Grenfell Tower: Rehousing Update

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. I have some sympathy with that point. Indeed, when I read the Statement I made a similar point. I think it is inherent in the Statement but I am happy to confirm that not only should the accommodation be at least as good and with as many bedrooms—I understand that in many cases it will be more—but also the furniture and fittings should be of equivalent standard. Perhaps one could go too far in setting that out but that should encapsulate the point the noble Lord wanted.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on the approach he is taking, and congratulate both Front Benches. In the interests of the people concerned and given the tragedy they faced, the last thing we need is party-political point-scoring. How can we all work together to deal with this appalling tragedy? The one remark I disagree with in each of the previous contributions was when it was said that this must never happen again. There is a real risk that something will happen—not necessarily this; maybe a plane crash. It is quite clear that the organisation in London of individual boroughs is not properly equipped to handle a tragedy of this scale. There is no wonder that Manchester City Council did a better job than Kensington and Chelsea: the resources available are on a vastly different scale. The Minister talked about a task force. There needs to be a permanent organisation so that if tragedy strikes in one of these ways, it can go straight in and do the work. I very much hope that that will be the outcome of this.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that positive contribution, and echo it. I thank noble Lords who have sought to approach this in a genuinely bipartisan way, because it transcends party-political differences. The specific point raised is one that the Prime Minister indicated, so my noble friend is very much on that page. There will be a civil disaster task force to deal with circumstances like this. I certainly echo what my noble friend said.