Fire Safety Bill

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 29th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab) [V]]

I fully support the broad purposes of this Bill. Any Bill that takes us a step closer to righting the wrongs of Grenfell tower gets my full support, and my thoughts are also with those who died in Grenfell and with those injured and all the families, friends, survivors and firefighters.

Greater powers and meaningful sanctions to ensure that residents are safe in their homes are welcome. However, this Bill is a huge missed opportunity to address a big issue in my constituency and around the country: that of leaseholders being made to pay for the cost of the unsafe cladding still on their buildings. It is too long to wait for the building safety Bill, and the deadline for the removal of all unsafe cladding in private blocks by June 2020, set by the Government, will clearly not be met. In the meantime, thousands of people are left in limbo because of the cladding crisis.

The Swish building and Riverside Quarter in Putney are two examples. They have 66 and 200 flats respectively, and their cladding is a mixture of the Grenfell-type ACM and HPL. Leaseholders have been told by their freeholder that the cladding and other fire safety measures in their building do not meet the standard now regarded by the Government as adequate to obtain a fire safety certificate. For a fire safety certificate to be issued, the building will need to be re-clad. Without the certificate, leaseholders cannot sell, and they have to pay for an expensive nightly waking watch, which costs about £100,000 a year. They are being told they need to foot the bill for the re-cladding, which they are told could be between £50,000 and £80,000 per flat.

It is simply unfair to make leaseholders foot the bill. They are not multimillionaire landlords, but normal people—many of them retired—trying to live their lives, which have been made even more difficult by the current crisis. They do not have a spare £50,000 lying around or the means to get it. The emotional toll is enormous, which is why the matter needs to be addressed urgently, so it is disappointing not to see that in this Bill. The situation has left leaseholders in complete limbo, as has been mentioned by other Members, and facing an uncertain future. Mortgage lenders will not issue mortgages for homes without a fire safety certificate, so people are stuck. One resident, who has been unemployed for over a year, told me:

“The net result for me is that I will lose my home”.

Another said:

“We now face financial ruin as a direct result of the Government’s retrospective change to fire safety regulation.”

Another resident said that their flat is

“unsaleable and therefore effectively worthless… We cannot afford to pay a sum of this size.”

The Bill offers nothing for leaseholders at the Riverside, Swish or in other similar tower blocks. While I appreciate that the building safety Bill is coming, this Bill could provide the measures that the cladding crisis victims need. In particular, I would like a commitment to adequate Government funding for cladding remediation work or to ensure that freeholders foot the Bill, as they, not the leaseholders, will be the ones who benefit from building improvements. The additional funding announced in the Budget is welcome, but it is also too hard to claim. Only two buildings have made claims from the existing £200 million private property fund. Ministers must take more responsibility.

I would also like local government reimbursement. To ensure that the legislation is successful in protecting lives, national Government must make sure that local government and other fire authorities are reimbursed for any additional costs arising out of the operational changes mandated by this Bill. Our already underfunded local authorities must be given extra capacity to make homes safe.

We also need greater clarity on the non-ACM cladding that is deemed unsafe. There is huge confusion about which cladding is safe or unsafe. Are people living in really dangerous buildings or not? Confusion reigns, and the Bill needs to address that.

In conclusion, we are approaching the third anniversary of the Grenfell tower disaster, and so many questions remain unanswered. This Bill fails to address them and will disappoint thousands. I welcome the Government’s work on cladding so far, but so much more needs to be done.

Fire Safety Bill

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christian Wakeford]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Unfortunately, I think there cannot be a guarantee. A lot of the developers may no longer exist and insurance schemes may no longer be applicable. There will be gaps, and we do have to be responsible. Although his amendment is very well intentioned, and I am incredibly sympathetic towards it, there are gaps in it, and that is why, unfortunately, I will not be able to join him in the Lobby today, although I very much applaud the sentiment of it and the work he has put into it.

Leaseholders, building owners and taxpayers deserve a solid legislative base. That is what we are trying to do today by making sure that our properties and our leaseholders are safe. That is why we need to focus on those who are most likely to be affected. I do not want to see the Bill’s implementation frustrated. It has already taken far too long to get to this point, and we need to ensure that we can proceed.

As has been said many times, including by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) and the Minister, we have a duty: do we get this right, or do we do it quick? From my perspective, we need to get it right. Far too many people have fallen through the gaps, are struggling and are unable to afford this, so it is right that we take a fully reasoned approach, speaking to experts and to all trade bodies to ensure that we get it right. That is what I urge Ministers, the Treasury and everyone else to continue to do. I finish by thanking all Members for bringing forward some of these amendments. They do not quite deal with the Bill at hand. That is why I will not be able to support them and will be backing the Government today.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab) [V]]

I am speaking in utter frustration, having heard many of the comments so far in the debate today, I am speaking in support of the amendments tabled by the Opposition and by the hon. Members for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith), and I am speaking on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of leaseholders, including in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, who are staring down the barrel of this scandal. And I thank the cladding action campaigners across the country.

I welcome the Bill, but it is too small and too slow. There is frustration across the House of Commons today. We can do this right and do it faster, and we must. Today, we had another statement of support for leaseholders from the Minister, who said that he agrees with the intent to give leaseholders peace of mind and financial certainty, yet the Government did not write that into the Bill and are not supporting the amendments. No leaseholders of buildings of any height should be made to foot a bill of thousands of pounds that they cannot afford.

At the sharp end of the failings of this Bill are millions of leaseholders trapped in unsafe homes who are suffering enormous stress, anxiety and emotional anguish, and who feel totally abandoned. I have met many of them in my constituency. Their lives are on pause and might be for years. This is what some have told me. One said:

“As every day, week or month goes by, our financial liability and stability become ever more disturbing and deeply troubling. When will it end?

Another resident, who bought her flat using money inherited from her mother’s passing, said to me:

“Despite my emotional attachment to my flat, current circumstances make me almost wish that I had never bought it. It is a burden and a hindrance to me moving forward with the next stage of my life, at a prime time when I want to start a family.”

Another resident, a victim of domestic violence, has been trying to sell her property to raise money for legal fees. She has had to receive food parcels due to lost income during the pandemic. Her insurance premiums have now increased by 500%. Under no circumstances should leaseholders, regardless of the height of their building, have to pay for cladding remediation costs that are the fault of developers and a failed regulatory system. Funding should be based on fire risk, not on height. It should include upfront costs—it should not be loans—for all leaseholders and it should include other fire safety issues. Some Putney leaseholders face up to £100,000 in charges.

At the current pace of spend, the building safety fund, which has only approved 12 applications, will only approve all the applications—the 532 applications—by 2031. The pace of change is far too slow, so I urge colleagues on both sides of the House: please do the right thing today, back the British people and make sure that lease- holders do not pay.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con) [V]]

One of the lessons from the Grenfell tragedy was that a number of companies in the construction sector had been recklessly gaming the system, resulting in unsafe materials being used. But crucially, construction and post-occupancy inspections did not pick up those risks.

As someone who worked in oil and gas and then in construction over several years, I can see the very different approach taken by the two sectors. Many of our constituents who live in leasehold flats face significant costs, such as waking watch costs and several other fire risk liabilities not related to cladding. The new £30 million waking watch relief fund, the £1.6 billion remediation funding and the commitment to recruit hundreds of specialist risk assessors and specialist workers show that this Government are committed to resolving the problem and to supporting people stranded in their property through no fault of their own.

I wish to raise issues brought to me by a constituent. At present, buildings over 18 metres will have all cladding remedial work paid for by the Government. Those in buildings between 11 metres and 18 metres will be offered a loan, with residents in buildings lower than 11 metres receiving no financial support at all, the latter being the situation my constituent’s daughter finds herself in. Although it is right to target remediation first at highest-risk buildings, there is a question of fairness as to who pays if a person happens to have purchased a building that is not as tall.

In addition to the removal of cladding, inspections have highlighted further building faults, such as missing firebreaks, wooden balconies and combustible insulation. The repair costs alone could be in excess of £25,000 per flat. There is no provision for support with these repairs, which will be required before a fire safety certificate can be issued, allowing the resident to eventually sell their home. They would not have been privy to these liabilities as the conveyancing process would not have highlighted the possibility of these risks existing at point of purchase. Risk awareness at the conveyancing stage is something that I raised in my ten-minute rule Bill.

Fire safety officers should not only be competent by the certifications that they hold; they should be present and responsible for sign-off on site at all key stages. While the amendments before us were tabled with good intentions, we cannot delay the Bill any longer. I hope that Ministers will consider a post-construction and occupancy model for fire safety, much as gas and electrical checks are carried out, to pick up on changes to the fabric of a building that could be made over time.