Oral Answers to Questions
Karen Buck Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Obviously I have spoken to the Japanese Prime Minister about this issue, as I have spoken to other Prime Ministers of countries involved in the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership. I am very pleased that they want to welcome us into that trade agreement with open arms, and we stand ready to do exactly that.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I am sure that we are all concerned about the particular case the hon. Lady raises. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will be happy to meet her to discuss it and look at the issues it raises. We want to ensure that support is available for vulnerable people, particularly vulnerable young people.
Electoral Commission Investigation: Vote Leave
Karen Buck Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Chloe Smith
The police have already received references from this investigation, and I think that stands for itself.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
Does the Minister understand that the anger is because we are not discussing a parish council election or a local authority by-election, but a matter that goes to the heart of the most important political and constitutional arrangement that has happened in most of our political lifetimes? Does she recognise that the scale of the fines being imposed is derisory, not just in terms of the overspend but the size of the prize that the leave campaign cheated to obtain?
Chloe Smith
I entirely understand the points that Members have come to the House today to make. I am simply acknowledging that there are broader issues than only those in this report that need to be looked at together to continue to maintain confidence in our democracy. For the record, though, I think that any election, parish council or otherwise, is important and deserves its security.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill: Committee Stage
Karen Buck Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Valerie Vaz
No one is talking about political interference. We are talking about the initial instructions that were given to the Boundary Commission, which were based on flawed instructions.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
While we are still on the issue of the size of constituencies, does my hon. Friend recognise that there are a number of constituencies—mostly, though not entirely, inner-city ones—in which the population is far greater than the registered population? I declare an interest here, because my own constituency has a population twice the size of the registered population. This is only going to get worse with the arbitrary reduction to 600 Members, further reducing the connection between Members of Parliament and those they serve.
Valerie Vaz
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We deal with cases that go beyond those on the electoral register. For example, we deal with whole families, including children, following the cutbacks in advice services. We still have to deal with those cases.
Oral Answers to Questions
Karen Buck Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I am pleased to make the House aware, once again, of the significant funding that is going into our defence forces—into our armed forces—including a significant investment in the ships of the Royal Navy. I am pleased to have been on the Queen Elizabeth, the new aircraft carrier, which is a fine representation of the commitment we put into our defence spending. As my hon. Friend will know, a modernising defence programme review is taking place, involving the Ministry of Defence, the Treasury and No. 10. We will be looking, in due course, at any changes that need to be made to ensure that our defence capabilities do indeed meet the threats we face.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
This House has had and will continue to have many opportunities to debate these issues in relation to the European Union and the United Kingdom’s future relationship with it. There will be not only the meaningful vote that has been promised, but the voting on the European withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill that will come before this House and on a number of other relevant Bills for our Brexit.
Oral Answers to Questions
Karen Buck Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
We are very clear that we are going to leave the European Union on 29 March 2019. We will be leaving the customs union, and we want to ensure that we can have an independent trade policy. We also want to ensure that we deliver—we are committed to delivering—on our commitment to having no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and that we have as frictionless trade as possible with the European Union. There are a number of ways in which that can be delivered—[Interruption.] There are a number of ways in which that can be delivered, and if the hon. Lady is so interested in the whole question of a customs border, she might like to ask her Front Benchers to come to a decision on what the Labour party policy actually is on this.
Syria
Karen Buck Excerpts(6 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right that inaction has its consequences. If people take a particular action such as using chemical weapons but see that there is no reaction or response to that, they assume it is possible to carry on using chemical weapons. It is important that we as an international community have said that we do want to restore the international norm against the use of chemical weapons. We have acted in this way to give that clear message about degrading such a capability in order to alleviate future humanitarian suffering.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
That the butcher Assad and his Russian backers hold the lives of the Syrian people cheap is evidenced by the use of not only chemical weapons, but other weapons of war, siege and barrel bombs. Does the Prime Minister agree that, whatever happened this weekend, the hideous Syrian civil war is not “mission accomplished”? Does she agree that we urgently need to do more to raise the costs of those Syrian lives by taking far tougher action in respect of sanctions and restrictions on the activities of Russian state banks?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that we need to put every effort into finding ways to ensure that the parties come round the table and that we see a political solution in Syria. That is the way to ensure the security and stability of the country such that people can return and get on with their lives in peace.
Strengthening Families
Karen Buck Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Ms Karen Buck (in the Chair)
Order. Before the hon. Lady intervenes, I would remind Members that this is not a debate about the health service.
Oliver Dowden
I will give way in just one moment. Record numbers of operations are being performed on the NHS, record numbers of people are seeing GPs, and record numbers of people are being seen in A&E. We have committed an extra £8 billion in this Parliament and another £6 billion was committed in the Budget to the NHS. I will give way, and then I must move on.
Margaret Greenwood
I thank the Minister for giving way and I take on board your comment, Ms Buck, but I would say that the debate is cross-departmental and the document does refer to health. Accountable care systems or integrated care systems are suggesting bundling together budgets for the hospitals, the GPs, community health, public health and local authority spending of one area—Wirral, for example—and potentially giving that to one private provider. We have seen what happened with Carillion, so there is clearly a huge risk in taking that kind of approach. I would say that if that leads to the privatisation of the national health service, it will have a devastating effect on families.
Ms Karen Buck (in the Chair)
I call the Minister, and I would stress my earlier point to him as well.
Oliver Dowden
I thank you for that warning, Ms Buck. I will deal with the comment in one sense and move on to the substance of the manifesto.
There is virtue in integrating services, The sort of thing that is being pioneered in Manchester, where we bring together different services—it is in fact being pioneered by a Labour Mayor, in conjunction with the former Chancellor’s measures—is, I think, a way of improving health outcomes.
I will now move on to the specific measures in the manifesto, which form part of broader Government policy. For example, there is the important matter of education. There are now 1.9 million children in good or outstanding schools, which is a record number. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford raised some important points about mental health. As was recognised, we are investing £1.4 billion in mental health services for children and young people, and we have set up a scheme in schools to raise awareness and help them to know how to deal with individuals in schools suffering from mental health issues. We have published a Green Paper to set out our plans to transform mental health services in schools. My hon. Friend made an important point about the need for a holistic, family approach to mental health, and hopefully the Green Paper will be a starting point.
As I said, a route into meaningful work is very important for improving children’s life chances. We now know that nearly three quarters of children from workless households moved out of poverty when their parents entered full-time work. That means 608,000 fewer children are living in workless households.
Before moving on to the contents of the manifesto, I would like to try to address some of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton. The importance of champions for the family in Government was raised by several Members. As a starting point, I know that the Prime Minister is personally committed to this—she is the principal champion of families. We have already discussed the other Ministers with family responsibilities, but I have certainly heard the point about a specific, designated family Cabinet Minister loud and clear, and I will relay that to my colleagues in Government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton raised the DAD scheme. I understand from my officials that the Department for Education has funded a range of family advice and support services since 2008, including Family Matters, which runs the website called DAD. The service is well used and is valued by its users. Ministers at DFE are considering the future requirements for the next financial year, so it is under active consideration. I am sure the representations made by my hon. Friend will have been heard loud and clear. On children’s centres, an important point was raised about family hubs. Clearly, local authorities have responsibility for children’s centres and they are free to pioneer family hubs. As my hon. Friend said, a great number are already doing so. She highlighted Westminster and the Isle of Wight. I would urge other councils to consider doing so.
My hon. Friend made an excellent representation on a transformation fund. Sadly, it is entirely beyond my remit to make public spending commitments, but I am sure the Chancellor will take note, particularly regarding the £90 million in dormant bank accounts. On the statutory duty to have the father’s name on birth certificates, it is worth noting that 94% of birth certificates already have the father’s name there, so we are making progress.
On relationships education, which came up in a number of contributions, the call for evidence is out at the moment. Some passionate pleas were made. I would urge hon. Members to respond to that call for evidence—I believe it closes on Monday. That is the route for formulating policy in that area. Again, I think a valuable point was made about the need for an annual statement on strengthening families and that is again something I will relay to my right hon. Friends in Government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford talked about Home-Start, which is very important. I have looked into it very briefly, and I believe that comes under the local transformation plans that we put in place in 2014-15. There is an opportunity, as part of those plans, to provide for such schemes, but I will write to him further on that point.
Let me turn to the substance of the debate: this excellent manifesto. The Government introduced the family test in 2014 to bring a family perspective into policy making. It helps to ensure that the impact on family relationships and functioning, both positive and negative, is recognised in the process of policy development, and it informs policy decisions made by Ministers. We introduced the test to ensure that, across Government, we think carefully about the potential for new policies to support or undermine family relationships. The Implementation Unit has a role in ensuring that the family test is implemented. The test means that families are considered at the start of any new policy development.
Oral Answers to Questions
Karen Buck Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
We are not reducing the Metropolitan police budget. We are protecting police budgets. They were protected in the 2015 spending review. I repeat what I have said in this House before: there is more money and there are more officers for each Londoner than is the case anywhere else in the country. Of course, it is up to the Mayor of London to decide how that budget is spent. The hon. Lady also raised the important issue of scooter or moped crime. I am pleased to say that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has held a roundtable with police and others in the Home Office to look at how that can be better addressed.
Oral Answers to Questions
Karen Buck Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend raises a very sensitive issue. As he will be aware, health is a devolved matter in Wales. The NHS in England has strict guidelines regarding the prescriptions of these sorts of medications to young people. They can be prescribed only with the agreement of a specialist team after a careful assessment of the individual, and generally only to patients who are 15 or older. I recognise the concern raised by my hon. Friend.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
First, let me re-emphasise—I have said this before in this House—that we value the contribution that EU citizens have made in this country and we want them to stay. That is why we made citizens’ rights one of the key issues, and one of the early issues that is being discussed in the negotiations that are currently taking place. We are working to ensure that we get a good deal. If there is no deal, we will obviously have to have arrangements with other member states regarding not just EU citizens here, but UK citizens in those member states. But we are working for the best deal for the United Kingdom. We are very close to agreement on citizens’ rights. We want EU citizens to stay here in the UK because we value the contribution they are making.
Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry
Karen Buck Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Damian Green
I reassure the hon. Gentleman that the taskforce is an independent body that will report to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, not to Kensington and Chelsea Council.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
Pursuant to that point, will the First Secretary clarify whether the recovery taskforce has any executive authority whatsoever, or is it purely advisory?
Damian Green
It is an advisory panel, not an executive one, reporting to the Secretary of State. That is the proper way to proceed.
John Healey
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend about that. He speaks with a special authority, as a neighbouring MP who has spent a great deal of the past four weeks in the North Kensington community, working alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad) to try to support and give voice to the concerns of survivors.
Let me move on to the issue of safety testing. It is totally unacceptable, four weeks on from the Grenfell Tower fire, that Ministers still do not know and cannot say how many of the country’s other tower blocks are unsafe. The Government’s testing programme is too slow, too narrow and too confused. This is a testing programme in chaos. Only 224 tests have been done, yet an estimated 530 tower blocks have the same cladding and we have a total of 4,000 tower blocks across the country. That means that 24 days after the start of this testing programme, which we were told could test 100 buildings a day, we find that tests have been done on only half the highest-risk blocks and on fewer than one in 20 of the total number of tower blocks around the country.
Ms Buck
Last week, the Secretary of State said that there was “no backlog” in testing and that tests would be processed within a matter of “hours”. Given the continuing shortfall in the number of high-rise buildings that have been subject to testing, does my right hon. Friend share my bafflement that the Government do not appear to know where any of this material actually is?
John Healey
Yes, I share my hon. Friend’s bafflement entirely. I also hear of councils and housing associations that want to test their buildings, which may not have the same type of cladding, but simply cannot get the tests. I note, again, that the First Secretary’s speech was entirely free of any facts or figures that can update the House on the chaos of this testing programme.
Ms Buck
Is it my hon. Friend’s understanding that any works at the local level will, in effect, be paid for by tenants out of their rents and by leaseholder contributions? Does he agree that the basic repairs and maintenance budgets for local authority social housing have already been cut by 20% since 2010?
Mr Betts
Absolutely—that is precisely the point I was coming on to make. The money will come out of the housing revenue account, which is, of course, funded from rents. In the 2015 Budget, the Government decided that rents would not rise by CPI plus 1%, but would actually fall by 1% per year. It is estimated that that will have a massive effect, with many billions of pounds less—about £40 billion over 30 years—coming into housing revenue accounts. Councils can, of course, borrow money, but the amount is capped by the Government.
When the Government cap rents and borrowing, where can local authorities go to find the money to show, in the Minister’s terms, that they can afford to do this work? All they can do is to cut other planned expenditure for the maintenance of social housing. Solving one problem will simply lead to other problems unless the Government are prepared to find the money. It is as simple as that, and I hope the Minister will reflect on this very seriously. Local authorities should not have to show either that they will not build a few social houses that they were going to build, or that they will cut maintenance programmes so that they can prove that they can afford to provide extra money for the necessary work on tower blocks. Instead, the Government should say that all the necessary work approved by local fire authorities to make tower blocks safe will be eligible for extra Government money. It is a very simple request, and if the Minister could say yes, he would resolve an awful lot of concerns and difficulties in this debate.
In a slightly wider context, we simply must start to view social housing differently. There has been a tendency in the past few years to see social housing as poor housing for poor people, and to think that anything will do for the people who live there. I have to tell Ministers that that is somewhat reflected in the pay to stay scheme. Fortunately, the Government have recently made the scheme voluntary for social housing landlords, not compulsory. In other words, there is a view that those who can afford it—slightly better-off tenants—should not be in social housing. I disagree: social housing should be there for those who need it.
Such thinking is also reflected in the proposal to sell high-value council assets. In other words, there is a view that if council housing is good and decent, it should not be council housing any longer. That is wrong as well. The proposal to fund the right to buy for housing association tenants seems to have been put on the back burner. Again, the Minister could address that by saying that we will have good-quality social housing in the future that will remain as social housing for those who need it.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and it is delightful to follow the excellent maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel). We have also heard three other superb maiden speeches today, from my hon. Friends the Members for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) and for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock). This House is renewing itself with huge talent, youth, energy and diversity on all sides, and all Members can be proud to see that.
The Grenfell Tower fire was the worst residential fire in modern history and the worst disaster of any kind in this country for 30 years. The truth is that residential fire is not an equal opportunities killer. I know from the history in my constituency and in Kensington that we in north-west London had a spate of the worst fires in modern history before Grenfell. We had the Clanricarde Gardens fire, in which eight people died and 100 were made homeless. The year before that, in 1980, nine people died in a fire at a hostel for homeless women in Kilburn, and shortly before that, seven people died in a fire in an interconnected multiple-occupied property in Maida Vale.
All those large-scale residential fires had something in common: they affected the lowest-income people in the worst kind of housing. We cannot and should not prejudge the results of the inquiry into exactly how the Grenfell fire started and how it spread so quickly, but the conclusion that we can draw is that it is substandard housing that is at risk, and it is the poorest people who live in substandard housing. They need to be protected. There is an issue of power here, and that needs to be addressed now rather than waiting until the inquiry’s findings are known. There is much that can be legislated for immediately through the issuing of building regulations and guidance, much of which we have heard about today. That includes the lessons that were learned from the Lakanal House fire, but we can also legislate immediately to redress the imbalance of power between landlord and tenant by giving tenants statutory powers of consultation on major works and hearing their voice in a way that, tragically, the voices of Grenfell Tower residents were not heard. We can strengthen the power of redress of tenants in substandard accommodation, both in social and private housing.
Reference has been made to legal aid. It is absolutely right that we should look again at tenants’ capacity to draw on legal aid so that they can represent their case when they are in accommodation that is substandard or in disrepair. Will the Minister commit today to reviewing the whole scope for legislation, both through fire safety regulations and building regulations, and through residents’ rights of redress and consultation? None of that would prejudge the Grenfell Tower inquiry, and progress can be made immediately on all of it.
Homelessness and housing need are also not equal-opportunities impactors; they disproportionately affect the poorest people in this country. In the last week, there have been some increasingly harsh judgments in parts of the media about what has happened to Grenfell residents and how their housing needs are being met. Their housing needs do not exist in a vacuum. They exist in the context of a London that is yet again seeing a rising homelessness crisis, where the number of families accepted as homeless has increased by more than half and where the number of children living in temporary accommodation is on a scale that has not been seen since the early part of the last decade.
I asked the housing Minister a question before and I would like to know whether he can answer it today—how many of the occupants of Grenfell Tower had already been through the homelessness system? We know that there were residents who were already living in temporary accommodation in that building; we know that many of those residents and their families will already have been through the horrific experience of homelessness; and we know that many of their relatives, friends and neighbours will also have been through it.
Those people will already know what this House needs to be reminded of, which is that Kensington already has one of the worst homelessness situations in the country, because of the pressure on local housing stock. We know that it has the worst record in the country of moving homeless households away from the borough and that families in temporary accommodation will find that the word “temporary” does not mean what we understand it to mean; instead, it means that people will live for many years, and sometimes for a decade or more, in “temporary” accommodation, often moving from one home to another. Those people will do anything to avoid that experience yet again. Families should not be expected to move more than once and they have an absolute right to know that their housing needs will be met, not only swiftly but fairly and decently.
Also, because this situation does not exist in a vacuum, their housing needs should not be met at the expense of other vulnerable homeless households. It is already the case that in neighbouring boroughs the allocations process has slowed and in some cases stopped—hopefully, only temporarily—while precedence is rightly given at the moment to Grenfell survivors. However, that cannot be allowed to stand over the medium term. We have to know—we must have a categorical assurance from the Minister—that families in other boroughs, and indeed in Kensington, who are also homeless and in housing need will not be pushed to the back of the queue and see their needs go unmet because the council and the Government are not working together to meet the needs of all local families.
We also know that the story of investment in local services is not a fair or equal-opportunities one. We know that urban authorities have been the hardest hit by the Government’s cuts in local authority expenditure since 2010. We also know that, based on present trends, by the end of this decade funding for local Government will have fallen by 70%, which must be seen in the context of the fire safety measures that local authorities want to take to reassure their residents in other high-rise blocks.
It was simply not satisfactory for the Minister to tell us in his opening remarks that only local authorities that demonstrate they cannot afford fire safety work will have the money reimbursed. What message does that send to anxious residents who want to know that their safety will be absolutely paramount? What clarity can he give about what fire brigade fire safety recommendations will meet the criteria for Government funding? Will he confirm that he understands that any expenditure that will be met by local authorities will come from tenants and leaseholders, and that such expenditure will certainly be in competition with the resources needed to fund repairs and maintenance elsewhere in the system? I have already said that expenditure on basic repair and maintenance of social housing is 9.7% lower this year than last year and 22% lower than it was in 2010.
Finally, we hear of the great work being done in the borough by health services, including mental health services. They are working with survivors and other local residents. That work is much needed. Will those services also be fully funded and reimbursed by central Government, so that the mental health services and other healthcare services for Kensington and for surrounding boroughs will not be put at risk or compromised in any way because those crucial public services have stepped up to the plate now?
My absolutely final point is this. We also heard from the Minister in his opening remarks that there was a fundamental lack of clarity about what the taskforce being sent into Kensington was going to do and what its duties would be—that it will not be an authority with any executive function whatsoever. The Minister needs to be absolutely clear with us what this means. It means that when the Gold operation finishes, the functions of service will be handed back to the already deeply discredited Kensington and Chelsea Council, where trust has totally collapsed. Does the Minister think that is acceptable? I doubt that the people of Kensington will, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad) has set out so powerfully. I do not believe they have trust in the taskforce; I think they want to see the Government demonstrating that there will be a radically different approach to meeting their needs. We have not heard that yet. The Minister has a chance to put that right later.
The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Alok Sharma)
We have had a detailed and wide-ranging debate on the Grenfell Tower public inquiry, but I start by congratulating all the Members who made their maiden speeches today: the hon. Members for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), for Leigh (Jo Platt) and for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones).
We heard some incredibly powerful speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith), for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) and for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), and we of course heard from the hon. Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad), who has been very involved in dealing with the residents and has been part of the response.
We also heard from various members of the all-party group on fire safety: my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) and the hon. Members for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) and for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). I can tell the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), that I met them recently to hear their views. They will be writing to me in some detail to set out what they want to see happen in the inquiry.
Colleagues have had an opportunity to express a range of views—some obviously different from others—but the House is today united in the view that ultimately the people who matter the most are those who have been affected directly by this terrible tragedy. They must have their questions answered, and that is precisely what the inquiry will do.
In his opening remarks, the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), said that he will not rest until the residents have the help they need, until we get to the bottom of what happened, and until we make sure that this never happens again. I assure him that I, too, will not rest until all three of those conditions are met, and nor will the Secretary of State or, indeed, any colleague in this House.
I again put on record my deepest condolences to all those who have suffered such great loss as a result of this fire, which we all agree should never have happened. Colleagues from all parties have paid tribute to the victims, their families and the heroism of the emergency services, and I know that such heart-felt views will be heard and echoed throughout the country. This debate has provided an opportunity to reflect on the scale and human cost of this tragedy, but it has also given us a valuable chance to start to look ahead to what comes next—principally, the public inquiry that will establish precisely what went wrong, why and who is responsible.
Colleagues have raised a range of issues, and before I continue with my speech I shall take a few minutes to respond to some of them. On the help available to those who are directly affected, Members will know that we have made first offers to all those who are ready to have such offers made to them. A large number of second offers have been made, and 19 of the families have now accepted an offer. I just point out that, as I know Opposition Members have acknowledged, we need to go at the pace that the families want us to go at. That is incredibly important. I know that some of them will want to move into permanent homes rather than into temporary homes, and we accept that. We have had a discussion about Kensington Row, and I hope we will soon be in a position where we can start viewings of the flats there. We are also looking to secure similar accommodation so that we have net additions to the social housing, rather than take up homes that others might have occupied. The key thing is that nobody is going to be forced into a home that they do not want to go to.
On funding, I can report that 120 of the households have received a grant of £5,000, and many others have also received the £500 cash payment. In total, almost £4 million has been paid out from the discretionary fund. Colleagues have raised issues relating to trauma support, which of course is being made available to those who need it. Given the exceptional nature of the incident, we have agreed that MOPAC—Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime—funding will be used for this, even though no crime as such has been committed that we are aware of.
We heard a discussion on the Government’s response and the testing regime that we have put in place. The Secretary of State has led right from the start on that. I have been by his side, so I can tell Members that he has led on it. I ask hon. Members to look on the Government website because it will tell them about all the letters we have written to local authorities and housing associations, and all the tests that we have suggested are done. Yes, 211 tests have come back as positive—or negative; it depends on how one looks at it—but I just say that we are working with the Local Government Association and others to encourage housing associations, local councils and private landlords to send in the cladding for testing. What I say to every Member here, as they can help with this, is that I know they will be in touch with their local authorities and housing associations, so please help us. They should ask their local—
Alok Sharma
I am saying that we want to get this testing done as quickly as possible. We have the resources available for that. Let me just say that there are some cases where local authorities will have sent in one piece of cladding for testing from a building and may have had a number of buildings that were re-clad at a similar time, so we are hoping to establish whether that is the case or not. An awful lot of work is going on, and I just recommend to right hon. and hon. Members that they look on the website as it will tell them, in great detail, what the expert advisory panel is doing and it will tell them about all the tests that have been carried out.
Members have also talked about insulation, and of course when we wrote to local authorities on 22 June we asked them also to look at that. On 6 July, the independent expert panel announced that it would be recommending wider systems checks of cladding, and that it would be testing a combination of ACM panels with two of the most commonly used insulation materials as well.
We had a discussion about building regulations, and I respectfully point out that they were put together in 2006, not when the current Government were in place, so this idea that somehow deregulation has played a part is unfair. Let me also make reference to the Lakanal House fire and what the coroner wanted to happen. The coroner recommended simplifying the fire safety guidance under the building regulations, not a change in the standards. I accept that that has not happened as yet, but clearly in the light of this tragedy we need to reflect on the previous plans for consulting. Clearly, if anything emerges from the investigation where we need to take immediate action, we will do that.
The expert advisory panel, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has appointed, is considering a range of matters, particularly whether there are any immediate additional actions that need to be taken to ensure the safety of existing high-rise buildings.