Building Safety Bill

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am pleased to speak in this long-awaited debate on such an important Bill. I put on record how disrespectful it was both to Members of this House and to leaseholders that the Secretary of State chose to release details of a major policy shift just minutes before the debate began, making proper scrutiny impossible. Will he urgently clarify whether his announcement on EWS1 forms for buildings under 18 metres will apply retrospectively?

Since I was elected 18 months ago, I have raised the issue of dangerous cladding with fire safety Ministers in this House on 14 separate occasions. Each time I have raised it, the Government’s answer to my question has always been the same: wait for the Building Safety Bill to come to Parliament.

I welcome the elements of the Bill that strengthen the fire safety regime for high-rise buildings, but I am afraid that the legislation before us today is woefully short of what is required to address properly all the issues facing leaseholders. It fails to protect them from extortionate charges for interim safety watch. It fails to ensure their homes are mortgageable, so that they have the basic right to move. Instead of rescuing leaseholders from this financial nightmare, it enshrines in law additional costs in the form of a new building safety charge estimated to cost leaseholders up to £42 a month— £42 a month that many of them simply cannot afford. That is why my question to the Secretary of State is urgent and needs clarification. Home ownership is an aspiration to be applauded, yet leaseholders who bought their homes in good faith have simply been hung out to dry.

I would also like to echo the comments made by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) about fire evacuation plans for disabled leaseholders. Where will that be addressed? I hope the Minister will reflect on all these injustices and take time over the summer to relax. Unfortunately for a number of my constituents, they do not have the same luxury. They are still living in dangerous buildings wondering how on earth they will address that and pay for these costs.

Ministers promised that the Building Safety Bill would finally address the cladding scandal. I urge them to think again and end this cladding scandal nightmare for our leaseholders.

Building Safety Bill

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I start by paying tribute to the many hundreds of Vauxhall residents who have contacted me in my short two years as Member of Parliament for Vauxhall. They have been contacting me even though they are suffering sheer mental stress, contacting me even though at times they feel that there is no end to this nightmare, contacting me because they have been trapped in homes they are unable to sell and contacting me, frankly, because some of their properties are unsafe. At every stage of my continued efforts on behalf of Vauxhall leaseholders going through that anguish and uncertainty over the last two years, the Bill has been held up by the Government as the solution that would finally bring an end to this crisis. Regrettably, it does not.

The Bill is a step in the right direction in the fight to ensure that nobody has to live in a death trap and a fire trap like Grenfell Tower, and as a legislator I support the measures to keep my constituents safe. I therefore welcome the essential changes that will bring an end to the shambolic safety regime that led to the Grenfell tragedy, and the introduction of a regulator to oversee that. I also welcome the new Secretary of State’s change of approach to the question of leaseholder liability, which has clearly become one of the most clear injustices I have seen in politics. It is clear that the Bill will give leaseholders important new rights to challenge freeholders and developers when negligence has occurred. I am pleased, too, that the Government finally agree that no leaseholder living in a building of under 11 metres will pay for the cost of cladding remediation in the future, for which my Opposition colleagues have been calling for many months.

However, we must not pretend that the Bill achieves what it should have done. Millions of leaseholders who have been in a position of deep uncertainty for years will still be there after today, reliant yet again on warm words from the Government and the good will of profit-making companies that have done their best to evade that at every turn. I understand why so many Vauxhall constituents simply do not trust that promises will be delivered on, which is why it is so disappointing, frankly, that much of what was in the Secretary of State’s statement last week is not included in the Bill.

A lot has been said about the inconsistency of saying that leaseholders should be protected from cladding costs while leaving them on the hook to pay for the extortionate cost of other defects, and I add my full support to Members from across the House who have spoken out against that. There are several ongoing issues that the Bill does nothing to address, such as the extortionate insurance premiums and other secondary costs before remediation is completed. Let us be clear that leaseholders will be meeting those unjust costs for years until decisive action is taken.

Most importantly, both the Bill’s provisions and the Secretary of State’s announcement last week appear to apply only to future contexts. Where does that leave the millions of leaseholders caught up at various points along the way of that lengthy scandal? What does the Bill do to empower leaseholders who had their assessment before the recent changes in Government policy and believe that unnecessary work has been recommended for their building? Where is the help for leaseholders whose flats are unsellable until that remediation work is complete but who have been told that they will have to wait many years? They are trapped. The Government have known about all those issues for far too long and have done nothing while leaseholders have suffered. Today, they had the opportunity to accept amendments that would have fixed them, but yet again they chose to turn a blind eye.

With a heavy heart, I welcome the Bill, because it will make my constituents living in high-rise buildings safer. The Minister, in his opening statement, said that living in a home where you feel safe is a basic human right, but many of my leaseholders in Vauxhall still do not feel that they have that right. I lament another missed opportunity to rescue leaseholders from the scandal.

Building Safety Bill

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 20th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I pay tribute to Members from right across the House for their support as this Bill has passed its various stages. I have spoken on this Bill a number of times, and it is fair to say that it is a very different piece of legislation from what was initially proposed. My constituents in Vauxhall, like others in constituencies around the country, have a basic right to live in a building that is safe, and it is a shame that it has taken nearly five years after the Grenfell tragedy for Ministers to implement this new regime. I welcome the establishment of the building regulator and the other measures in the Bill to protect lives, particularly the overdue safeguards for disabled occupants of high-rise flats; that is an issue that is not referenced enough.

Sadly, this is not just about safety; it is about who should pay for the mistakes that led to these buildings being unsafe in the first place. For too long, that has been left to innocent victims, with leaseholders and social housing providers having to pay while the developers and builders who are responsible have had their profits protected. I pay tribute to the many leaseholder campaigns and groups caught up in this, including many of my constituents in Vauxhall who have worked tirelessly on this issue for many years. Without them, we would not have reached this point.

The simple fact is that this crisis will not end until leaseholders in buildings of all heights are exempt from all fire safety costs, but that is still not the situation. Leaseholders can still have to pay up to £15,000 if funds cannot be recovered from the developer or freeholder, and leaseholders in buildings under 11 metres are entirely excluded. I place on record my support for retaining the two amendments, referenced by many Members, that were passed in the other place and that would solve these problems. Sadly, they have not been accepted by the Government. It is neither right nor fair that some leaseholders should pay while others are protected, and I hope the Minister will address that when he responds.

Lords amendment 155, tabled by my noble Friend Baroness Hayman, would abolish the unfair cap and legally protect leaseholders from all remediation costs. The Government claim that it is unnecessary to protect buildings under 11 metres, but fire does not discriminate. It does not care if a building is 11, 15 or 18 metres. I have heard from constituents in low-rise buildings in Vauxhall whose mortgage lenders still require a fire safety inspection. If that inspection finds problems, guess what? Those leaseholders in low-rise buildings will have to pay.

We must not allow the technical details of this debate to obscure the fundamental moral principle at the heart of it. Either the leaseholders are responsible for this crisis or they are not. The Government have said for many years that they are not, and I agree with that. I hope that Members will vote today for the amendments that will deliver our responsibility to fully protect leaseholders from all of the costs of the problems they did not cause. In the name of fairness and transparency, I urge all Members in this House to do that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Minister, Stuart Andrew.