Leaseholders and Cladding

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and all those from across the country who have spoken in the debate to show what strength of feeling there is. I want to join them, to represent my many constituents who feel just as strongly. Their lives are a misery because of the situation—surely an unforeseen result from a fund that is meant to save lives and to be a good thing for people across the country. Actually it has led to dreadful circumstances for residents.

To add to the stories we have heard, I will mention the leaseholders of 66 and 200 flats respectively at two buildings in my constituency—the Swish building and the Riverside Quarter. They have been told by their freeholder that the cladding and other fire safety measures in the building—the cladding is either not ACM, or it is a mixture between ACM and HPL—do not now meet the standard that the Government regard as adequate for the issue of a fire safety certificate, and that recladding is needed. To their horror, they have been told that they need to foot the bill for the work, which comes to tens of thousands of pounds. They have not been told exactly how much the cost is, but they believe it is between £50,000 and £80,000 per flat.

That raises a few issues, the first of which is safety. If the current cladding does not meet the safety requirements for a safety certificate, are the blocks safe? As we have heard today, different blocks are being treated differently. The fire regulations are not up to scratch. Another issue is fairness. To make leaseholders foot the bill is outrageous. They are not multi-million pound landlords, by any stretch. They are normal people trying to live their lives, and they do not have £50,000 lying around. The situation is taking a huge emotional toll.

[Meg Hillier]

My hon. Friend is right to raise the unfair cost to leaseholders, which we have all highlighted. Does she agree that, as the taxpayer could ultimately foot the bill, we should make sure that dodgy developers, or those who will not step up to the mark, do not get away with a situation where the taxpayer bails people out just because they will not pay?

[Fleur Anderson]

I absolutely agree. There has to be a way to make the fund easy to use and urgently accessible, so that it is not held up for a long time in red tape, and the right people have to foot the bill. I argue that the Government need to extend the cladding fund to all types of unsafe cladding. That is what it is there for.

As to the emotional toll, one person said:

“The net result for me is that I will lose my home, as I cannot sell it, or raise a mortgage to finance repairs because it is unsellable and I am unemployed, and therefore will lose my lease.”

He will become homeless as a result. Another resident told me that his flat is unsaleable and effectively worthless. It was bought in 2004 in good faith in the belief that it was a safe home. The fact that it is now considered to have the problems in question is not of his making:

“We cannot afford to pay a sum of this size on top of the existing service charge”.

In summary, I am as shocked as everyone else here. I hope that the Minister will urgently tell us some good news. Three years after Grenfell, my constituents are being asked to fork out huge sums of money for a building that ultimately they do not own—a point that relates back to the leaseholder crisis. No leaseholder should have to pay for the work in question, or experience such huge stress and uncertainty. An urgent response is needed. I join those who are asking for the cladding fund to be urgently extended to all forms of unsafe cladding.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

I thank Members for their collective discipline in time management, which has given us just over half an hour for the Front-Bench speakers.