Residential Leaseholders and Interim Fire Safety Costs

Janet Daby Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab) [V]]

It is a privilege to speak in this debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) on securing it. We simply cannot raise this issue enough, as it affects so many of our constituents’ lives across the country.

I have constituents who write to me, and parents and friends who write about their loved ones; about how they feel trapped, how they have fallen into severe debt, how they are living in overcrowded situations because they cannot move home, and how they are desperately worried about their safety. Residents have been paying waking watch costs. They have seen insurance costs rocket. They have seen service charges increase. They should not have to contribute to replacing cladding, when all of this is no fault of their own. What was once their dream home has become a nightmare. I have said this before, and I am saying it again: this nightmare is their reality. This experience is something they live with daily, in real financial and emotional terms.

The Secretary of State’s long-awaited announcement last month about support for residents in dangerous buildings fell short of what is needed for the people of our country who are affected. Why was the Minister so short-sighted? Why was this whole issue absent from the Chancellor’s Budget? If residents live with unsafe cladding and fire defects, that is through no fault of their own; the height of the building should not matter either. The Government are not meeting their duty, but they are protecting developers, freeholders and insurance companies. That is what we surmise from this gross inaction.

Financial support should not be non-existent for people and their families living in housing blocks beneath six storeys. The Grenfell disaster took 72 precious lives. I have to ask: what are the Government waiting for before they are motivated to act decently? The actions recommended by both the phase 1 report of the Grenfell Tower inquiry and Dame Judith Hackitt’s review are clearly not being carried out at pace. Where did the sense of urgency go?

This is not a situation where the Government can choose what to remedy and what not to remedy. In my constituency, residents of the Parkside development have been told by Peabody housing association that its remediation work will take approximately five years. In this half-decade, the residents will be made to pay for short-term solutions. I join my colleagues in saying that is entirely unacceptable. Leaseholders should not have to pay for any shortcomings that they are not responsible for, even for a short period.

I implore the Government not to allow my words and those of others to fall to the ground. This is about protecting lives, securing a home for people and families, and doing the decent thing up and down our country.