Building Safety

Justin Madders Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady is completely correct. There are some inherited structural problems with high-rise buildings in this country, which make life more difficult for residents living with disabilities. For example, we tend to have one staircase only, whereas other countries tend to have two. Critically, one recommendation from the inquiry—the need for personal emergency evacuation plans—is one that the Government have not yet met. I have been working with my colleagues in the Home Office to make sure that we do, but I understand her exasperation. We need to move more quickly to give disabled people the certainty that they will be safe.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

May I point out to the Secretary of State, who chastised the previous Labour Government for not abolishing leasehold, that most of the industrial-scale scandals we are now familiar with developed over the past decade? I think we are all agreed, are we not, that leasehold’s time is up, so can he give us a date by which all our constituents will be free of that feudal practice?

[Michael Gove]

That will depend on how quickly this House can agree the passage of the Bill. Given the generous words from the Opposition Front Bench, if we introduce it in the Queen’s Speech, then I hope it will be law as quickly as possible. One thing we all recognise is that when a system of property ownership has grown up over centuries, unpicking it all requires delicate work, but that work has been done by the Law Commission and others. I hope that our friends in the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, who are the unsung heroes and heroines of legislation, will hear the determined chorus of unity across the House asking for the legislation to be developed as quickly as possible.