Fire Safety Bill

Gareth Davies Excerpts

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

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As Members who have perhaps been in the House a little longer than he has will know, I was Housing Minister for a brief period of 12 months about 18 months ago, and the work started then of sitting alongside the construction industry to get it to stand up and fulfil its obligations to the people who were living in defective high-rise buildings in particular. A number of firms did and, from working with them through the Treasury, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and MHCLG, I know that there is a new atmosphere abroad. That is certainly part of the challenge that we face: it is not just about the regulation we are putting in place today, but a cultural change in the industry towards building safety so that it is now a full partner in facing the challenge for the future.

Government funding does not absolve building owners of their responsibility to ensure their buildings are safe. We have been clear that building owners and the industry, as my hon. Friend has just said, should make buildings safe without passing on costs to leaseholders. They should consider all routes to meet costs including, for example, through warranties and recovering costs from contractors for incorrect or poor work.

We have always been clear that all residents deserve to be and feel safe in their homes. We are working at pace to ensure remediation of unsafe cladding is completed, and we have an ambitious timescale to do so. As I said earlier, about 95% of high-rise buildings with Grenfell-type ACM cladding identified at the start of 2020 have completed remediation or had works on site by the end of last year. However, I am afraid the Bill is not the correct place for remediation costs to be addressed. It is a short but critical Bill to clarify that the fire safety order applies to the external walls, including cladding, and flat entrance doors in multi-occupied residential buildings. That means the responsible person must include those parts of the building in their fire risk assessment. That does not include the remediation of historical defects. It does not have the necessary legislative detail that would be needed to underpin such amendments in regulations. The Building Safety Bill is the appropriate legislative mechanism for addressing these issues, and it will be introduced in the spring. It will contain the detailed and complex legislation that is needed to address remediation costs.

[Gareth Davies (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend believe that incorporating these amendments might delay the Bill and mean that we cannot execute these measures now?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am afraid that that is the fundamental risk we face at the moment. We want to get the Bill on the statute book as quickly as possible. It forms the starting block of a complex web of legislation and regulation that is required to bring about changes in building safety across the whole country. I hope that Members recognise that the potential delay that may be inserted by a back and forth between the Houses over this particular issue is not useful. As I say, this issue should be debated during consideration of the Building Safety Bill, which will be brought forward shortly, and I know that Members will embrace that particular piece of legislation.