Horizon: Sub-Postmaster Convictions
Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Paul Scully
The Government have challenged it over the years, especially in recent years—the Horizon situation has come about over 20 years, but as I have said, recently there have been independent reviews in 2013 and investigations in 2015. It is because we have been unable to get a result that we have had to resort to the courts. We need to get to the bottom of this so that we can right the wrongs done to the postmasters of the past and ensure the respect of future postmasters, who must feel secure in their positive relationship with the Post Office.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I fear the cover-up could continue. The Post Office has decided to bring in Herbert Smith Freehills to oversee historic cases. This is the practice that contributed to the cover-up of a fraud at Lloyds HBOS over seven years and oversaw the establishment and operation of the Lloyds bank customer review, which was described by the Financial Conduct Authority’s review of that scheme as discriminatory, flawed and an unacceptable denial of responsibility, and that review is now having to be done again. Does the Minister think the Post Office should reconsider that decision?
Paul Scully
My hon. Friend and I spoke about this earlier. As he says, the Post Office decides its own legal advisers. As far as I understand it, the Post Office changed its advisers to Herbert Smith Freehills in the latter stages of the litigation, which resulted in the settlement, good progress in resolving outstanding claimant issues and a successful launch of the historical shortfall scheme.
Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill
Kevin Hollinrake ExcerptsWednesday 3rd June 2020
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 View all Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 3 June 2020 - (3 Jun 2020)
Kevin Hollinrake
Matters are progressing quickly and it is important to bring forward these measures now, but they do not directly tackle the issues relating to conflict of interest. The Department’s proposal to look for a single regulator could well do that. Will the Minister be prepared to meet me to discuss those measures to see when they might be brought forward in future legislation?
Paul Scully
I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. He has spoken at length on this and he has been a champion for that change, and I would be happy to meet him to discuss that further.
Amendments 18, 19, 21, 22, 23 and 25 deal with the Cape Town convention, which is an international treaty that seeks to lower the cost of finance for various high-value, mobile assets, including, importantly, aircraft. I know the sector has been particularly impacted by the unique situation posed by the coronavirus pandemic. The insolvency provisions in the Cape Town convention and the aircraft protocol, which we ratified in 2015, are some of the key provisions that give rise to low financing costs in the airline industry. They provide aircraft creditors with greater certainty that they will be able to take steps to enforce their security if an airline debtor defaults on payments or enters into insolvency. The effect of the provisions in the Bill that the Government are amending would have been to enhance the existing protections afforded to Cape Town creditors by extending those protections beyond what the convention and the aircraft protocol require. That was done to create even greater certainty for creditors and further reduce lending costs within the industry. However, in doing so, the new provisions would also have constrained the ability of a financially distressed airline to restructure without creditor consent, either using existing tools under the Companies Act 2006 or the new restructuring plan procedure that is being introduced by the Bill.
Since the publication of the Bill, we have listened closely to the views of many, including interested stakeholders in the airline sector and the restructuring profession. Both have expressed that these provisions could create a significant hurdle to successfully restructuring a struggling airline. The Government are absolutely aware of the very significant impact that this emergency is having on the airline sector. I am also clear that the overriding aim of the Bill is to make it as easy as possible for affected companies to get the breathing space that they need to weather the impact of covid-19, which clearly applies to the airline sector. Given the extraordinary challenge of the circumstances faced by the sector, the Government have decided to remove the relevant provisions from the Bill, which will retain the ability for an airline to use a scheme of arrangement and a restructuring plan to affect Cape Town creditors’ registered interests without the consent of every individual creditor, provided that the other safeguards of those procedures are satisfied. It is complex and we know that we need to work with the airlines on this and give struggling airlines the ability to successfully restructure.
I turn to amendment 15, which deals with the temporary changes to the moratorium that we are introducing in the Bill specifically for England, Wales and Scotland. I will shortly speak to a corresponding amendment for Northern Ireland. Members of this esteemed House will be aware that one of the things that the Bill is for is to create the moratorium, which is vital to give troubled companies the breathing space, but they face significant risks when seeking to restructure, and creditors can derail rescue plans and cause otherwise viable companies to fail unnecessarily. This adversely affects the interests of the company, its creditors and its employees, as well as the wider economy. Recognising the pressing need for companies to be able to access a moratorium in the face of the immediate impact of this emergency, in addition to the permanent measures, we have also introduced temporary measures to ensure that it is as easy as possible for businesses to access a moratorium in the short term. This is done in schedule 4 to the Bill.
While the schedule 4 temporary measures are in place, it is important that these can be applied consistently to each type of entity that can obtain a moratorium. If eligibility for the temporary measures changed depending on what sort of entity was seeking the moratorium, that would patently not be the case. As drafted, there are two entities for which schedule 4 would not otherwise apply: limited liability partnerships and co-operative and community benefit societies. This amendment would add a small fifth section to schedule 4, consisting of two paragraphs to make limited liability partnerships and co-operative and community benefit societies eligible for the temporary moratorium measures. That ensures that these entities can also be brought within the scope of the schedule and make best use of the breathing space that the measures offer. It ensures that both co-operative and community benefit societies and limited liability partnerships in England, Scotland and Wales will benefit from the temporary measures that we have set out in the schedule, as well as from the wider provisions on moratoriums. There is a corresponding amendment for Northern Ireland. These time-limited and temporary changes will make sure that we best address specific issues for companies during the covid-19 emergency and ensure that the relevant entities are all equally eligible for our temporary measures on moratoriums.
Amendment 17 is related and ensures that the temporary modifications that have been made to the moratorium process can be applied to limited liability partnerships and certain types of registered societies in Northern Ireland. It inserts two paragraphs to the temporary measures in Schedule 8, so it largely mirrors what we see in the previous amendment.
Amendments 20 and 24 are minor and technical amendments, intended merely to make a clarificatory point to ensure that it is crystal clear that at the point when a company proposes a restructuring plan coming out of a moratorium, the company should contact all creditors with an explanatory note of a proposed restructuring.
Similarly, amendment 16 deals with an erroneous repeal of the Northern Ireland provisions. The provision being repealed is still needed, so the amendment rectifies that and I therefore commend it to the House. I turn briefly to one amendment raised by the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell). It seeks to make any pension scheme deficits a priority creditor in the event of an insolvency. I have to say that I can understand where her intentions are coming from in this proposed amendment. I am sure that, in recent years, we can all remember one or two high-profile insolvency cases—we have heard of some today—which feature large deficits owing to the pension scheme, and we can appreciate the uncertainty that that brings.
However, as always, when insolvency occurs, there is a balance to be struck when considering the order in which those owed money are paid out of the available assets. There are seldom enough funds to pay all creditors in full in insolvency cases. To ensure fairness, the law requires that available funds be distributed in a certain order. Secured creditors are paid out first for the sale of any property to which their charges attach. Without that, securities, banks and others who funded business activity would be less likely to do so, or would charge more to cover the increased risks they bear. It is essential that the insolvency system helps to give investors, lenders and creditors confidence to take the commercial risks necessary to support economic growth. Unsecured creditors are paid once the secured creditors and preferential debts, which include employees’ remuneration, have been dealt with, and they share the funds that are left. For limited amounts of unpaid pension contributions, which are preferential, any deficit to a pension scheme ranks alongside all other unsecured creditors, which will inevitably include trade suppliers, some of which will be small and micro companies. Therefore, the level of debt owed to a pension company can be very large—we know that. To raise the priority of these creditors and pay them ahead of not only unsecured creditors, but also, as the new clause would seem to suggest, preferential creditors such as employees for unpaid wages and floating charge holders would really upset the balance that has existed for a long time.
New clause 5 seeks a future review of trade union involvement in company restructuring and to commit the Government to specific proposals in spite of what that review might show. It does not seek to amend or improve the debt finance restructuring provisions in the Bill being taken forward as those most needed at this moment in time. The permanent restructuring provisions introduced by the Bill have been the subject of a considerable period of consultation and engagement dating back to 2015. The process included the then Government’s review of the corporate insolvency framework public consultation in 2016 and extensive public engagements since then, with a wide range of stakeholders. There were no strong or widely made calls at that time for trade unions to be given a formal role in the new processes proposed. The design of the new restructuring provisions already includes strong protections for employees. For example, a company in a moratorium will be required to continue paying wages and salaries during the moratorium. If they are not paid, the moratorium will have to come to an end.
In addition, the measures allow employment tribunal proceedings to continue during the moratorium, despite the fact that other types of legal processes are to be prevented during the moratorium. In cases where employees are creditors of the company that they are employed by, and so a party to a new restructuring plan in that capacity, they will benefit from the comprehensive set of general creditor protections built into the new measure.
On corporate governance reform more widely, the Government are implementing a number of reforms already enacted that strengthen the voice and interests of employees in company decision making, be they members of a trade union or not.
The Government also intend to put forward a further consultation on audit and corporate governance reform, taking into account the recommendations of three independent reviews of audit, the views of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee and a recent industry development, so we do not believe that a separate review is necessary.
At this point, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am not able to accept any of the amendments, apart from the Government amendments that are in my name. I hope therefore that hon. Members will therefore withdraw their amendments.
Horizon Settlement: Future Governance of Post Office Ltd
Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Horizon settlement and future governance of Post Office Ltd.
Innocent people jailed; individuals having their good name and livelihoods taken away from them; the full use of the state and its finances to persecute individuals. Those are all characteristics of a totalitarian or police state. But that is exactly what we have seen in the 21st century in the way the Government and the Post Office have dealt with sub-postmasters and their use of the Horizon system. The Horizon system was the biggest non-military IT project in Europe. It cost over £1 billion to install and affected 18,000 post offices throughout the UK.
Before I go on, I would like to pay tribute to some individuals who I have been working long and hard with on this campaign. The first is the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen), who cannot be here today because, unfortunately, a family member is ill and he has had to self-isolate. He has been with me from the start in trying to get justice for sub-postmasters, and I will refer to some of his work later. He would like to have been here and sends his apologies; that he is not here does not mean that he is not interested in the outcome. I also thank James Arbuthnot, the former Member for North East Hampshire, who, despite being moved to God’s waiting room further along the corridor, has still consistently pressed the case for justice for sub-postmasters. I pay tribute to the work that he has done in the past and is doing now.
I want to mention two other individuals. Alan Bates is the lead claimant in the class action. Alan has been a stalwart and stuck by his principles—knowing, as he said, that “I am right and I am going to make sure we get the truth out.” The other person is someone who has very helpfully shone a spotlight on the issue, and has spent many hours sitting through long court cases: Nick Wallis is a journalist who has kept this story in the public domain. Alan and Nick both deserve credit for their continued actions now and their work in the past.
I first came to be involved in the issue when a constituent came to see me in my surgery. That constituent was Tom Brown. Tom, like many other thousands of sub-postmasters, was a hard-working and well-respected individual. He had won awards from the Post Office for fighting off an armed robber in his post office, but because of the introduction of the Horizon system, he was accused of stealing £84,000 from the Post Office. Even though he said and demonstrated that that was not the case, the Post Office took him to court, and he went through the agony of being publicly shamed in his local community—we must remember that a lot of these individuals are the stalwarts of their local communities.
Tom went to Newcastle Crown court, and on the day of the trial the Post Office withdrew the case, but the damage had already been done. His good name had been ruined, and he had lost—because he had had to go bankrupt—in excess of nearly half a million pounds in the form of his business, the bungalow that he had bought for his retirement and some investment properties. He now lives with his son in social housing in South Stanley. The man who should have had a nice retirement, and who was well respected in his community, has been completely ruined and is destitute. Despite that—he came to see me last week—he is an individual who still has integrity, because he has always insisted that he is innocent of what he was accused of, and he has not been alone. Despite that—he came to see me last week— he is an individual who still has integrity, because he has always insisted that he is innocent of what he was accused of, and he has not been alone. The estimate from the class action that has been taken is 555, and there are many others, some unfortunately who have died since the case was taken forward.
The scandal of this—what makes me so angry and why I have persistently hung on to the campaign—is that the Post Office knew all along that the Horizon system was flawed.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. Is not the other scandal in this that the courts time and again failed the victims? In the prosecutions that were taken forward by the Post Office, the courts found in favour of the Post Office, despite it being unable to properly evidence its case. It is absolutely wrong. We must stand up for David versus Goliath in our courts.
Mr Jones
I will come back to that, which is something that I think my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) will refer to in his contribution.
The board minutes from 1999 show that the Post Office knew there were bugs in the system and software problems. It denied all the way through that, for example, the amounts that sub-postmasters inputted could be changed. That was just not true. It could be remotely done, and the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire and his constituent Mr Rudkin, who visited the headquarters where the data was being stored, proved that. In classic style, when he raised that the Post Office denied that he had ever visited the data centre in the first place, until he proved that he had. It was just one cover-up after another. The denial culture in the Post Office was described by Judge Fraser, in what I thought was a very good his judgment, as
“the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat”,
because the evidence was there all the way through. There is no way that anyone who took an objective look at the system, in terms of the Post Office or Fujitsu, the contractor, could argue that it was perfect.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate, and I am grateful to the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for bringing it forward and for his excellent speech.
One thing that we do well across this House is to stand up for David against Goliath. As many Members know, I have worked quite hard on similar issues in the banking sector, where, again, we see that David and Goliath issue. Members on both sides of the House stand up very well against Goliath on these occasions. I wonder whether our system does the same.
The issues that post offices face and the disgraceful treatment of sub-postmasters and mistresses have been highlighted very well here today. My question is: why have the courts not stood up for these people through these past 10 or 20 years? These matters have been before the court hundreds of times, yet the court has not found in favour of people who have been demonstrably innocent of the charges. That is not just what I think, but what Paul Marshall, a barrister at Cornerstone Chambers, says. He looked at these issues across the banking sector and in these cases and he finds that the courts are structurally biased in favour of large, trusted brands. That cannot be right. I was always brought up to believe that everybody could get justice. The rules of court require the courts to maintain a fair and level playing field, yet, as we know, the courts are open to all, just like the Ritz hotel. There is a structural imbalance between a sub-postmaster or mistress when they go to the courts and the phalanx of lawyers provided by the Post Office. The courts are used to suppress the truth, and that cannot be right. There have been 110 prosecutions. Back in 2007, in the case of the Post Office Ltd v. Lee Castleton, Judge Havery found that there was irrefutable evidence against Mr Castleton, despite the fact that there was no evidence. That was just his statement; there was no evidence that the Post Office was in the right.
We know that the Post Office knew that this was going on after the Second Sight report. The prosecutions stopped at one point, but of course they then carried on. We have seen similar issues at Lloyds bank, which knew back in 2007 that this stuff was going on, yet did nothing and carried on as if it was in the right until the case came to court 10 years later. It tried to discredit a whistleblower and the victims. The same happened at Royal Bank of Scotland.
We must ask questions of the system: of the Post Office, of course, about who knew what and when—I support the calls for a public inquiry and proper compensation—and of the solicitors who acted for the Post Office. There are some ethical issues here. The Solicitors Regulation Authority should look into the actions of Womble Bond Dickinson, which represented the Post Office in 2007. It knew about the Second Sight report yet continued to support the Post Office’s case. The same happened at Lloyds with Herbert Smith Freehills.
We must examine the system. The justice system—the judiciary, the Justice Secretary, the Civil Procedure Rule Committee—must learn lessons from this. Why should it take 12 years and £40 million in legal fees to get justice? That cannot be right. We must have a justice system that works for all.
Planning for the Future
Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Robert Jenrick
We are committed to a green revolution in the housing industry. We are doing that in many different ways, most notably through the future homes standard, which we have just consulted on. We have received more than 3,000 responses and will bring forward our final proposals shortly. We have consulted on a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions in new homes of between 75% and 80%. I do not want to pre-empt what we might choose to do, having listened to the views in the consultation. However, the evidence that we saw prior to the consultation was that that was the most credible reduction in CO2 emissions that we could deliver across the whole of the country, although some parts could go further and faster if they chose to do so. We are listening to the responses, and I want to see the industry respond, change and have much higher levels of energy efficiency and to see new heating systems come in as quickly as possible.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Supply alone will not solve all the affordability problems in the housing market. It will require intervention, such as his excellent First Homes initiative. Will he consider extending that initiative to directly commissioning first homes on public land and perhaps combining First Homes with Help to Buy to further improve the affordability of home purchase?
Robert Jenrick
That is a very interesting idea, and one that I will give careful thought to. My hon. Friend and I worked together on the creation of First Homes, and I am very grateful for his views on that. He is absolutely right that this will require both supply and demand-side reforms. That is why the planning system is so important in unlocking more land in the places where people want to live, but it is also important to have ways of getting people on to the housing ladder, and First Homes is just one of those options. It will enable people in their local area to get 30% discounts on new homes. I recently met the major house builders, who are fully supportive, and I hope that we will see those homes on the market in this country by the end of the year.
Terms and Conditions of Employment
Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
We are here today to debate the establishment of statutory parental bereavement leave and pay arrangements following Royal Assent to the Bill known as Jack’s law, in memory of Jack Herd. I pay tribute to his mother, Lucy, who will today see her work reach its concluding stages.
I am sure that Members on both sides of the House welcome the introduction of these measures, and I thank those from all parties who have advanced the need to establish bereavement leave and pay. Over the past few years, Members have recalled their own personal grief at the loss of a child or a stillbirth. The pain, the heartache and the impact are personal, but those who have had to face such sadness need a state that provides universal support to parents. In particular, I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who has powerfully shared her own circumstances following the loss of her son and has forced Parliament to take a fresh look at bereavement, and the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), my North Yorkshire colleague, who took the private Member’s Bill through the House.
I know that trade unions and businesses also welcome these measures. The Opposition believe that this is a first step, and one that we hope to build on as better understanding of grief and bereavement is acknowledged. While the provisions make adjustments for a period of two weeks, for those who have experienced loss, bereavement can last a lifetime. We need employers to look at what more can be done to support workers at difficult times.
I want to raise a number of issues regarding the regulations. The statutory instrument on pay applies only to employees. Clearly the measure is welcome, but it means that not all workers, as the Minister said, can access the provisions. Regulation 11 of the draft Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (General) Regulations 2020 defines who would be entitled and who would be excluded, but will the Minister set out how he plans to address this inequality? Labour is clear: we would want to create a single status of “worker” to which all provisions would apply.
How will the Government ensure that bereaved parents in precarious work, including those on zero-hours contracts, can access two weeks’ statutory bereavement leave? While the provision for a statutory period of leave applies to all employees, the regulations that come into effect on 6 April 2020 make provision for statutory pay to apply only to those who have completed six months of service. However, bereavement and loss do not respect timelines. If someone loses their baby or child in their first six months of employment, the provisions should be extended to them. The loss is as great, and the need for leave and support as necessary.
The fact that the ability to take leave will, for some, be without pay means that those with the fewest means might not be able to afford to take it. Will the Minister set out why there is a limitation for those who have worked for less than six months and will he review it? While the regulations make provision for leave and pay for parents who lose a baby through stillbirth or who lose a child up to the age of 18, what provision has been made for parents who experience baby loss earlier in pregnancy? Further work should be done in this area.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I thank the hon. Lady for her kind comments earlier. She will acknowledge that, as the Minister said, this is a signal to employers. It is not simply a case of, “This is what you have to give.” She will agree that most employers are considerate in such circumstances and will go much further than the regulations require. This is the floor that we will work from, rather than the ceiling.
Rachael Maskell
I thank the hon. Member for his comments. He is absolutely right that this should be the beginning of a much broader conversation with all employers, whatever the circumstances in which they employ their staff.
It is believed that 10,200 parents each year will be eligible for statutory parental bereavement leave, with 9,300 eligible for statutory parental bereavement pay, meaning that about 1,000 parents a year will not be entitled to the pay provision. Will the Minister look again to see if day one provision could be extended specifically in that area?
I further seek to clarify that under the provisions of regulation 8 of the draft Parental Bereavement Leave Regulations 2020, two weeks’ statutory parental bereavement leave could commence following a completed period of maternity or paternity leave, provided that the two weeks’ allowance is used within 56 weeks of the loss of a baby or child. Labour believes that ensuring that all workers have day one rights would recognise that loss is loss and bereavement is bereavement. Arbitrary timescales should not come into this. While we would extend day one rights to all areas of employment law, it is important that the position is revisited for bereavement pay.
I also trust that employers will recognise the strength of these arguments and seek to go further when implementing these provisions. Good employment focuses on taking care of the holistic needs of the workforce, most acutely at the time of greatest need. We need to provide more time, time spread over a longer period, full pay, and support at key times, for instance on anniversary days. I trust that employers will be compassionate in making the fullest offer to staff, should they experience the loss of a baby or child.
Of course, bereavement brings its own patterns of grief, and time is necessary to come to terms with such loss. I hope that the Government will revisit this shortly, perhaps in the forthcoming employment Bill. The loss of a parent can often involve people having to take many additional practical measures to manage the parent’s estate or belongings, such as clearing a property. Bereavement leave could therefore be extended.
Research shows that not all parents are aware of their rights. For instance, 58% of those in low-paid work are not aware of what they are entitled to, and 63% are not aware of the right to unpaid parental leave, according to the TUC. Some have been found to use sick leave to address a family caring responsibility. That highlights the fact that from 6 April, not all parents will be aware of the changed provisions. Will the Government put in place a systematic approach so that parents can learn about these new measures? While we would hope that employers will inform their staff, may I suggest that NHS and hospice staff, as well as registrars for deaths, are briefed on the new provisions?
From 6 April this year, bereaved parents will have some time and support to manage the difficult days and weeks following the loss of their baby or child. This is a first step, and the Opposition will support the regulations today.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. While I very much appreciate what Government and Opposition Members have said, the credit and inspiration for the legislation certainly does not belong to me. They belong to many other people, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), who tried to introduce such a measure in a previous Parliament. I was simply lucky enough to come top of the ballot for private Members’ Bills, after which he was one of the first people to ring me. I was aware of his campaign as a result of many debates in Parliament and I had heard many Members speak about their own personal tragedies, so it was an absolute pleasure to be able to take on the baton and do what I could to introduce the legislation. At the election, both political parties committed to implement it, and the Government and Opposition have both been hugely supportive in doing so quickly.
Some of my constituents drew my attention to their own tragedies. Annika and James Dowson very sadly lost their little daughter, Gypsy, who was stillborn. It is touching that many people who have experienced these tragedies have turned their energies to fighting for something that is positive and good. Annika and James raised money for a bereavement ward at Scarborough Hospital. Anyone who has been on a ward and thinks of the experience of someone who has lost a child yet sees children in their first days, with all the happiness around that, while they are facing tragedy, can understand the need for bereavement suites. Luke and Ruthie Heron lost their little child, Eli, who was born at 23 weeks and six days. Had he not lived for another two and a half days, his birth would have been categorised as a miscarriage, rather than a stillbirth. We all come across these terrible tragedies.
I pay tribute to Lucy Herd and her little son, Jack, who was nearly two when he passed away—a tragic occurrence—and it is right that we can refer to this legislation as Jack’s law. Initially, because of my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, we were going to refer to “Will’s Bill”, but Jack’s law is a far more fitting tribute to the campaign that has been run. Many other people have supported this, and I am so appreciative of Opposition and Government Members’ support in getting the Bill through. It went through in record time—we had to squeeze it in before the end of a parliamentary Session.
When people are told about such legislation, they are hugely shocked that it was not on the statute book already. However, nine out of 10 employers would be hugely considerate in such circumstances and a great number of them would give people whatever time off they needed to grieve, quite rightly. In many cases, employers would offer full pay during that time so that people could hopefully get over some of the grief and move on. This is not just about the individual; it is also about the signal that employers can send to the rest of their workforce, because showing compassion at such times is simply good employment practice.
I thank Members on both sides of the House, Opposition and Government Front Benchers, and successive Business Secretaries, who have been so supportive in taking the legislation forward. I also mention the former Member for Stourbridge, Margot James, who was hugely supportive in making sure that we got the Bill on to the statute book quickly. I am grateful for the opportunity to be associated with this legislation and I wish it a speedy passage through the House.
Leaseholders and Cladding
Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Hilary Benn
The hon. Member makes a really important point. Lots of my constituents say to me, “But it was signed off under building regs. Surely that means it’s safe.” Well, it does not quite mean that, for reasons that we can go into on another occasion. It is part of the system that has still to be fixed.
Other leaseholders are drawn in because, even though their blocks have not been identified as having a problem, when they try to sell the flat the mortgage company says, “Okay—but, by the way, where’s the certificate that says that this building complies with the new regulations that the Government have, quite properly, put in place?” If they cannot produce it, the property is worthless and becomes unsellable. If that was not complicated enough, just to complete the story, the ownership structure of blocks and the history varies. The developers may have gone bust, the builders may no longer be trading, and some freeholders say, “I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t have the money to replace the cladding on this building.”
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I draw the House’s attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It is not simply that freeholders say, “I don’t have the money.” They do not have the obligation. Most freeholders do not have an obligation to mitigate any such problems. Perhaps the only people who do are the original developers—who, as the right hon. Member says, may not be there—or the leaseholders. Is that not the problem? As he rightly says, leaseholders in many cases have no means to pay for that remedial work.
Hilary Benn
The hon. Gentleman, who has great expertise in this matter, is correct. I will come to what the Government have said about the responsibility of freeholders, but I think the point we are all making is that this is not the fault of the leaseholders, who never expected when they bought that first dream home that this burden might fall upon them.
Assisted Dying Law
Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Christine Jardine
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that Marie Curie, Macmillan and other charities do outstanding work. The people who work in hospices up and down the country, and those who provide palliative care in our hospitals, perform an unenviable role and they are beyond reproach. However, it is not my view that people should have only that choice. For me, this is about being able to decide either to have palliative care—it should be there, and it should provide support—or to make another choice. That should be up to the individual, and the law should support them in that. As I said, 84% of people, according to the most recent surveys, would support a change.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
As parliamentarians we are here to use our judgment, not simply to represent the views of our constituents. However, 84% of the public are in favour of a change. The last time the issue was voted on, in September 2015, 75% of parliamentarians voted against changing the law. There is concern among the wider public that Parliament may be out of step with the public on this. Does the hon. Lady agree?
Christine Jardine
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it was unfortunate that on that occasion, Parliament took such a different position from that of the country. It is also understandable that the responsibility for making the decision is quite heavy. Many parliamentarians might like to see that change, but the thought of its magnitude perhaps makes them reserve judgment. If parliamentarians spoke to more people; if we had an inquiry and a public debate; if we had the opportunity to hear the views of the public; if we heard from the families of those who wanted to choose how to end their lives but were denied that choice by the law; and if we heard about what that had put them through, perhaps parliamentarians would have the confidence to reflect the public position.
The previous Government hinted at an inquiry into the law. When I asked about it yesterday in a point of order, Mr Speaker himself said that the time might have come for a debate. Perhaps the Minister will take the question of that inquiry back to the Government. Perhaps the time has come to think about whether the law is serving or protecting anyone. Perhaps we should have a public debate, which might allow parliamentarians to judge what is in everyone’s best interests.
I will say one last thing. Some Members may have noticed that there is a word I have not used—one that is normally central to this debate, and that is crucial to the campaigns that are going on outwith Parliament—and that word is “compassion”. That omission is deliberate on my part because, for me, there is no compassion in the law as it stands.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) on securing this important debate and on her excellent contribution, which eloquently summed up the issues on both sides of the argument.
When Parliament voted on this issue in 2015, I was a new MP and was invited to various debates on the subject. A local bishop invited me to a parish church to talk to the congregation about assisted dying. He knew I was in favour of it, as I still am today. We debated the issues and were asked questions about what we proposed. I was surprised, as was the bishop, that the vote at the end showed that 80% of the people there were in favour of assisted dying. There were only about 20 people present, so it is not a representative sample.
That concurs with the public view. According to the Dignity in Dying survey, 84% of the public are in favour of assisted dying. Therefore, it is perhaps surprising that in 2015 some 75% of parliamentarians were against it. We have to be careful when we are that far out of step with the general public, as we have seen before with the Brexit debate. I was one of 22 Members on the Conservative side of the fence who voted in favour of assisted dying, and I think the Minister also voted for it. It is great to see so many new Members speaking today and sitting in the Chamber. I have a feeling that may mean that the balance of opinion may have changed in recent months.
During the election campaign I lost my mother. Her final hours were difficult, particularly when she was having some fluid taken off her lungs. It was difficult for us as relatives and for other people on the ward, as she was on an open ward and she had to have a number of surgical treatments to clear the fluid off her lungs. It was very distressing. I simply do not see why someone should have to go through that in the final hours of their life. I contrast this to the way we treat family dogs, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said in his excellent speech. Our dog, Ben, was put down. He was perfectly healthy apart from a hip problem, but that meant we had to put him down. My wife, four children and I gathered around him as a family, and he had a very peaceful end to his life.
Ian Paisley
Would what the hon. Gentleman is describing take place if more resources were put into palliative care? If that happened, precedence would be given to the care, expectation, love and compassion that Members so desperately want to see, not just for themselves but for their loved ones and their families.
Kevin Hollinrake
That is a good point. I am not against more resources for palliative care, but I am in favour of choice. I think people should have the choice. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), who is doing much work in this area, made a brilliant speech in the 2015 debate on assisted dying. In his phrase, we should have “the dominion over” our bodies.
Alicia Kearns
My father was a brave and strong man who built double-decker buses all his life. I lost him when I was 18 and I remember from my youngest years that his gravest fear was being trapped in his strong body and not being able to communicate. The father of one of my best friends in the world was the first person to be diagnosed with locked-in syndrome. It is about choice and being able to have some sense of control over the body, and about deserving to have that choice.
Kevin Hollinrake
I absolutely agree. I do not wish to impose my views on any citizens as to how they choose to end their lives, but I do not want anyone else imposing their perspective on the way I might choose to end my life in difficult circumstances.
Of course we have to have checks and balances. In my professional life, outside this place, I have dealt with a number of cases where there have been rapacious relatives. Where there is a will, there is a relative. We know what these things can be like, so we have to have checks and balances. Given that so many other jurisdictions have dealt with this issue and introduced legislation to allow assisted dying, an inquiry must be able to learn from the best of other jurisdictions, develop best practice and ensure that we get this absolutely right. We should do what the public expects us to do and bring forward an appropriate law on assisted dying that is fit for purpose.
Mr Mitchell
What is so interesting about this issue is that I drew entirely the opposite conclusion to what my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) said in his intervention. The conclusion that I drew was how uncertain this situation makes it for anyone put in this position, and how having to wait for a decision to be made at a time of great stress and misery in their life is so very wrong. That shows, I submit, that there are deeply felt views on both sides of this debate, and that it is for this House—this Parliament—to reach a conclusion.
Kevin Hollinrake
Will my hon. Friend the Minister give way again just before he resumes?
Chris Philp
I will certainly take another intervention from my hon. Friend.
Kevin Hollinrake
I am very grateful. Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that there is a difference between assisted dying and committing suicide? If I was faced with a terminal illness that I did not want to go through, I would happily choose for my life to be ended through the relevant medical procedures. However, I would not want to commit suicide, because I would not want my children to think that their father had committed suicide; I would not want them to live with that. So I think there is a complete difference between these two different ways of someone ending their life.
Chris Philp
I thank both my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for their very thoughtful interventions.
Perhaps I might just turn to the question of end-of-life care, hospice care and palliative care. Many Members on both sides of the argument, and indeed the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), have referred to the importance of these types of care. I think that one thing we can all agree on is that, regardless of our position on the question of assisted dying or assisted suicide, proper provision of hospice and palliative care is essential; belief in the importance of palliative care is unaffected by and unrelated to one’s position on assisted dying. So it is very important that we ensure that those provisions are properly in place.
I am pleased to report that in 2015 the UK was ranked top out of 40 countries in terms of what is called a quality of death index, which is based on palliative service provision, access to opioids for pain relief and a national strategic approach. Very few countries have levels of integration of palliative care within wider health services similar to ours, so the UK leads the world in the quality of palliative care and end-of-life care.
In 2016 the Government brought forward the end-of-life care choice commitment. We have set out plans to improve patient choice significantly, by ensuring that more adults and children can die in the place of their choice, be it at home, in a hospice, or in hospital. End-of-life care is a key priority for the NHS, and in its long-term plan we have set out key actions to improve the care of people at the end of their life, including a £4.5 billion new investment to fund expanded community teams, which will provide rapid targeted support to those with the greatest need, including those at the end of life. Hospices are vital, and as recently as last August the Prime Minister announced £25 million of additional funding for hospices and palliative care. So Members should be in no doubt at all that, first, the United Kingdom leads the world in the quality of its palliative and end-of-life care, and, secondly, that the Government are completely committed to supporting those services.
I have tried to lay out in a factual way what the current legal, prosecutorial and palliative care landscape is. The reason that I have tried to do that in a factual way is that, as the shadow Minister has already said, it is quite right that in matters of profound personal conscience, such as this one, the Government do not take a view. The Government are neutral in the debate on this issue and have no policy position on it. Although all of us, including me, have our own personal views about this issue, the Government’s position is that it is for Parliament to decide great issues of conscience, including this one.
A number of Members have asked for a review or a call for evidence. The Government do not have any plans at the moment to initiate any review or call for evidence; our view is that it is for Parliament to act in this space. But of course it is open to Committees of the House, including Select Committees, to initiate reviews, calls for evidence and investigations, if they see fit to do so.
Of course, it is also for Parliament to initiate legislation, if it sees fit to do so. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield mentioned the private Member’s Bill ballot. The last vote on this issue took place, as some Members have already said, in September 2015. The Bill proposed was defeated, but, of course, since then we have had two general elections and the composition of Parliament has changed. However, it is the Government’s position that it is for Parliament to decide on this great issue of conscience; it is not for the Government to lead in this area.
I reiterate how important and moving the speeches today have been, on both sides of the argument. I think this debate is an example of Parliament at its finest, dealing with these great issues of life and death, and weighing the sanctity of life against personal liberty and personal choice.
There are no easy answers to these questions, but I can think of no better way of resolving them than via a measured debate and a parliamentary decision. We have certainly seen a fine example of that in today’s debate, and I again thank and commend the hon. Member for Edinburgh West for her speech and for securing this debate.
Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 1 Report
Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Robert Jenrick
The question at the heart of my hon. Friend’s remarks is what the judge will determine in the second phase of the inquiry. What went wrong that led to that cladding being on Grenfell Tower? Was it a failure of Government or of regulation of the construction industry, or a combination of those things? I do not think we can prejudge what the judge will determine over the course of the detailed second phase of the inquiry that is about to commence.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I have followed these matters over the past couple of years, and in my experience the Secretary of State has done more to try to resolve these problems than any of his predecessors, all of whom tried to tackle a thorny issue. He is right to say that ACM is probably the most dangerous cladding, and we should deal with that first. Advice Note 14 does not deal with ACM, but it does effectively say that other combustible materials should not be on the outside of high rise buildings. The official guidance was more equivocal than that, which leaves long leaseholders in a difficult situation with unsaleable properties—I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in that regard. We must consider this issue. Yesterday the Secretary of State said that he would look at doing more, and we will need to.
Robert Jenrick
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend who is a long-standing campaigner on this issue. Next month we will publish the final result of the testing process that my Department has been undertaking over many months with the Building Research Establishment. That will lay out for all to see evidence that I have already seen about the safety, or otherwise, of a range of different materials. I believe it will demonstrate that ACM is by far the most concerning material and should come off buildings as quickly as possible.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
This is a grave and important debate. I welcome the Government time for it, but I regret that the Prime Minister is not here to lead it. The public inquiry into Grenfell reports to him; it is the Prime Minister’s responsibility. A national disaster on the scale of the dreadful Grenfell tower fire demands a national response, on a similar scale. That has not happened, and that too is the Prime Minister’s responsibility.
More than two and a half years since that dreadful fire, the widespread grief and disbelief in the immediate aftermath that something so dreadful could happen in 21st-century Britain has become an increasingly widespread frustration. There is, as the Secretary of State said, still a huge amount to do. I never thought I would be standing here, two and a half years after that Grenfell tower fire, facing a Secretary of State who is still unable to say all the steps have been taken so that we can, as a House of Commons, as a Government, say to the country, “A fire like Grenfell can never happen again.” The fact that he cannot say that—the fact that there is still so much to do before we can all say that—shows the extent of the Government’s failure on all fronts since that fateful fire on 14 June 2017.
There have, regrettably, been other major residential fires since then—mercifully, without casualties—in Manchester, in Crewe, in Barking, in Bolton. It was clear to me, speaking to the students who were in that fire in Bolton, days after it happened, that had it not been for their quick thinking that early Friday evening, there would have been casualties in that fire, too.
Sir Martin Moore-Bick and his inquiry staff have done a huge amount of work on the first phase of the inquiry; on behalf of the Labour party, I pay tribute to that. Despite our reservations about the inquiry, we recognise that the inquiry is on an almost unprecedented scale. The phase 1 report—the subject of this afternoon’s debate—was 1,000 pages long. It was based on 123 days of hearings, evidence from more than 140 witnesses, half a million documents and nearly 600 core participants. However, Sir Martin Moore-Bick and his team simply could not have produced such a thorough and thoughtful report without the testimony of the Grenfell families and survivors. So, most of all today I pay tribute to the Grenfell survivors, to the families of the victims, to the community of North Kensington, who have conducted themselves with such dignity during this very painful inquiry. I say to them: you have suffered almost unimaginable trauma and loss, but we thank you for having the courage to share this, and the resolve to turn your grief into a fight for justice and for change. It is they who should be at the forefront of our thoughts and of our debate this afternoon.
I also pay tribute, as Sir Martin Moore-Bick does, to the courage of individual firefighters and emergency services on the night. They really did put their lives at risk in many ways—often breaking the operating procedures they were meant to follow—in order to help get people out and save lives that night. I, like the Secretary of State, am glad that the London fire and rescue service has not just accepted all the recommendations in full, but already begun to implement them.
I want to take the House back to the immediate aftermath of the fire, more than two and a half years ago, and to three big promises made by the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), on behalf of the Conservative Government. First, on rehousing and support for the survivors, she said, as Prime Minister, the week after the fire:
“All those who have lost their homes…will be offered rehousing within three weeks.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2017; Vol. 626, c. 167.]
Ministers had to pull back from that initial promise, and they then said everybody would be rehoused within a year.
Thirty-one months on from the fire, as the Secretary of State has confirmed this afternoon, and notwithstanding individual circumstances, survivors of the fire have still not all been found adequate, permanent housing. Some of those families spent Christmas in temporary accommodation or in hotels. It is no good the Minister for Crime, Policing and the Fire Service—a former housing Minister—or the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government shaking their head. I acknowledge the individual circumstances, we all do, but they have had four reports from the Grenfell recovery taskforce, each and every one taking the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to task for not doing enough at enough speed to rehouse and help those families.
Secondly, on justice, the present Prime Minister said in the debate at the end of October that
“we owe it to the people of Grenfell Tower to explain, once and for all and beyond doubt, exactly why the tragedy unfolded as it did”.—[Official Report, 30 October 2019; Vol. 667, c. 378.]
The Grenfell survivors do, indeed, want answers, but they also want justice. They want change and they want those responsible to be held to account and, where justified, prosecuted. They are right to expect that, and they have been promised it, but it still seems so far off.
Ahead of the setting up of the public inquiry, the then Prime Minister promised
“to provide justice for the victims and their families who suffered so terribly.”
And she rightly said on behalf of the Government:
“I am clear that we cannot wait for ages to learn the immediate lessons”.—[Official Report, 22 June 2017; Vol. 626, c. 168.]
That public inquiry, initially expected to report at Easter 2018, did not in fact report until 18 months later, in autumn 2019. It has been phased into two reports, which means we have only a partial, incomplete judgment, and we still have not got to the bottom of what went dreadfully wrong and why.
I have to say to the Secretary of State and the Government that these problems have been compounded by recent thoughtless decision making by the Prime Minister. Just before Christmas he picked a new panellist for the inquiry who in her previous post, we are told, accepted funding after the fire from the charitable arm of the company responsible for manufacturing the insulation on the outside of Grenfell Tower.
Yesterday, the Secretary of State said:
“I know the Prime Minister is aware of the issues”.—[Official Report, 20 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 33.]
He must do better than that. The Grenfell inquiry must command the confidence of those most affected by the fire. The vice-chair of Grenfell United has said in the last week:
“How can she sit next to Sir Martin Moore-Bick when Arconic will be on the stand and is one of the organisations we need answers from in terms of what caused the deaths of our loved ones?”
The Prime Minister should apologise and reverse the decision to appoint Benita Mehra.
Thirdly, on cladding and the safety of other tower blocks, the then Prime Minister, again on behalf of the Government, promised directly after the fire:
“Landlords have a legal obligation to provide safe buildings… We cannot and will not ask people to live in unsafe homes.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2017; Vol. 626, c. 169.]
Yet thousands of people continue to live in unsafe homes, condemned to do so by this Government’s failure on all fronts since Grenfell. Why? Why, two and a half years later, are 315 high-rise blocks still cloaked in the same Grenfell-style cladding? Why do 76 of these block owners still not have a plan in place to remove and replace that cladding? Why have 91 social block owners still not replaced their ACM cladding when the Secretary of State said it would be done by the end of last year? Why have the Government not completed and published full fire safety tests on other unsafe but non-ACM types of cladding? And why has no legislation to overhaul the building safety rules been published, let alone implemented, more than 20 months after the Government’s own Hackitt review was completed and accepted in full by Ministers?
After pressure from this side, the Secretary of State did set deadlines for all Grenfell-style ACM cladding to be removed and replaced: he set the deadline of the end of December 2019 for social sector blocks and of June 2020 for all private sector blocks. He has missed the deadline for social sector blocks and, if the current rate does not change, it will take a further three years for them all to be done. He is also set to miss the June 2020 deadline and, if the current rate does not improve, it could take 10 years to complete the work on those blocks. He said a moment ago that Grenfell families want “answers”, “accountability” and “action”, but at every stage since Grenfell Ministers have failed to grasp the scale of the problems and the scale of the Government action required. At every stage, the action taken has been too slow and too weak.
Kevin Hollinrake
The right hon. Gentleman talks about action and about the guidance. Surely he must welcome the Government’s action in banning combustible materials in external surfaces, which his Government had the opportunity to do during their tenure but did not do?
John Healey
I do indeed welcome the ban, which we argued for for some time. It was something the Hackitt report did not recommend, but Ministers wisely decided that they would not follow that recommendation. It is a no-brainer that we should not be putting combustible cladding on the sides of buildings in that way.
I welcome some of the action that has been taken. I know that the Secretary of State is approaching this with a serious intent. He did indeed announce what he calls “more measures” yesterday and he said he is
“minded to lower the height threshold for sprinkler requirements in new buildings”—[Official Report, 20 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 23.]
But this is for new build only. He is considering, with the Treasury, whether leaseholders will get any funding help, and he is having yet another consultation exactly on that issue of flammable material. I say to him that we have had 14 consultations already since the Grenfell fire. We had 21 announcements on building safety in this Chamber before yesterday’s announcement. I say to the Secretary of State that he and his Government still have some way to go to give people confidence and to convince those people affected by unsafe cladding that there will be change.
John Healey
My right hon. Friend anticipates the argument I was going to move on to. For such leaseholders, the situation he outlines assumes that they can sell in the first place and that the wannabe buyer can get a mortgage. Many are finding now that they are trapped in these blocks. Some of the steps the Secretary of State is now taking may help with this, but, fundamentally, there is a serious flaw in our leasehold legislation. In the particular circumstances we face here, we have the failure to match the legal responsibility that landlords or block owners have for the safety of those blocks with the financial responsibility for ensuring that they, not the leaseholders, pay for that. I have a proposal for the Secretary of State that requires Government action to deal with that problem and shall explain it in a moment.
First, though, a more general point. Since the fire, Grenfell survivors have seen three Secretaries of State and four Housing Ministers, all serious and sincere as individuals about the lessons to learn from Grenfell, but all fettered by the same flawed Conservative ideology and Government policy. They are too reluctant to take on vested interests in the property market; too unwilling to have the state act when private interests will not act in the public interest; and too resistant to legislation or regulation to require higher safety standards. Only the Government can fix the broken system of building safety. Only the Government can make good the cuts to fire services. Only the Government can renew social housing. Only the Government can make landlords meet their legal and financial obligations.
Here is a five-point plan for action for the Secretary of State. First, widen the Government-sponsored programme to cover comprehensive tests on all non-ACM cladding and publish the full results. Secondly, give councils the power to fine and take over blocks whose owners refuse to make them safe, in order to get the work done. Thirdly, pass legislation to end the injustice of flat owners paying for the costs of works simply to make their home safe, and bring in financial help for hard-pressed leaseholders billed by landlords for essential interim safety measures such as waking watches. Fourthly, set up a £1 billion fire safety fund, including to retrofit sprinklers in social housing blocks. Fifthly, establish a new national fire safety taskforce, reporting directly to the Prime Minister, responsible for auditing every high-rise and high-risk building and enforcing the replacement of all types of deadly cladding. If the Secretary of State will do that, he will have our backing.
Kevin Hollinrake
The right hon. Gentleman has talked about some pretty decisive action against building owners he says will not take action to remove cladding. That is possible with a social landlord, because they have a direct connection to and responsibility for the maintenance of the building, but who is he talking about in the case of a block of leasehold apartments? The only person with a connection—the only landlord he might speak to—might be the owner of the ground rents on that property. They are technically the freeholder, but the freeholder has no maintenance responsibility whatsoever, so there is no legal action he could take to force the freeholder to take remedial action on the block.
John Healey
That is precisely why new legislation is required to enable action where it is needed. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman grimaces, but I take the argument and the principle from a recommendation of the Select Committee of which he was a member, which said in a unanimous report that for privately owned residential homes, if a landlord ultimately will not keep the properties up to scratch, a local authority should have the power to take over those properties and make them good. If the principle can apply for individual properties, it can apply for tower blocks when something this serious and urgent is required.
John Healey
I will not give way anymore; I am going to end my speech because a lot of people wish to speak in the debate.
Post election, the Government and the Prime Minister have a majority, but with that mandate comes responsibility. We in the Labour party will continue to hold the Government hard to account for their continued failings following Grenfell. More widely, I say in particular to the Grenfell survivors and the families of the victims, just as I said in the days immediately after the fire: we in the Labour party will not rest until all those who need it get a new home and long-term help; all those culpable are brought to justice; and all measures necessary are in place, so that we can, with confidence, say to people that a fire like Grenfell can never happen again in our country.
Bob Blackman
No? The Minister shakes his head. I thought he had served on that board subsequently.
The key point I remember from serving on that body is how difficult it is, in London in particular, to deal with fires in high-rise buildings—buildings so high that the fire brigade cannot put ladders up—and with the people in those buildings and how we train firefighters to deal with that type of tragedy. We cannot replicate what our brave firefighters faced on that night in training. It cannot be done. We can try to prepare them for it and teach them what to do in certain circumstances, but replicating what they had to do and suffer is almost impossible. Training and ensuring firefighters are fit and healthy and able to cope with such conditions is obviously at the forefront of what our fire brigades have to do. As others have mentioned, we must praise the bravery of the firefighters who went into a living hell to combat the fire and get the people out from Grenfell that night.
As the hon. Member for Hammersmith mentioned, we should remember that the fire was caused by an electrical fault, which raises a question, as he said, about the testing of appliances and how we make sure they are fit for purpose. If we buy goods and services, we expect the supplier to have made sure they are safe, and if they are not, there is a liability on the suppliers and manufacturers. We should look at that issue. Another concern is the testing of wiring not just in high-rise buildings but in all buildings. I will come back to that in a moment.
As was found in the inquiry and as we heard already, there was much confusion on the night about what was going on with the fire brigade. The firefighters went into the initial flat to combat the fire, and in many ways that was routine. We should remember that it was not the first fire in Grenfell; there had been others there and in other blocks across London and up and down the country. The compartmentalisation of these units should mean that a fire is contained within the unit. Then the fire can be put out and everyone made safe. That is the fundamental point of the “stay put” policy encouraged and promoted by the fire brigade. What the fire brigade did not know was that the fire had spread to the external cladding. As those firefighters were leaving, others were trying to go in and deal with the fire that had engulfed the tower block. There were clearly confusions. We hear and read in the report, which makes horrific reading, about the circumstances of the senior officers on site, about what training they had been given and about what they could do in such circumstances. I do not criticise them, but they were clearly underprepared and ill trained to deal with the terrible tragedy that was unfolding before them.
I have had the privilege of serving on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for the last nine and a half years, and we have looked at building regulations on several occasions. We have also conducted two inquiries on the Grenfell fire. Not only have I been present for the statements, urgent questions and updates that we have heard from various Secretaries of State and other Ministers, but I have had the opportunity to go through a lot of the detail that has emerged about Grenfell. The Committee made recommendations on two separate occasions, and there is clearly concern about the pace at which the Government have moved. There have been plenty of consultations, but I am concerned about the fact that they have not necessarily, at all times, moved swiftly enough. People up and down the country are still living in tower blocks with unsafe cladding, and two and a half or three years on, that is absolutely unacceptable. We must speed up the process of removing that cladding and making those blocks safe.
The Select Committee had the opportunity to interview Dame Judith Hackitt. She is an admirable individual who gives robust answers, looks at the evidence and is clearly to be respected. I welcome the fact that she will head the new regulator, because that will make a clear difference.
Changes in building regulations also need to be implemented swiftly. I welcome what the Secretary of State said about ensuring that the necessary regulations are in place, but I think that we should look again at part P, which was the subject of one of the Select Committee’s past inquiries. The regulations applying to gas fitters are stringent, but those applying to electrical fittings are very lax. People can qualify as electricians after two or three days’ training, and then conduct electrical works in both Houses, and in flats and high-rise buildings. As long as someone comes along and signs off the work, that is deemed acceptable, but in my view it is not acceptable. Most householders in this country do not understand what responsibilities they take on for electrical safety when electrical work is conducted in their own homes. I want us to look into that, because although it was not a fundamental cause of this fire, electrical work may be the fundamental cause of other fires if it is not done properly.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) put her finger on the issue of the cladding on Grenfell. The inquiry has made it clear that the cladding did not comply with building regulations, and we have found in our inquiries that that is true up and down the country. I have made this point repeatedly: if the cladding was not compliant with building regulations, someone must have signed it off as being compliant. Someone gave it approval. I am afraid that whoever gives approval for these things must be brought to account, because if they are not compliant with building regulations, someone in a position of responsibility is saying that a building is safe when clearly it is not. I do not want to go into what happened at Grenfell, because there are police inquiries and part 2 of the inquiry will continue, but clearly this is a matter of concern up and down the country.
One fundamental concern that I have is that some leaseholders and other individuals who believed they were buying a flat or other property that was perfectly safe, are now being told that they might have to pay towards removing the cladding and replacing it with a safer type. The fact is that someone, somewhere said the cladding was safe according to the building regulations—and if they did, who is responsible, and why should leaseholders be funding the work? Clearly, there is a failure of corporate governance across the piece in preventing that from happening.
Another fundamental issue is fire doors. When fire doors at Grenfell were tested originally, because there was a concern that they should be able to resist fire for 30 minutes, they actually resisted fire for 15. There is a fundamental issue, therefore, of whether such fire doors are fit for purpose. If fire doors do not keep back fire, fire will spread and people who are trying to get out of those buildings will not have time to do so safely.
When we have looked at the various building regulations and the changes that need to be made, we have been looking at them in relation to tests that have been conducted on cladding and so on. We must challenge: are those tests fit for purpose? Do they replicate a real fire, when there is fire all around, as opposed to direct contact of flame on a door or cladding? When there is fire all around, does that fire door or cladding get consumed in a way that no one envisaged in tests? I would challenge whether our tests are now fit for purpose to justify the assertion of safety for people up and down this country.
A wide variety of buildings need to have their cladding removed and made safe.
Kevin Hollinrake
My hon. Friend raises the point, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), about whether ACM cladding complied with the building regulations. He would probably agree that the evidence we have taken in the Select Committee is that the building regulations, particularly Approved Document B, are ambiguous. It is clearly set out within Government guidance that there are two ways that external walls may meet the building regulations, and one of them is that each individual component of the wall meets the required standard, but in Approved Document B it certainly appears that the required standard is a combustible standard. That is the difficulty that we are wrestling with, which might explain why so many buildings up and down the country have combustible cladding on their external surfaces.
Bob Blackman
I thank my hon. Friend, who is an expert in this field. In the previous Parliament, his expertise was much appreciated by all his fellow members on the HCLG Committee. He draws attention to a fundamental issue, which we must be cognisant of. Where there is lack of clarity or confusion, people not unreasonably ask, “What should we do? What standard do we put our buildings up at? What tests do we apply? What is reasonable?”—because everything is risk-based. We need to look at that in some detail.
In my opinion, the “stay put” policy that is implemented by both the London fire brigade and other brigades must be examined in detail. If, under compartmentalisation, a building is safe and a fire breaks out in one part of it, it is a sensible policy that the fire is eliminated in that part of the building and other people do not try to escape from the building unnecessarily. If a fire spreads from one compartment to another, that is when the building has to be evacuated straightaway. That is the examination that has to take place.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I pay tribute, as others have done, to the residents of Grenfell, and particularly to members of Grenfell United. They have managed not only to cope with this terrible tragedy, but to make some sense out of it afterwards and to depoliticise it. That is a lesson for this House. We should depoliticise this issue because the source of these problems is pan-governmental. We have some way to go to get this right. We have to do what is right, not just what is easy. There will be some tough challenges before we get to the bottom of this issue.
As I have said, the Secretary of State has done more than anybody else in trying to tackle this issue. Also on the Front Bench today is the former Housing Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), who did a tremendous job in bringing forward the remediation fund, which was initially for the social element of the remediation works. We are going further all the time. I was heartened by the Secretary of State’s comments yesterday on his seven-point plan, which has taken us further in understanding that we have not got to the bottom of this issue yet; I really do not think that we have.
We all say that this terrible tragedy should never be repeated. I listened carefully to the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), whom I welcome to his place. If we are to make sure that this does not happen again, we absolutely must confront the lessons of this tragedy.
It is right that the Government acted in terms of a ban on combustible materials; they were very quick in doing that. The Select Committee called for it, but simultaneously the Government brought it forward. It was absolutely the right thing to do, as was the decision to replace ACM on every building—social or private—in the UK. The question now is on other combustible cladding on high-rise buildings around the country. It is difficult to challenge the findings of Sir Martin Moore-Bick in his very comprehensive report, but I think that it is ambiguous: I am not sure whether he is right in chapter 2.16, where he says that the building
“failed to comply with Requirement B4(1) of Schedule 1 to the Building Regulations”.
I shall tell Members why I think that. That is not definitive; that is why I say it is ambiguous. According to the Government’s own guidance, there are two ways to meet the requirement on fire spread—there are two ways that external walls may meet the building regulations. One is for each individual component of the wall to meet the required standard of combustibility. The guidance is in section 12.6 of approved document B, which says:
“The external surfaces of walls should meet the provisions in Diagram 40.”
If we look at diagram 40, it is clear that the standard allowed is class B, which is a combustible standard, so it is ambiguous. This answers the question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) as to why this happened. We have to look in detail at exactly why this happened. We cannot simply say, as advice note 14 does, that combustible materials were not allowed to go on the outside of buildings. It refers only to materials of “limited combustibility” —A2 and above. Diagram 40 refers to class B, which is clearly below A2 in terms of standard. Therefore, there is ambiguity between advice note 14 and approved document B and diagram 40.
Yes, combustible insulation is clearly banned in terms of a component test. As for cladding, there is ambiguity to say the least. Of course, on the back of advice note 14, we are saying to people who live in buildings with combustible cladding that those properties do not meet the standard, which makes them unsaleable and puts long-lease holders in this terrible situation—this invidious situation—where they are left totally in limbo. Even if that were not the case, there would be a difficulty with this. Clearly, the situation with the guidance is so serious. We recognise now that it was a mistake to allow combustible cladding on the outside of high-rise buildings. That is why the Government rightly brought forward the combustible ban. Building regulations, however, work prospectively, not retrospectively. How can we say that it is wrong to allow combustible cladding on new high-rise buildings but okay for old ones? We simply cannot countenance that, but leaseholders are being put in that situation.
People keep saying that freeholders—the building owners—must pay. However, as I have pointed out time and again, both in the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government and on the Floor of the House, while social landlords must pay, and the Government have put in some money for them, in most cases freeholders—the owners of a property’s ground rent and the ground on which the building stands—have no legal responsibility to carry out remedial maintenance work on a high-rise building. We can talk tough all we like and say, “We’re going to make them do this and make them do that”—Opposition Members have said that, and I have heard Conservative Members say it, too—but there is no legal way to do that. I do not know of a way to impose on anybody a retrospective legal requirement in a contract. It is simply not possible in our legal framework, and that leaves leaseholders in limbo.
We are going to have to look again at the issue and do something for long-lease holders, many of whom will have bought their properties on a high loan to value and who do not have the £20,000 or £30,000 to pay for the remedial work of removing combustible cladding from each flat and replacing it with limited combustibility cladding. So we will have to look at this again. I welcome the fact that the Government have said that they are looking at it again and will look at the testing. It is absolutely right that we wait to see the results of the testing on a lot of the systems—I get that. If it turns out, however, that some of the buildings are unsafe, it is absolutely right that we look again at the issue. I know we are talking about a lot of money, but to put people in a situation where they feel at risk and have a property they simply cannot sell, cannot be right. It is right that we in this place do what is right, not what is easy.
Building Safety
Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
I am sorry to hear about the example that the hon. Lady raises, and I will look into that if she could give me the details after this statement. Since becoming Secretary of State, I have taken action to ensure that the remediation fund moves forward at pace. We now have a named contact working with every one of these buildings. I review the lists regularly, and we have made a great deal of progress. We have now reached the point, as I have said, where every building is within the system and is working with my Department. The only ones that are not are those that emerged only recently as having ACM cladding. I hope that we will now, finally, make rapid progress.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
May I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and his proactivity on this issue? Advice note 14 states that only limited combustibility materials should be used on external surfaces, but our work on the Select Committee has shown that the actual guidance was much more ambiguous, which leaves many leaseholders in limbo. Will he consider extending the remediation fund to cover other types of combustible cladding?
Robert Jenrick
The expert advice that we received said that ACM should be the priority of Government. That is why my predecessors announced the £600 million remediation fund for ACM on high-rise buildings. The testing results, which I will publish next month, confirm that decision and make it clear that ACM is significantly more dangerous than any other substance. That has rightly been the focus of taxpayers’ money in terms of grant, but there may be other ways forward to assist those leaseholders trapped in other types of buildings.