Grenfell Tower Fire

Karen Lee Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

I too congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad) on securing today’s debate and commend her for all her hard work over the past two years on behalf of her constituents.

It is a shame that we are here today. This debate should not be happening or should at least be happening on better terms. Two years ago on 14 June 72 people died and the Grenfell community still do not have justice. It is simply outrageous that nearly two years on from the disaster we have the outgoing Prime Minister referencing the Government’s response to Grenfell as a proud element of her legacy. This is the same Prime Minister who has failed to deliver her far-reaching promises such as rehoming survivors within three weeks and ensuring a similar disaster could never happen again. The Prime Minister did not even meet the community, the people she is supposed to represent, to show solidarity in their time of need.

It is therefore unsurprising that, two years down the line, the Prime Minister’s initial display of apathy has been sustained through the Government’s overarching indifferent approach to an issue that required urgency. There are still 128 households that have not been rehomed, and the area surrounding the tower is still contaminated with toxic chemicals. The community were, and still are, vulnerable, and they need the state’s help. Instead, they have been woefully let down.

The threat of another disaster like Grenfell has not been addressed. Grenfell was not the first catastrophic tower block fire to be caused by the failure of fire regulations, and lessons should have been learned from the fires at Harrow Court, Lakanal House and Shirley Towers, but they were not, and due to action since Grenfell being restricted to weak tinkering, many communities are still living in constant fear. The Government know that there are 338 residential buildings wrapped in the same combustible aluminium composite material—ACM—cladding that was used on Grenfell Tower, but they have not identified all the buildings at risk and there are potentially hundreds, if not thousands, of ticking time bombs across the UK.

The restrictive building safety programme has displayed no urgency to identify all the current threats, and I hope that the Secretary of State can explain to the House why the Government have restricted the search to buildings with ACM cladding and are only just beginning to search for high-pressure laminate cladding when there are countless other types of combustible cladding. The scope of the search must be expanded to all combustible cladding below Euro class A1. I understand that the Government are constrained by financial considerations, but public safety must be the prevailing priority, and it is important that we understand the total risk.

Combustible cladding is not the only threat. It is important that we understand how building compartmentation is failing and multiplying the risk of fire by combustible materials interacting with one another. There needs to be a mechanism for holistic assessments that include all the materials installed on a building. As a result of years of cutting red tape and deregulation, the current state of fire safety has created this dangerous mess, and I urge the Government to acknowledge the threat caused by deregulation and to conduct a review of what is necessary to ensure effective compartmentation.

Meanwhile, it is firefighters who are expected to respond to the increased risk, but although the threat remains, the fire and rescue services’ capacity to respond has been progressively degraded over the past nine years of austerity and each firefighter’s workload has increased dramatically. As research by the Fire Brigades Union has shown, fire services across the UK are not sufficiently prepared for a disaster on the scale of Grenfell. The Home Office has suggested that fire services are prepared, even though it did not contact the services directly before making that claim. The Government do not grasp the severity of the threat, and research shows that regional inequalities represent a difference between 40 fire engines attending a disaster like Grenfell and only two attending.

I hope that Government Departments realise they are not doing enough, and that they will take considerable action to safeguard vulnerable communities and support the Grenfell survivors. Simply banning combustible materials but not seeking out the full scale of the threat is not good enough, and neither is failing to recognise that a review of the fire and rescue service is desperately needed after nine years of destructive austerity. The threat is still very real and the emergency services cannot keep the public safe on a shoestring budget. The time for talking is over. We know that people are suffering and that the same threats remain, so it is time for the Government to take this seriously and to act. All of us in this House represent communities across the country, and I believe that we come into politics for sincere and positive reasons, but we must surely understand that what has happened in the past two years with regard to Grenfell is just not good enough. It is long past the time for warm words; it is time for positive action to rehome those people and to deal with the future threats. Let’s just get on with it. No more words; let’s see some positive action, please.