy. It is within your power, and instead you consult, report, review; consult, report, review. Please, wake up from your torpor and legislate now; we know what needs to be done.

[James Brokenshire]

I recognise the passion of the hon. Lady and the way in which she has sought, very firmly and very effectively, to represent her constituents. I know that that passion and the real desire to see change quickly is keenly felt. There is a weight of responsibility that all of us in Government hold in respect of this. I do take that hugely seriously in seeing how we can speed up and make the progress that we need to in relation to building safety and to breaking some of the culture and stigma issues, too. That is why we have taken the series of actions that I outlined in my statement to see that we get on and get the regulations in place. It is also why I am determined that we fix what is a broken regulatory system, and why the final step of that is the consultation that we have just launched. I encourage her to engage formally and properly on that so that we get the legislation right. But equally, we are determined to see that we speed up the process, with the private sector, on getting the buildings remediated—she is right to challenge firmly on this—and that is what we are intent on doing.

Grenfell Tower Fire

Emma Dent Coad Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Emma Dent Coad (Kensington) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the response to the Grenfell Tower fire.

I wish to thank the Backbench Business Committee, the Minister, the Government Members who agreed to support the debate, my colleagues here today and those who have given me strength and help over the past two years, but who are, I hope, on the battlefield of the Peterborough by-election today. I also thank those in the Public Gallery who are watching the debate. I want to reassure them that this debate is just one step and that we will return to this subject over and again until all our demands are met.

I asked for briefings on all aspects of the response to the Grenfell Tower fire from organisations and groups that I have met. I was inundated. I received enough information for a two-hour lecture with slides, but I have just 15 minutes in which to speak today. To preserve this invaluable response, all the briefings will be available online very soon in the Grenfell archive that I am compiling—it will be factual information. In the short time available, I will speak on areas close to my heart and leave comments on the detailed issues to my hon. Friends and other Members.

Just four days after my election two years ago, a horrific and an entirely avoidable atrocity took place in my neighbourhood. Shock and disbelief resonated around the world. Pledges, commitments and guarantees were made in this House in the aftermath. Many of these commitments have been broken, and my community has been failed horribly. A year ago, a debate was held in Westminster Hall about the response to the disaster. The briefing from members of Grenfell United and the inquest was clear: they wanted the Government to demand that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council rehouse those people made homeless by the fire within a certain timeframe and that if the council continued to fail, the Government would send in commissioners to take it over. They also demanded that the Government appoint two independent panel members from diverse backgrounds to advise the public inquiry. It took a further year to appoint the panel members, and their very late arrival after phase 1 had ended will surely reduce their effectiveness.

I commend the work of Grenfell United in its tireless campaign to hold the council and the Government to account, often in very difficult circumstances. I also commend the work of the countless campaign and community groups fighting against the odds for Grenfell-affected people, including Humanity for Grenfell, the Grenfell Trust, Justice4 Grenfell, the Latimer arts project, Kids on the Green, Hope for Grenfell, Grenfell Speaks, Cornwall Hugs Grenfell and all those other groups that I may have forgotten. I thank the community centres, religious centres and the vast number of outside campaigns and individuals whose breadth of expertise and support is evidence of the depth and breadth of the failure of the statutory services that we have paid for to care for the people to whom they have a duty of care.

Let us look for a moment at rehousing. I must declare an interest as a current member of the council—I will remain a member of that council until every single person has been housed and cared for in the way that they deserve. The Government have failed to make the demands of the council that were made a year ago, and the council has failed to rehouse many people who were made homeless. The official figure is 19 tenants, but a tenant can comprise a household of many people with disparate needs. Only those made homeless from the tower and the facing Grenfell Walk are counted in those official statistics. In the walkways attached to the tower, there are a further 109 homeless households as of last month, making a total of 128 homeless households. Some remain in their homes, which re-traumatises them every day. The council has removed those households from the wider Grenfell rehousing scheme, and they will now languish on the council waiting list, some for many, many years.

While desperate families struggle to keep going, there is frustration and impatience within the council. Although there are good and empathic officers, this impatience is demonstrated by outbursts from some people because they are overstretched, and from certain senior councillors who should know better, while they persuade, cajole and sometimes, I am sorry to say, bully people into homes that are not suitable. While these 128 homeless households—around 250 people, in my estimation—are still awaiting rehousing, the rank incompetence of Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation to have an up-to-date list of tenants at the time of the fire means that fraudsters have sneaked into the system and pillaged funds meant for the genuinely homeless and desperate.

During my tenure on the TMO board from 2008 to 2012, along with the now leader of the council, the TMO was so dysfunctional that I had to call in an independent adjudicator. There followed a change of director, but clearly not of culture or of staff Meanwhile, the attitude of some people at the council is questionable, and I have noted that for years some people have found it almost feudal.

In the early days after the fire, my predecessor as MP wrote to the council to air her concern about the numbers of people roaming around the streets “like gangs”. A senior council officer was told to go down to the site but refused, saying, “It’s like little Africa down there.” Another said that the area was full of people “from the tropics”. A senior officer regularly, in front of others, referred to my neighbours as “muzzies”. A recent visitor to the walkways was congratulated by a senior councillor for entering the “lion’s den”. I say “vulnerable”; they say “volatile”. This attitude is hardly surprising. About two years ago during a debate on refugee children, a senior councillor said:

“if we let these people in, we will have an Islamic Caliphate in Kensington and Chelsea.”

Racism or snobbery—take your pick.

What I see is people who have been utterly failed by the system subsequently being punished for it. Is it right to off-roll a child from school because they cannot cope with the pressure of trauma and schoolwork, and send them to a pupil referral unit or alternative provision located in a council-owned building, which is then closed because it is in such a poor state of repair that it is judged to be dangerous? According to parents who confide in me, these children have been left to roam the streets. Who is responsible for safeguarding these fragile children? Is it another case of accountability pass the parcel?

Is it right to punish a bereaved man beside himself with grief and anger—someone who has been a good friend to many people—who in a moment of blind fury on behalf of others used threatening words? Is it right to punish this moment of fury with imprisonment? Should we imprison someone who has been so dramatically failed? I say, “Free Mr Latimer,” so he can at least join the memorial event on Friday week for those he lost on 14 June 2017. Why are my neighbours being punished, excluded from school and imprisoned when the perpetrators of their misery, who continue to view us with disdain, walk the streets of Chelsea free?

I am reliably informed that a senior councillor recently complained, “I don’t know why they are wasting so much time on mental health. They all seem fine to me.” I declare an interest as a recipient of mental health services, although they have not helped me. We have 11,000 people affected to various degrees by the Grenfell atrocity in our neighbourhood. Some have been helped; many have not. The type of trauma we have does not go away. There have been several suicides. While it is always difficult to ascertain causes, the five people I know of who lost their lives in the past seven months were affected by what happened to various degrees. This heavy toll includes young teenagers.

I am still meeting people who are not getting any help and some who are refusing help because of the perceived shame of mental illness. I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder myself, but I am able to function. However, I know so many who cannot. On their behalf, I will wear the scars of my own mental ill health with pride. The shame is not for those whose mental health has been damaged. The shame lies with those who neglected our homes—those whose first reaction to the fire was that of damage limitation and passing the buck of blame, rather than accepting failure.

Local people and specialists have also been discredited over the controversial soil testing exercises. Members of the community concerned about toxicity of soil in the area around the tower contacted a university professor of fire chemistry and toxicity, who took samples and was so alarmed that she reported it to the council, Public Health England and the NHS. For some reason, they sat on these interim findings, and then six months later, the council leader denied in public that she had seen them, even though we have seen the minutes of the meeting at which she was informed of them.

After a long and failed campaign by the council and from other quarters to discredit the professor, they are now finally—after two long years—starting to test the soil for carcinogens and other toxic materials that can seriously affect people’s health. We are calling for full health screening, including blood and DNA testing; they are offering lung capacity tests. It is another fight that has sapped the energy of so many unnecessarily.

I turn briefly to the wealth of information we have had from the fire services, building regulators, the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Association of British Insurers, which all have an interest, from various perspectives, in the safety of buildings and those who live and work within them. All this will be available in the Grenfell archive. I have worked closely with the fire brigade and the Fire Brigades Union for many years. The cuts to services have been devastating, and I pay tribute to the fire services for their extraordinary dedication. They often work long hours and double shifts to keep the service functioning. I well remember the previous Mayor of London, when challenged at a public Greater London Assembly meeting, uttering a foul expletive that I shall not repeat. The Minister may have witnessed it.

The independent review of building regulations and fire safety, the Hackitt review, includes many recommendations that fire services have put forward, including improving skills in the sector, defining who is responsible for what under fire safety legislation and increasing the role of the fire service in the safety of buildings, which, owing to deregulation, is currently open to all comers. The demand for the inclusion of sprinklers to all new buildings and for the retrofitting of residential buildings is consistent from many quarters. It costs money but not a lot, and not having them can have a terrible human cost that I have no wish to see imposed on anyone. Today, my hon. Friends will speak in more detail about improved regulation for fire doors, about responsibility for fire safety within the trained professional setting of fire services themselves and about regulating for safer electrical goods.

As many here will know, I spent most of my career writing about design and architecture. I know how buildings are constructed and what went wrong at Grenfell during the refurbishment. During my time on the TMO, work was done on digital cabling to Trellick Tower, which has the same concrete frame construction. During this work, firebreaks had not been reinstated. Fortunately, I was alerted to this by tenants, and after a row, these defects were corrected. Since that time, there have been several fires in Trellick Tower, all of which have been contained within a single flat.

The RIBA has specific demands that are more extensive than the recommendations in the Hackitt report. Its demands for non-combustible cladding, the use of sprinklers and alternative means of escape in new buildings would add just a few percentage points to the cost of buildings and keep people safe.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, however good building regulations might be, if developers can get away with not having them signed off, they are of no use? In St Francis Tower in Ipswich, in my constituency, a developer completely refurbished a tower block with flammable cladding without ever getting the building regulations signed off, because it did not have to do so through the local council.

[Emma Dent Coad]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend.

I will move now to the question of insurance, which might have been relevant in this case. The ABI has been working closely with the Fire Protection Association to reform building regulations, including on its review of Approved Document B. This relates not only to saving life; saving property is also paramount. If someone escapes a catastrophic fire in their home, they will have lost all their possessions and documents, and this can set them back years. They may never recover. A catastrophic fire in an office or warehouse not only destroys the contents and building; it can destroy a business, the jobs of all those who work there and the future of their work and family life, as well as all the organisations that depend on the business.

The ABI is demanding that sprinklers be fitted to homes, student accommodation, schools, care homes and warehouses. It is also concerned—as am I, with my background in architecture—with the implications of modern methods of construction, many of which have not been fire tested to destruction and do not perform well under more stringent tests. The results of tests I have seen argue against the wholesale embrace in the architectural profession of cross-laminated timber, particularly in the production of the next generation of social housing, which we so desperately need. I know that colleagues will discuss that later. The Shelter report on social housing has been a welcome piece of research whose recommendations I hope, in time, will be adopted. We need more homes for social rent, but they must be the right homes in the right places.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful and important speech. My Committee heard from Professor Anna Stec about her concerns about the way that these combustible panels are being used in warehouse, school and hospital constructions that are exempt from the Government’s review of the new regulations post the Hackitt review. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to look more widely at the use of flame retardants in these panels and the way in which these buildings are being constructed, to avoid tragedies in the future?

[Emma Dent Coad]

I thank my hon. Friend for that hugely helpful intervention. That work is ongoing and we must reach conclusions soon. We cannot put toxic chemicals in mattresses, foam furniture and so on too near people, including babies. There is a wealth of information out there, and we must listen and learn.

The public inquiry has been subject to criticism and a lot of delays. While we wait for the interim report, now expected in October, there are serious concerns whether it will make any recommendations at all and stop the merry-go-round of speculation about whether meaningful change will come from this detailed and forensic process. We believe that phase 2 will now begin in the new year, prolonging the pain and anxiety of those who have to give evidence, plus those awaiting justice for the perpetrators of what some have called “social murder”.

The police investigation is struggling for funds, having asked for a further £2 million from the Government and been refused. The timeline for criminal charges is slipping and, along with it, the hope for justice. As far as most local people are concerned, the police are one of the few trusted bodies, which is gratifying in an area where previously there was very little trust. I commend the police for their sensitivity in dealing with most of us, at least, in the past two years.

The campaign group Inquest recently published “No voice left unheard”—the results of a family consultation day for the bereaved and survivors when a large proportion of affected families were asked about their experience of being heard in the inquiry. It was pretty devastating. Many of them stated what I have witnessed—that they have had to fight for every single one of their rights: to be housed, to be compensated, to receive legal advice and mental health support and to understand what they are entitled to. Many of them feel that they have been punished for the failings of others.

On that note, I will hand over to my hon. Friends and other Members. I look forward to hearing their opinions and perspectives on these terrible matters that affect all of us across the country and worldwide.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Emma Dent Coad]

I thank the Minister and all hon. Members for their insightful and detailed comments. I particularly pay tribute to the work that has come out of the all-party parliamentary groups and Select Committees, including the all-party parliamentary fire safety rescue group, of which I am vice-chair. But when will all these recommendations and all this good work be implemented? I just see more delay.

[John Healey]

In due course.

[Emma Dent Coad]

Yes, in due course.

As we have seen recently in the press, Kensington and Chelsea Council behaved like a property developer instead of looking after the residential buildings it already owned. With no governmental oversight, it used our money for its own purposes, building a property portfolio to squeeze out social tenants in Kensington and Chelsea—that was actually openly admitted in council. I am sad to say that, despite protestations, the council continues with much of this agenda under a guise of improvement. For example, part of its new council house building programme includes fully private luxury flats. I really hope that the taskforce, which I have been working with quite closely, will report on that in its first report, and I hope we get a really robust response because the council is still failing people. It seems that the council is also determined to end the Grenfell recovery scrutiny committee when it is doing very good work and there is still a great deal of recovery left to be done.

There are various other issues that I hope the taskforce will look at. Our beloved Wornington College is still under threat. The council bought it without any reference to council taxpayers, let alone local councillors. Some £28 million of taxpayers’ money was thrown at a business venture intended for private housing. Where do we expect our young people to get education and training to get them into work, off the streets and out of trouble—something that this damaged community needs now more than ever?

I have said many times, and I will say it again, that if and when the Government regulate, and the council steps up and treats our people with compassion and justice as they would their own family, I will gladly shout it from the rooftops. It is not too late to bring in commissioners to take over the council. We all know very well that if it had been a Labour council that had failed so catastrophically, that would have happened a long time ago, and I would have applauded the Government for that. Until we see that progress, I will continue to berate the council for the duplicity and at times blatant lies—provable—of those who should be held accountable, for the perpetrators of ongoing failure and for those who deny the failure of the system after two years. I will berate those who are complicit through inaction for the incompetence, cover-ups and refusal to make the clear decisions we need to keep people safe in their beds.

We in this House need to view this issue as a far higher priority and with more urgency. I would not wish the horror of Grenfell to happen to anybody else. I plead with the Minister not to wait for another anniversary to announce any kind of progress. We need action, not further consultations.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the response to the Grenfell Tower fire.

Fire Safety and Sprinkler Systems

Emma Dent Coad Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Emma Dent Coad (Kensington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), the secretary of the all-party fire safety rescue group, on initiating and leading this extremely important debate in the light of the atrocity at Grenfell Tower nearly two years ago. I also thank the group’s chair, the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), for his leadership over the past 20 years. I was delighted to be appointed as a vice-chair last year.

I am here to make a difference. First, I will challenge the resistance shown by the Government and their advisers towards the overwhelming and compelling evidence of the benefits of fire sprinklers to property and life. Their protection extends to the firefighters and other first responders to whom so many of my community owe their lives. Those who risk their lives every day to save ours also need protection.

As one of a package of fire safety measures, sprinklers work where other measures have failed. Where installed in flats, they have controlled or extinguished 100% of fires, according to research carried out by the National Fire Chiefs Council in May 2017, a month before the fire. The Building Research Establishment’s 2012 cost-benefit analysis confirmed that sprinklers are cost-effective in most blocks of purpose-built flats and in larger blocks of converted flats. Why have the Government not implemented that seven-year-old independent report? The public inquiry is reviewing what Ministers have failed to implement since the study in 2012, the coroner’s rule 43 letter in 2013 after the Lakanal House inquest, and the NFCC research. On behalf of a bereaved community, I ask the Minister to encourage the Secretary of State to push ahead with the building regulations review and, please, to act on the findings now.

Hon. Members will be aware that, following the atrocity at Grenfell, a full technical review has been instigated of approved document B, with a call for evidence. The NFCC has responded and set out its advice. I hope that hon. Members agree that it is well placed and qualified to determine the requirements and that we should support its position. All the chief fire officers in the country are saying with one voice that that regulation needs to be improved, so I hope that the Government will listen to them, rather than waiting for the result of the review, and that hon. Members will support this interim measure to speed up the process and take action to protect lives against fire.

A change to guidance alone will not address this matter, as demonstrated by the approach to schools, which has guidance in the form of Building Bulletin 100. That document defines the expectation for automatic fire sprinklers in schools as a property protection, and saw the inclusion of sprinklers in 70% of new schools over three years, between 2007 and 2010, but that has since fallen to an alarmingly low level. The London Fire Brigade commissioner has said that it relates to very few schools now—only four of the 84 schools it has attended have had sprinklers.

The Hackitt report defines high-rise residential buildings in need of sprinklers as those of 30 metres, or 10 storeys. The most recent London Councils position is to support sprinklers in buildings of 18 metres, or six storeys—not just for new build, but also for retrofitting in existing buildings. It has asked that the work for council-owned buildings is funded by the Government in full. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Chartered Institute of Building have jointly called on the Government to require the installation of sprinklers in all new and converted residential buildings of 11 metres, or four storeys. RIBA has expressed its concern to me about the very high-rise buildings that currently have planning permission but are yet unbuilt, and what rules will apply to them.

Different rules govern fire safety in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but fire does not respect political or geographical boundaries. Councils, developers and social and private landlords need clarity from the Government and are demanding action now, without further confusion or delay. As one of the Grenfell survivors, who predicted the fire, has said, without action now, “Grenfell 2 is in the post”. The Government must not let that nightmare prediction come true, and must listen to the experts—the National Fire Chiefs Council, the Building Research Establishment, London Councils, RICS, RIBA, CIOB—and legislate now, to save lives.

Tower Blocks: Dangerous Cladding

Emma Dent Coad Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is quite right, and he points to something that will become an increasingly difficult issue. In a number of cases, the freeholder of a building—essentially, the owner of the building—may well be obscure, overseas, difficult to contact or, indeed, a dormant company. In those circumstances, as the Chair of the Select Committee pointed out, local authorities have the power to enter the premises and do the work. We have offered financial support to make sure that it gets done.

[Emma Dent Coad (Kensington) (Lab)]

I am very concerned to see the Minister treating this like some kind of theoretical exercise. People are genuinely afraid in their beds and it is not really enough for the Minister to say that he is satisfied. Seventy-two of my neighbours—including those who had warned people about their fears—died in the worst possible circumstances, in front of their neighbours. Hundreds were made homeless, and 19 months later many are still homeless. Nearly 700 children have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, as have nearly 1,500 adults.

This was all preventable. Look at the cases over the years in which people have died in fires spread by external cladding, including at Summerland leisure centre, Knowsley Heights, Garnock Court and Lakanal House, where the coroner advised specifically how the Government should change building regulations to keep people safe. Nothing has yet changed. The Government are ignoring warnings, and our constituents are going to bed afraid. Current measures are not working. One of the Grenfell survivors said:

“Grenfell 2 is in the post.”

How many more must die before the Government take positive action to keep people safe in their beds?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady has not acknowledged the significant amount of work that has since taken place, not least the work of Dame Judith Hackitt, which has been seminal and foundational in our changing of the building regulations for the future. The hon. Lady should be under no illusion about the seriousness with which I take the matter. It has occupied very significant amounts of my time since I was appointed in the summer, including chairing the ministerial taskforce, having regular meetings with the team internally to make sure that we are driving performance and numbers and, critically, engaging with the Grenfell community, as I have done on many occasions, both individually and collectively. That included, movingly, attending the silent walk that took place just before Christmas. We believe this a significant part of our responsibility to make sure that everybody is safe.

As I said earlier in response to the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), our primary concern is to make sure that every resident is safe tonight. Whatever measures are required—whether a waking watch, the retrofitting of heat sensors or smoke alarms, new doors, or whatever else it might be—our primary concern is that every local fire and rescue service can guarantee to the Department that everybody who is in a residential building of more than 18 metres is safe tonight.

The secondary concern of importance is getting the remediation done. We are making significant progress on that and will be accelerating that progress in the next few months.

Deaths of Homeless People

Emma Dent Coad Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I commend my hon. Friend for all his work and efforts in relation to the Homelessness Reduction Act. He points to some of the direct support that is happening as a consequence of that legislation coming into place.

My hon. Friend asks what people should do. Clearly there is the StreetLink app, which is a direct means by which people can identify someone who is living out on the street and see that they get the support and help that they need. From the conversations that I have had with many charities and the voluntary sector, it is clear that help is there. One of the challenges is getting people to take that help and getting them into accommodation where they will be safe and warm. I commend those groups for all of the action that is taking place.

[Emma Dent Coad (Kensington) (Lab)]

Two years ago, I had the opportunity to go out one cold November night with the rough sleeper team in Kensington. I was hoping to guide the workers to some sites I knew where people to whom I had spoken had been sleeping. However, I was told that they could not count people in any kind of bivouac or tent as rough sleepers. They may be homeless, but they do not count as rough sleepers if they have a covering of any kind over their heads. Is the Secretary of State aware of that, and will he please review it to ensure that vulnerable people do not die alone unnoticed, unmourned and uncounted as rough sleepers?

[James Brokenshire]

I can absolutely assure the hon. Lady that I want the data to be as accurate and correct as possible. If there are any examples of where that is not taking place, then I am very happy to investigate further. Today’s data is challenging and stark, but it is right that we have that information to ensure that we act and that resources and focus are effectively targeted and delivered so that we are helping people off the street and preventing homelessness and rough sleeping in the first place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emma Dent Coad Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the continuing psychological and mental health issues. The NHS continues proactive outreach—there is a screening for trauma programme—and NHS support is available 24 hours a day for all who require it. NHS England has committed up to £50 million to fund long-term health checks and treatment for all those affected by the Grenfell Tower fire.

[Emma Dent Coad (Kensington) (Lab)]

Latest figures this morning showed that households in hotels and in temporary accommodation add up to 107 households: 107 households will be homeless at Christmas. These are people from the Tower, the walkways and nearby buildings who are unable to come home. Some of those people have had no money. We had one case last week where someone had no money for five months. Somebody else was seen begging at Ladbroke Grove because they have no money. They are not getting the help the Secretary of State believes. Why should we believe a single word he says?

[James Brokenshire]

The hon. Lady rightly challenges on behalf of her constituents. What I would say to her very clearly is that 201 households from Grenfell Tower and the Walk need rehousing; 193 have accepted permanent offers and seven have accepted temporary offers; and 179 households have moved in. I accept that there needs to be more effort in relation to emergency accommodation and getting people out of hotels. Progress is being made and we will continue to support the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to do that and get people into permanent homes.

Homes (Fitness for Habitation) Bill

Emma Dent Coad Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 26th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Emma Dent Coad (Kensington) (Lab)]

Eighteen years ago in my Notting Hill Housing flat, after prolonged complaints had been ignored, my ceiling collapsed, narrowly missing my young daughter’s head. The five-year battle with my social landlord and the help that I received from my local councillors at the time propelled me into active politics, so I am devastated that social landlords have stepped even further away from their responsibilities over the years. I know from my casework that a collapsed ceiling narrowly missed a young child’s head just recently.

Some residents who attend my surgery have brought photos of the massive cracks across their ceilings—they fear a ceiling collapse—as well as of large gaps in stucco facades, which they fear could fall into the street. However, they have been told by their social landlord that they will not be helped unless they stop talking to me, so little or nothing has changed. That is shameful. I do not need to tell anyone in this House that disrepair followed—if people are lucky—by botched refurbishment can put people in mortal danger. Grenfell Tower residents who complained about their botched refurb were sent cease and desist letters, and had no legal recourse.

Since I became an MP last June, my office has dealt with nearly 1,500 cases of all kinds. Around half are housing cases, most involving disrepair. The majority of cases relate to social housing. Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation was among the worst performers, as it has been during my nearly 13 years on the council, but has now improved slightly, leaving Notting Hill Housing—Notting Hill Genesis, as it is now—as our worst performer.

One of my constituents lives in a flat suffering from subsidence, which their landlord has been ignoring. From time to time, due to that subsidence, her front door becomes stuck and she is trapped in her flat for hours. Shame on Notting Hill Genesis. I have told her to call the fire brigade the next time that happens. Another group of constituents who were fleeing domestic abuse with young children were found a place in a hostel where they felt safe, until the ceiling collapsed. They moved downstairs to be safe, but then two more ceilings collapsed. That happened just last year—Notting Hill Genesis again.

Another case involved an elderly and confused woman. Her heating and hot water broke down about a year ago and was not fixed for three months. Her doctor told her that she was close to hypothermia and she then told her neighbour, who luckily reported it to us. Her landlord ignored our pleas, so I put the details on Twitter and there was a response within hours—shame on London and Quadrant. Another constituent’s damp was so bad that he had severe respiratory problems. When I visited, the poor gentleman had to move his nebuliser out of the way to show me the toxic black mould—that was KCTMO.

In yet another case, a constituent who fled from Grenfell with his young child was placed in temporary accommodation in a council flat that was so damp that the toddler’s clothes were literally rotting. Another constituent had a manhole cover in their downstairs kitchen and sitting room that regularly overflowed with raw sewage, by up to a foot. That was Peabody housing. In the last case I shall report on, there were concerns about fire safety that had been reported to a landlord, but were completely ignored. The landlord was told that if they did not fix the problem that they were being emailed about, there could be another Grenfell. A month later, a massive explosion ripped through the flat. There was a huge fire and a constituent died instantly—that was Catalyst housing.

It is such a difficult and long-winded process to get an environmental health officer to visit a home and manage damp that I have my own damp meter. If we have another very cold wet winter, I will be using it extensively and reporting on social media if landlords do not respond, which they often do not, even to an MP. We ask every family that comes to us with problems of damp whether anyone in the family has asthma. So far, every single family reporting damp has at least one such family member. Poor housing is damaging health and sometimes killing my constituents, and until now they have had no legal redress. My office is working on a casework report that will include photos, anonymised examples and timelines of responses from landlords. We will expose the truth. The state of social housing in my constituency is, in many cases, Dickensian.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Many of the social landlords mentioned in my hon. Friend’s speech are also active in my constituency, where I have some similar examples to hers. Does she share my concern that many of them started as charities and, by behaving in the way that they are and not delivering quality housing, they are breaching their charitable objectives?

[Emma Dent Coad]

I agree. Many of them have become developers with social purpose, as they are called, and have lost their charitable status—and they have left it well behind. Many are focusing on building new and often poorly constructed developments, while letting their old stock decline, and they are then selling into the private market. This is deliberate. Tenants are ignored, derided and, on occasion, bullied, with their pleas ignored. They need this legal recourse, so I am delighted to support the Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), a dedicated and hard-working heroine, and I ask the House to pass it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emma Dent Coad Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

We have identified additional funding for affordable homes and social rent. I will be making a further announcement regarding what this means outside London. I will return to the House to update Members on the matter, as I recognise its importance.

[Emma Dent Coad (Kensington) (Lab)]

Mr Speaker, I thank you and Members of all parties who supported the Grenfell community by attending memorial services and the silent walk, by speaking in the House and by wearing the green heart. Will the Secretary of State politely insist that all Members who have shown support by wearing the green heart support my request for a Backbench Business debate, so that we can discuss all these issues in one place and discuss the Grenfell response? We have a list of green heart wearers and will be writing to the Secretary of State today. Will he please show that he cares by supporting my debate?

[James Brokenshire]

I commend the hon. Lady for the work that she has done locally, as I commend the strength of her community in the face of this appalling tragedy. I cannot speak about the awarding of Backbench Business debates. If she seeks one, I am sure that it will be considered carefully. We have updated the House regularly on the response to Grenfell, and we will continue to do so.

Grenfell Tower

Emma Dent Coad Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Emma Dent Coad (Kensington) (Lab)]

I will leave the discussion of cladding and the Hackitt report to others, and I will instead focus on the dire state of rehousing our Grenfell-affected households—it is shameful. Let me remind the House that I am talking about my community: some of my friends, some who passed away, and some who lost close family. As it is Mental Health Awareness Week, let me announce that I have also had my Time to Talk counselling treatment. It does not make you better, it does not make the anger go away and it does not make the sadness go away. Perhaps you cope with it better, but it does not actually heal.

Ministers have said over and again in this House that those responsible will be held to account, but the failing council responsible for the deaths of 72 cherished individuals—the failing council under police investigation for alleged corporate manslaughter—is still in charge of rehousing. The taskforce report of December last year demanded culture change at the council. Some of the faces have changed, but the culture of disrespect towards social tenants, and the shambolic organisation behind it, with which I have daily contact, remains in place. My office is now dealing with about 100 Grenfell-affected households, comprising nearly 250 people. More are coming every week, as months go by, and they are still in emergency accommodation. The Grenfell-related housing statistics we have heard weekly from the council and successive Ministers are not the whole story. There is a lack of candour about those statistics. To put it politely, the figures have been spun. In November, there were not 210 Grenfell-related households needing rehousing. I had a full tally from the housing department at the time and there were 376 such households, because this includes the Walkways—homes to which people are afraid to return or cannot abide to return. The number of children who needed rehousing at that time was 323, of whom more than 200 were in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, which is an infringements of their human rights. I have asked the council four times to update these figures and it will not do so—what on earth is it hiding?

The numbers have been spun because of the division between those from the tower and Grenfell Walk, and those living in the Walkways, many of whom are reliving the horror every day as they look through their windows. Some have returned, but many cannot. Keeping children in a bed and breakfast for more than six weeks is illegal, and there is good reason for that. We saw on ITV recently a mother whose four-year-old was regressing and talking like a baby, and struggling at nursery. I know of many schoolchildren who are unable to keep up with their studies, falling into depression at a young age and wanting to take their own lives, and of students who have dropped out of further education because they simply cannot cope, while their parents are barely hanging on. Meanwhile, we are subjected to a barrage of platitudes and spin from Ministers—and, indeed, the council—who have it in their power to take control of this pitiful and shameful situation, but refuse, crying crocodile tears and commending people’s dignity while reproaching the council for its failure.

Let me paint a picture of the chaos which the Government are allowing to prevail. First, why were so many households with disabled people living in a tower block? Some had lived there for many years, but some were moved there. There was a policy of moving households with disabled people into the lower floors of the block—we have seen a letter confirming this—and that needs to change.

[Fiona Onasanya (Peterborough) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way during such a passionate, moving and correct speech. Does she agree that those people have generally been failed by the Government?

[Emma Dent Coad]

I absolutely concur; they have been failed.

Secondly, the more pernicious sections of the media have berated families for not accepting so-called interim housing, implying that they love living in the luxury of hotels. I have visited those hotels. A Premier Inn is not a luxury. Some have called it a prison. Many have refused the so-called interim housing because they know what it means. A “temporary” placement that I know of lasted 13 years.

As for offers of permanent accommodation, the problems are manifold. Some are heartbreaking. One family was offered a flat in the so-called luxury of Kensington Row, but could not accept it because they needed adaptations to live independently. That work cannot be done for two years because the block is still under guarantee. The proposed solution was to offer home care. A family who were able to live independently were told to accept care from strangers, and another were offered accommodation in an older building needing adaptations.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the situation she describes is intolerable and must be changed?

[Emma Dent Coad]

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend.

The council has refused to pay for those adaptations because the property is owned by a housing association, and the family are so desperate to move that they have offered to fund the adaptations themselves from their compensation payment. Worst of all to date is a self-sufficient family, whom I know very well, who care for their older disabled family member and are proud to do so, but whose housing needs cannot be met. The council suggested they put that older family member in a care home so that they could be rehoused separately.

The pledges, commitments and guarantees of the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State or this week’s Housing Minister are not rehousing people. We ask the Government once again to send in commissioners to take control of this shameful process. If the Government continue to sit on their hands while tutting their disapproval, they should think about this: some Grenfell-affected people may not make it.

[Several hon. Members rose—]