Building Safety Update

Lord Porter of Spalding Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)]

My Lords—

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Order, my Lords. There is time for a number of noble Lords to get in, but on this side we need to decide which noble Lord would like to speak first.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Baroness speaks for many people when she makes that point, which is a fair one. We have all seen this week the particular block in Croydon. There is some concern about this and my right honourable friend has said that, morally, it should be picked up by the landlords. If I may and as it has concerned many of us, I should like to update noble Lords on where we are on this issue in my letter, which I appreciate will be very wide-ranging.

[Lord Porter of Spalding]

My Lords, I declare my interests in the register as chairman of the Local Government Association and leader of South Holland District Council. I will contain my remarks purely to the issue of the doors today. If I spread into the wider Grenfell issues and my opinion of the expert panel, I will probably stray into unparliamentary language.

The manufacturer claimed it had the ability to produce 50,000 units a year, that the doors complied with Part M of the building regulations and that they had been approved by the BRE. Given all that, what can my noble friend the Minister say to assure the House that we can have faith in the advice from the expert panel that this is not such a major issue?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend who, understandably, has taken great interest in issues relating to Grenfell and the role of local government. In relation to the particular manufacturer he refers to, as I have said, these doors are no longer being manufactured. I can state that categorically. We are obviously looking at the issue of compliance.

Other doors have been tested and found to be deficient, but not nearly as deficient as this one, so that is another issue. There are difficulties in relation to Grenfell, because most of the fire doors were of course destroyed, which has presented a problem for testing. It is also a restricted site because of it being a crime scene. Nevertheless, we are obviously checking very closely to see exactly where these doors have been tested, as they are required to be, to ensure compliance. This will satisfy what the Secretary of State has rightly said about the need to look at this at pace and to test other doors beyond Grenfell to see whether they are compliant or not. At the moment, from the evidence that we have, it appears to be a single batch.