Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC) [V]]

I welcome this debate today. It is one small response to the enormous suffering of the people who died in the Grenfell disaster and those who lost loved ones, and also all those who have faced such unbearable burdens thereafter.

I agree with the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) that all affected homes should be made safe, the victims of this scandal should not be made to pay, and the main players are clearly avoiding their responsibilities. However, it seems that she and, indeed, the Leader of the Opposition are unaware that the only Labour Government in the UK—the Welsh Labour Government—launched their consultation on a new building regime only two weeks ago, having sat immovably on this issue for over three years. For as well as being a desperate, scandalous and unbearable burden for people trapped in their flats in England, the cladding scandal, from Atlantic Wharf in Cardiff to Victoria Dock in Caernarfon, affects the whole of Wales. People who bought their homes in good faith are being left with unsaleable properties, or face astronomical and unaffordable bills to make their homes safe, with no choice but to live in homes that could be fatally dangerous. For those who have to move because of work or family commitments, even that terrible choice is not open to them. In making his call for the UK Government to “get a grip”, I hope that the Leader of the Opposition will pass his remarks on to his very good friends down the M4.

We also heard today that the Leader of the Opposition is calling for a national cladding taskforce. I am not sure which nation he is referring to—perhaps neither is he— but this looks to many people in Wales either like shameless grandstanding ahead of our general election or just a schoolboy misunderstanding of the nature of devolution. I am sure that he joins everyone else in calling on developers to shoulder their responsibilities, and I hope that he will press for Wales to get its fair share of any funding to make homes safe. Alas, I fear that neither the Tory Government in Westminster nor the hapless Labour Government in Cardiff are at all up to the job.