Fire Safety and Cladding

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Steve Reed

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Reed]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention. I, too, look forward to hearing a response from the Minister. I have tried to find out whether a newly rebuilt school in my own constituency has flammable cladding, but it seems impossible to do so. If I, as the local Member of Parliament with the access that I have to the relevant authorities, cannot find out, I pity those poor parents who are trying to find out whether their children will be safe after they have taken them to school each morning. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on that point.

I came to this subject because a block in my constituency, Citiscape, has the same sort of cladding—aluminium composite material cladding—that was on Grenfell Tower. The cost of removing and replacing the cladding was £2 million. The managing agents wrote to leaseholders in the block, who received estimates of up to £30,000 each for the work to be carried out. Of course the vast majority could not afford that—not many people have £30,000 lying around in the bank, particularly not those who have just bought their first flat and are stretched on their mortgage—but they were told that unless everybody paid up, the work would not happen. In effect, nothing would be done to keep the people in the block safe. We approached the freeholder, but the freeholder is not legally liable to carry out the work and there was no way to compel the freeholder to do it. The builders also are not legally liable to carry out the work. They can rely on the fact that there are concerns about lack of clarity in the building regulations and guidance, and they had been following the guidance that they believed meant that the cladding was safe. It turned out at Grenfell that ACM cladding is absolutely not safe.

When the case came to the housing tribunal, it ruled that the leaseholders were liable. We hear welcome words from Ministers at the Dispatch Box saying that leaseholders should not be made to pay, but in fact the housing tribunal—the legal body responsible for adjudicating on the matter—said the leaseholders were indeed responsible and would have to pay. In the case of Citiscape and others where not all the leaseholders can pay, the work will not be done. People are stuck living in blocks with Grenfell-style flammable cladding strapped on the outside; they are living with their families, their children and their parents in absolute terror.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his speech and the argument he is making. It has long been argued that there should be some reform of leasehold law. We have tinkered with it over the years, but it needs to be dealt with properly, and Governments have shied away from doing so. I thought that the Secretary of State had said that he would discuss leaseholds with the people involved, some of the companies and so on. About 12 months ago, I said to the previous Secretary of State that what the Government should have done after Grenfell was to take emergency powers. Had they done so, we would not have some of these problems now. They did not do it and the rest is history.

[Mr Reed]

I am grateful for that helpful intervention and look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

I said that there were concerns about the state of the building regulations and the guidance, and it is worth exploring briefly how we got into a position where the regulations were so lax or could be interpreted in such a way. Back in 2009, there was a fire in Lakanal House in Camberwell, central London, that resulted in the death of six people, including a baby. An inquest conducted an inquiry, which took a number of years, and reported in 2013 in a very long document that contained some very clear recommendations. The inquiry said that the fire safety regulations—specifically, part B of the building regulations, which cover fire safety, and the associated guidance—were unclear, and that that was the reason why unsafe and combustible cladding was being strapped on buildings where people lived with their families. The coroner was absolutely clear that if that lack of clarity was not remedied, we would be running the risk of further fires and further deaths.

Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Bill

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Steve Reed

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 3rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Reed]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. The Government are commissioning a much wider review of mental health services. I hope it will encompass the points he raises, but that would be for the Minister to clarify.

The Bill will make sure that every mental health provider has a policy in place governing the use of force, including a clear deliverable plan for reducing its use, and ensuring that staff are properly trained in equalities and the de-escalation techniques needed to avoid the use of force. It will speed up justice and allow learning to take place by making sure that any non-natural death in a mental health unit automatically triggers an independent investigation, and making sure that recommendations from investigations and inquests are taken into account when improving mental health services in ways that currently do not happen.

The Bill is a significant step forward for our mental health services, moving them from the containment of patients to the care of patients. It will make sure that people with mental ill health are treated with compassion, not cruelty. There is overwhelming support for the Bill across the mental health sector. I am grateful for the practical support I have received from INQUEST, in particular its director Deborah Coles, and from Raju Bhatt, the widely respected solicitor who has represented so many bereaved families following deaths in custody. I am grateful to YoungMinds UK, Mind, Rethink Mental Illness, Agenda, the Labour Campaign for Mental Health, my hardworking staff and the Croydon North Ethnic Communities Forum. Also, 38 Degrees hosted an online petition that has been signed by over 60,000 people to demand this change.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

More broadly, having watched documentaries on this issue, does my hon. Friend agree that there is an argument for providing the police with better training, so that they understand the difficulties facing people with mental health issues?

[Mr Reed]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Unfortunately, that is outside the scope of the Bill, but I very much hope it will be in the scope of the wider review the Government are commissioning.

Local Government Finance (England)

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Steve Reed

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will pick up on those points later in my contribution. Returning to the settlement funding assessment, because increases elsewhere do not plug the gap that those cuts create, it will result in cuts to front-line services, including cuts to youth services, fixing potholes, cleaning the streets, emptying the bins, looking after parks, keeping the street lights on at night, Sure Start centres, libraries, museums and rural bus services. The Secretary of State has not protected any of those; he has sharpened the knife.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Councils such as Coventry will lose 60% of their income from grants over a 10-year period—that is £80 million—which will inflict unnecessary hardship. The Secretary of State talks about business rates, but it was a previous Conservative Government who changed those in the first place. He is now passing the buck of paying for the police and social care on to local authorities, and three or four years down the line, he will do what Ministers always do and come in and cap it.

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend is right, and devolving the blame for their cuts is part of what the Government are up to with this settlement.

Some funding for social care has been handed over to councils, which certainly sounds welcome. According to the Tory-led Local Government Association, however, the Government have handed over a £1 billion funding black hole. They have told councils to impose a 2% council tax rise every year for four years to plug that gap, but even that does not raise anywhere near enough to pay for the care that older people need. That increase raises the least money in the poorest areas that most need the funding. The Government have cut the funding then handed it over to councils to take the blame.

Elected Mayors and Local Government

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Steve Reed

Thursday 9th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Many years ago, I used to chair the seven districts. For people who do not know what I mean by that, it was seven local authorities that worked together. If we had not been able to work in that way, we would not have had Hams Hall, because we had an issue about it with British Rail at the time. If it had not been developed, freight would have gone up north and no investment would have gone to the midlands. Birmingham airport was another area that we developed. The point I am trying to make is that we do not need an elected mayor to do things like that.

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend’s comments emphasise the fact that discretion over the model of governance should be in the hands of the local community and the local area affected, not in the hands of a Minister who takes such decisions centrally here in Whitehall. That is not just a Labour view. The cross-party Local Government Association, which is currently led by a Conservative, believes:

“People should be free to choose the appropriate model of governance for their community.”

In reality, however, the Government claim to be committed to devolution but insist on telling communities how they will be run and governed. There is a clear contradiction in that, which I hope that the Minister will resolve for us.