Building Safety

Karen Lee Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend speaks with experience and is absolutely right to ask that question. The door in question should have had resistance for 30 minutes. It must be tested against and meet the British standard, BS 476-22. There is a testing centre for such products, and testing centres must be accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service. I do not want to make any judgments on what happened in this case, because it is subject to a live police investigation. The police have said that they are getting full co-operation from the manufacturer. It would be wrong of me to get into that, but I reassure my hon. Friend that the police are doing their work with that particular door and doors of that type, and we are doing the much wider necessary testing.

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

Last night one of my parliamentary staff went on the Grenfell march, and afterwards he talked to somebody who has been living in a hotel room for the past nine months. Despite the Government’s promise to rehouse these people, the figures show that, nine months after the fire, only 60 of 208 households have permanent homes. I have heard the word “urgency” being used a lot this morning. When will the Government properly rehouse these people? Will the Secretary of State give a timescale? We hear reassuring noises, but these people are telling us that they are not seeing action on the ground. Will they be rehoused for the summer, for autumn or for Christmas?

[Sajid Javid]

I am very happy to update the hon. Lady. There were 151 homes lost to the fire, but new homes had to be found for 209 households. I think she knows why that number is higher. So far, 184 have moved out of emergency accommodation into either temporary or permanent accommodation. That leaves 25 households who have still not accepted temporary or permanent accommodation. I hope she will appreciate that, while it is absolutely right that we work at pace and help those families to move as quickly as possible into permanent or temporary accommodation, as they choose—by the way, more than 300 homes are now available on the letting system, which is more than enough—no family can be pushed or told that they must make a decision and that they have no choice. It must be done at their pace. I cannot go into the details, but there are complicating factors with a number of the 25 households who are yet to accept temporary accommodation. There are a number of issues and it would be inappropriate, from what I know, to force those families to make a decision if they are not ready.