Grenfell Tower Fire

Jim Fitzpatrick Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I will speak in particular about the work of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad). I say in a heartfelt way that I do not think her constituents—particularly those most directly affected by this disaster—could have a better champion. She has the respect of Members across the House for what she has done to represent her constituents forcefully, with emotion and with detailed knowledge of these matters. She certainly has my respect for what she has done.

In looking at a disaster and a tragedy such as Grenfell, we can occasionally look at what can come out of it that will help others—in this case, what will help other people to be safer in their homes as a result. As a Committee, we have not looked at the causes of the disaster and the reasons for it, because that is a job for the inquiry to do. It was not our job to go into that area and second-guess its findings, but we have tried to follow up particularly on the work of the Hackitt report. We have looked at what improvements can be made to regulations and rules on buildings and building safety to make other people safer in their homes and other buildings they are in in the future.

We produced a report last July after taking evidence. Prior to that, we had had a session with Dame Judith after both her interim report and her final report. We have had Ministers before us on a number of occasions. I see the Minister for Housing in his place. He came most recently in January, and he is coming again in a few weeks’ time. Dame Judith came in January, and she is coming again at a session before the Minister. We have tried to follow through not merely on what the promises were, but on how far they have been implemented and what more needs to be done. We have had a very detailed exchange of correspondence with Ministers. Indeed, I am still waiting for some answers on the most recent questions we have asked. As I say, we tried to concentrate in our inquiry on the issues of cladding, building safety and building regulations.

In the end, this is a story of a response by the Government with a recognition that dangerous or potentially dangerous material on high-rise and high-risk buildings needs to be removed. However, it is also a story of probably quite a slow response in some respects, and of a response that is still completely inadequate in others and one that has not been finalised. I hope it has not been finalised because I hope that the Government will go further. It is a story about ACM cladding—the cladding on Grenfell—and clearly a requirement for that to be removed, and it is a story of other materials that may be just as dangerous as ACM cladding. It is a story of materials generally that are not of limited combustibility and what should happen to them. It is a story not merely of high-rise residential buildings, but of other high-risk buildings such as hospitals and old people’s homes. Very importantly, it is a story not merely about new building, but about existing buildings, and I will make particular reference to that in a few moments.

It was immediately agreed that the ACM cladding—the cladding on Grenfell—on other high-rise residential buildings should be removed. However, the Government initially produced no funding to go with that. It took till 16 May 2018—roughly a year after the disaster—for the Government to come forward with £400 million, which was welcome. It has generally meant quite a lot of progress on taking the cladding off high-rise social housing, and that progress is welcome. It is not quite complete, but it is welcome progress.

Alongside that, there has been a real problem in relation to private sector buildings and the refusal of the freeholders to accept responsibility. The Government’s reasoned response was that leaseholders should not have to pay for the responsibility. However, for a year after the announcement of the funding for social housing, there was virtually no progress at all on private high-rise buildings, except where some developers decided that they would accept responsibility for the material they had put on. We have to recognise that, in some cases, developers were no longer responsible for the buildings—they may have been bought out by other companies, which were often freehold companies with limited assets— while there were leaseholders who could not pay. It really was a situation that was never going to be resolved. Ministers kept saying—I think this was the famous phrase—“We rule nothing out”, but for the most part nothing actually got done for a long period of time. That was even though the Committee, when it did its report last July, recommended that an immediate fund be established, initially at a very low rate of interest, at least to provide the wherewithal to get this work done, and we could argue about who would pay for it afterwards. We are still very much in that position.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Does the Chairman of the Select Committee accept that there was not only a financial impact on the leaseholders exposed to this pressure, but an emotional one on their mental health from the anxiety of living in what they thought was not a safe home and of worrying about where they were going to find the money to pay for the remedial work and other fire costs?

[Mr Betts]

I entirely accept my hon. Friend’s point. I suppose I am trying to take a practical and financial approach to this issue. I recognise that that is all right for me sitting in here as a Member of Parliament, but for the people who actually live in these properties it is a very different experience, given the impact on their daily lives and their mental health, as my hon. Friend has rightly highlighted.

The Government then gave additional powers to local authorities. I am not sure that a single local authority has used any of those powers yet. Indeed, when the permanent secretary came to see the Committee, she said there was a risk to local authorities if they used the powers in relation to whether they could actually make them hold and make them effective, and whether local authorities could actually get any money back if they went in and spent the money themselves.

Now we at least have the £200 million fund that the Government have announced for private sector properties, but there are a lot of questions about it. First, who applies for the fund? Who ensures the work is carried out? Is there a timeline by which all this work has to be carried out? What happens if no one applies and the building is still there with this cladding on it? What happens to the local authority if it goes in and does the work in default: does it get the money back? What happens where a developer has already, rightly, paid for the work themselves: can that developer claim the money back from the fund, or does it apply only to work that currently has not been carried out? In the end, who is responsible for the work being signed off as satisfactory? There are a lot of questions that need addressing, and I have written to Ministers about them on behalf of the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I appreciate the opportunity to make a brief contribution to this very important debate. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad) for securing it, and for the role that she has played over the past two years as Member of Parliament for the constituency containing the Grenfell Tower. I am very pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), a fellow officer of the all-party parliamentary fire rescue group.

I will not refer to the housing, rehousing and social issues because they were ably covered by my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and others much closer to the events than I. I want to focus on the response in terms of the fire aspects. I thank the London fire brigade, the Mayor of London, the Business Sprinkler Alliance, the Fire Brigades Union and the Local Government Association for their briefings and continued interest and continued pressing of Government on this issue—and, of course, the Library for its papers for the debate.

All those bodies agree, I believe, that there was not, and was never going to be, a quick fix. There were and are some things that the Government could do, some of which they have done, and others that they should be doing, but I suspect that until the public inquiry concludes, the full story will not be out, and I am sure that even then there will be disagreements about the inquiry’s conclusions and recommendations. There have been some interim actions from the Government via the Hackitt review and pressures from elsewhere, but as Dame Judith pronounced, we need a comprehensive cultural change, including the revision of fire guidance and regulations, and the updating of building design, construction, inspection and approval.

Fire protection through suppression systems like fire sprinklers has become a main focus for many, and that is the one area where the Government ought not to await the conclusion of the public inquiry. There is a consensus across the fire sector that the protection offered, the lives that can be saved, the reductions in systems costs and the understanding of what can be achieved ought to persuade Government to do more on this, and to do it sooner rather than later. That includes for new and refurbished schools. That is one area that the all-party group has been focusing on since the coalition Government reversed the Labour Government’s 2008 guidance to local authorities, which had stated that schools should be fitted with fire sprinkler systems. That reversal has cut the number of schools being protected by fire sprinklers by over half in the past six years.

The all-party parliamentary group, chaired so ably by the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), has been pressing on that, and for a revision of Approved Document B, for some years. Government should act now. I was very pleased to read the written ministerial statement issued this morning—a little bit late, but at least it is out. It has some very important elements, especially on the first page in respect of a comprehensive duty holder regime, and the list on page 2 of the things that the Government have done so far, which at least demonstrates that they have been doing something. I acknowledge that another consultation will be necessary, but a brief one—to the end of July—so hopefully, given how much work has been done, and ought to have been done, by the Department so far, conclusions will be quickly reached at the end of the consultation and we can see further progress in respect of protection for people in their homes.

On removal and replacement of defective cladding, the Government moved to support the social sector more quickly than they did the private sector. It took a year—it was two years for the private sector—but at least there is £600 million out there and most council and housing association properties have been addressed, or are completed, or at least the process is under way. The much slower response of the private sector obviously meant that similar progress was not possible there, but to his credit, the Secretary of State’s decision to come forward with the £200 million, and to instruct the Department and give a directive that that money should be made available, is very welcome. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Select Committee, said, any more information in respect of application for and circulation of the £200 million will be extremely useful, because there is still great concern about who can apply, how to apply, when the money will be available and who can get it.

There emerged from evidence sessions at the public inquiry some very unhappy and unfair criticisms of individuals, particularly of London fire brigade personnel, who unfortunately, in terms of timing, were among the early witnesses before the inquiry. As we all know, the media are merciless when they have anyone in their crosshairs as a target. No one is individually to blame for Grenfell. Some will be more guilty than others, some more culpable than others, but that will only come out through the public inquiry in due course. This was a comprehensive and catastrophic failure of Government, local government architects, engineers, construction, building control, inspectors, fire authorities, fire brigades and, no doubt, others. Apportioning responsibility is important, and I am sure it will happen. What is more important, what is critical and what is life and death, however, is to make sure that we construct and maintain safe buildings for people to live in. We are not there yet, and we will not be there for some time, but the responsibility for progress lies with the Government. They have to recognise what needs to be done—I know they have recognised that to a degree—what can be done and how to do it before the public inquiry concludes. The House’s impatience is clear from today’s debate. The Government need to recognise that and move on with this as quickly as possible.