Fire Safety Bill

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Lords Hansard
Wednesday 17th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my relevant registered interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, the chair of the Heart of Medway Housing Association and a non-executive director of MHS Homes Ltd. In moving Motion A1, I will address all the Motions before the House today.

It is disappointing that the Government have over- turned the amendment passed by this House. The intent of our amendment was to make progress in implementing the recommendations made in the first phase of the Grenfell Tower inquiry. Our frustration, along with the frustration felt by many, has been that since the recommendations made in the first phase were published, progress has been extremely and annoyingly slow. Being told by the Government that in most cases we do not need legislation to make progress is in some ways even more frustrating because nothing has happened, which is again very odd. This is the first piece of legislation we have seen that will bring anything into force. Frankly, the victims and their families deserve better. People living in properties that are unsafe or blighted deserve better than that.

This led me to propose Motion A1, which proposes to insert a new clause into the Bill. What my amendment seeks to do is accept the Government intention to take action but to add some rigour and rigidity to the proposals with clear timescales for action. As I have said previously, this has all been too slow with no clarity about what the timescales are for action through primary legislation and through secondary legislation and guidance.

This morning I received a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, which seeks to add some clarity to the timescales for action, and that is welcome. We also have the Government’s response to the consultation, which is helpful. It looks as if we are finally making some progress and I welcome that. It would be good to hear him, when he responds to the debate, set out the timescales for the actions the Government are proposing, and I look forward to that. That will be part of the official record of the House and the Government will be held accountable for the pledges that they make today.

In respect of Motion B, while I accept that the Commons can assert financial privilege and the need not to give any other reason, we must consider the subject of the amendment that was rejected and the circumstances that have led to this Bill, as well as the intention behind the amendment that the other place has rejected. We would have hoped to have got a little more than the assertion of financial privilege. This is about fire safety and reassurance for residents that the register is up to date, that it can be relied on and that it is publicly available and transparent so that sunlight on fire risk assessments will provide more reassurance. I hope that when the noble Lord responds to Motion A, he will provide a bit more clarity than just relying on financial privilege as expressed by the other place.

Motion C1, tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, seeks to add to the Bill Amendments 4B, 4C, 4D and 4E. They would prohibit the owner of a building from passing on the costs of annual remedial works attributable to the requirements of the Act to leaseholders or tenants, except where the leaseholder is also the owner of the building. The amendments under the Motion tabled by the right reverend Prelate have my full support, and the Labour Benches will support him if he decides to divide the House. I hope very much that he will do so.

Leaseholders are victims and have done nothing wrong. They deserve to be treated much better than they have been by the Government. They have done everything right. They have bought their properties and are paying their mortgages. Now they are being penalised for the failure of others. Surely that cannot be right. The fact that their buildings have been covered in dangerous cladding has made their flats worthless. They cannot sell their properties, but they are still expected to pay their mortgages and other charges. They cannot get work done; they may be paying for a waking watch and in some cases the properties will have guarantees on them which need to be drawn down. There will be warranties for work done which need to be used. They have been paid for, otherwise they are literally not worth the paper they are written on.

We should all stand up to support leaseholders and tenants and get those who have done the work to accept their responsibility and put this right. The Government are failing leaseholders and tenants. Their actions are just not good enough and fall far short of what they promised.

I want to be clear. For the individual builder, contractor, company, warranty provider or insurance company, it cannot be right for people to wriggle out of their responsibilities. The Government need to take firm action. Supporting the Motions and amendments before the House today will be an opportunity to ask the Government to think again, and I hope we take it. I beg to move.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I speak to Motion C1 and Amendments 4B to 4E. I give notice of my intention to seek the opinion of the House when the time comes. I declare my interest in the register in that I, too, am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I first thank the honourable Members for Stevenage and for Southampton, Itchen, who originally prepared these amendments, as well as the signatories from all parties when they were tabled in the Commons. I also thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, who joins me in supporting it, and pay tribute to one of our colleagues, the Bishop of Kensington, who has worked very closely on the ground with victims of Grenfell and leaseholders.

Grenfell was an unmitigated tragedy brought about, it would seem, by institutional failings on multiple levels. The recent revelation that the cladding provider knew that it could result in tragedy and death is nothing short of a disgrace. It has been a tragedy for many lives: ordinary families have been ripped apart by this terrible event.

The Bill will deal with the problem of dangerous cladding by creating a quick and easy mechanism to force freeholders to remove dangerous cladding and other fire safety defects. That is undoubtedly a good thing and will, hopefully, protect against future tragedies, but I share the disappointment of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that Her Majesty’s Government have not sought to address the severe adverse financial consequences that the Bill will create for leaseholders. In the Bill’s current form, whenever the fire service serves notice to the freeholder requiring remedial work to be undertaken, the freeholder will be able to force leaseholders to reimburse all the costs incurred. These costs are staggering.

At this point, I say that our hearts go out—I am sure we all share this—to all the people who are struggling. I have been inundated with emails, tweets and people contacting me who are at their wit’s end looking at what is likely to unfold in the next few weeks. Far from the Government’s estimated remedial costs of around £9,000 per leaseholder, depending on the terms of the lease and the work involved, a leaseholder could very easily be handed a bill of £50,000, payable within weeks.

Inside Housing conducted its own private survey of 1,342 leaseholders. Its findings reveal a very different picture to that of Her Majesty’s Government. Among those surveyed, 63% of respondents faced a total bill above £30,000 for remedial costs and 15% faced a bill of more than £100,000. Of course, a few of these lease- holders may be well off, some will have disposable income, but most will not: 60% had a household income of less than £50,000, with only 8.7% reporting a household income of more than £100,000. In other words, this will primarily affect ordinary middle to working-class people.

In addition, 56.4% of those surveyed were first-time buyers. They have followed that life trajectory that many Conservative Governments have sought to promote by working hard, saving and purchasing a property. These are people with aspirations—something I totally support—yet nearly everything they have worked hard towards, over many years, could be taken away from them, as shown by the alarming 17.2% of respondents who say that they are already exploring bankruptcy options. I must remind the House that the costs mentioned above include only the remedial costs; they say nothing about the interim fire safety costs that leaseholders already incur.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

At end insert “and do propose Amendments 4B, 4C, 4D and 4E in lieu—

4B: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Prohibition on passing remediation costs on to leaseholders and tenants
(1) The owner of a building may not pass the costs of any remedial work attributable to the provisions of this Act on to leaseholders or tenants of that building.
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply to a leaseholder who is also the owner or part owner of the freehold of the building.”

--- Later in debate ---

4E: Clause 3, page 2, line 28, at end insert—
“( ) Sections (Costs arising from relevant notices or risk based guidance under the Fire Safety Order) and (Restriction on contracting out of section (Costs arising from relevant notices or risk based guidance under the Fire Safety Order)) shall each come into force on the same day as section 1 comes fully or partially into force in respect of any premises in England.”

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, the rules are such that I am not allowed to make a speech. However, so that the other place can consider the very full reasons that the Minister gave, it is right and our duty to test the mind of the House. I beg to move.

Fire Safety Bill

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 27th April 2021 Lords Chamber

I urge the Government, even at this late stage, to listen to those who are on the brink of losing their home and everything they have worked and saved for. They have done everything right and nothing wrong. I give notice that if the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, seeks to divide the House, he has the support of these Benches. If, however, he chooses not to do so, I will move my amendment and seek the opinion of the House.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

Well, my Lords, here we are again. I do not want to detain your Lordships’ House for too long, because everything has been said several times already, but I want to make a few comments, if I may.

I, too, want the Bill to pass. I pay tribute to Her Majesty’s Government and the money they have already found and put on the table, which is very significant. But since we last gathered here, the sheer scale of the crisis, which is in its very early stages, is slowly beginning to unfold before us and become ever clearer. I believe that is why the majority in the other place declines each time an amendment goes back, because those long-serving, seasoned campaigners in the other place realise what is going on. The stories are coming out absolutely relentlessly, and new research is being published.

At a few minutes to four this afternoon, I received an email from someone who works in Parliament. I will call her Claire; that is not her real name, but she will know who she is, because she emailed me at 3.56 pm and asked if I will speak up. She said, “Will you speak up for the leaseholders again and table an amendment? I bought a flat under the shared ownership scheme. I own a 25% share, yet I am liable for 100% of the costs. I am already paying an additional amount each month, and I know this amount will soon increase as further remediation work takes place. I simply cannot afford to pay for the remediation works, nor should I have to. The stress of this situation is becoming intolerable. My mental and physical health are approaching a state of collapse”. “Will you speak up?”, she said. I have not met her yet—I hope she will say hello to me one day, perhaps when she guesses who I am or sees me around the place. This is someone who we bump into, who works in this place and who serves us.

It is not just the many individuals. Since we last came to this provision, research by the Prudential Regulation Authority, which is assessing the building scandal, has said that it poses a systemic risk to the UK financial sector. Some of the work done since then is finding a huge number of flats and homes which are simply unsellable. For example, it has been reported that

“a one-bedroom flat at Leftbank, in Manchester, failed to sell despite being listed for half the £330,000 its owner had paid in 2017”.

What Members in the other place are realising is that, slowly, this will roll out, and it will mean that many people on whom this Bill relies to be able somehow to stump up the money to repair the buildings will not have that money. The buildings will not be repaired, because some of these people will have to walk away, probably very unwillingly.

We have not only those individual stories but some really worrying assessments coming out of the housing and financial market in our country. Some 3 million people, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, are affected. As we are paying tribute to fire and rescue officers, I have three emails from fire and rescue officers who were personally affected by this cladding. These are the people involved, along with nurses, police, teachers, care workers and many others—the House knows the sort of people we are talking about.

I believe that the intent of these amendments is the same: to accept that we have a very difficult problem and really want to see some sort of brokered agreement, whereby developers, cladding manufacturers, freeholders and leaseholders make their fair contribution. We realise that everybody will have to do that, but feel that there need to be protections for leaseholders and tenants over these coming months, before the government scheme comes in. I am minded to support this Motion if the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, brings it to a Division, but I continue to hope and plead that Her Majesty’s Government will be able either to come up with a compromise or make some sort of formal undertaking on what the building safety Bill will offer, so that we can all get behind it and get this really important Bill through.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my professional involvement with construction and property matters and that I am a vice-president of the LGA. We should be in no doubt that the Government have triggered an issue that is destined to cause significant damage, loss and distress to many leaseholders and tenants. My comments will be aimed at Motions A1 and A2 in the names, respectively, of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. I commend them on their persistence and diligence.

I also commend the Government on committing their £5.1 billion to this matter, but the reality is that money alone is not the answer. It requires a plan that is co-ordinated, structured and comprehensive; to be honest, it was needed the day before yesterday and certainly not at some unspecified time in the future. The Government cannot, in all conscience, have been unaware that a situation would likely arise where a significant sector of property might be affected by the expansion of the fire safety regime, nor deaf to the observations of just about every informed observer, from, I believe, the Bank of England downwards, warning of the need for action.