Budget Resolutions

Emma Dent Coad Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Emma Dent Coad (Kensington) (Lab)]

I would like to return to a subject very much on the minds of my constituents: the vexed and highly emotive one of Government funding for retrofitting sprinklers in high-rise flats, which I feel is being sidelined. It is being decided on a case-by-case basis, and we understand that many councils are being refused this vital funding.

What kind of future are we planning for our children? What kind of society shovels money into the overseas accounts of the tax-dodging wealthy while refusing a safe home to those who create that wealth? This is the world our local poet Potent Whisper calls “Grenfell Britain”. In this Grenfell Britain, we give tax breaks to the rich for their empty investment flats, all fitted with sprinklers, but there is barely a penny towards retrofitting sprinklers in fully occupied high-rise homes that house those who are the engine room of our economy.

In this Grenfell Britain, this Government continue to find ways to avoid their responsibilities. For four years, the Government ignored the recommendations of the Lakanal inquest, after six people perished—11 pages that could have saved 71 lives. They are continuing to ignore the pleas of survivors, evacuees and other affected families for them to provide safe homes for everyone, even after 71 of our neighbours died in the most horrific circumstances—many in front of our eyes. Altogether, that is 857 people made homeless.

What am I to tell Hamid, who is thankful that his 90-year-old mother, whom he cares for, was with relatives that night? Both were made homeless by the fire. What can I say to this proud, hard-working man, who had his business and was proud to say that he paid his taxes and paid for himself and his mother’s care? What can I tell this man who saved the life of his neighbour, a good friend of mine who had predicted the atrocity? Hamid and his disabled mother are still living in a hotel after five and a half months. Most recently they were offered a flat five storeys up, when he had expressly said that, owing to trauma, he must have a ground-floor flat. Instead, he was offered a flat with one staircase and one lift—a brand-new flat with no sprinklers.

What am I to tell the father of two little girls, both lost in the fire along with his wife? The loving father who was determined to say goodbye to his children, who opened those little white coffins to say goodbye to a few tiny remains—what do I say to him: that they died in vain? What do I say to the family who dragged their disabled relative down innumerable flights of stairs past their neighbours who had collapsed there, to the woman who lost her baby, or to the one who had had her baby, back in temporary accommodation after her return from hospital?

What do I tell the people who survived this atrocity and fear for the lives of others? “No change. The Government will not take responsibility. Tax breaks for the rich; no sprinklers for the rest”? This Government need to understand that decent people who pay their taxes—across Kensington and across the country, of all political parties—are disgusted by the shameful and inadequate response to the ongoing humanitarian disaster at Grenfell Tower, and by the shameful refusal of the Government to adopt recommendations to fit sprinklers and to fund it. Shame on this Government. Listen to the people; find your humanity. Grenfell Britain is your legacy—let us change it.