Grenfell Tower

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his comments and understand his personal concerns and those of his wife. I could well understand somebody from the area having a particular concern.

The noble Lord referred to the article in the London Review of Books, which I confess not to having the privilege of reading, but I will do. He referred to criticism of local government in the Statement. The part the noble Lord must be referring to is setting up the independent task force at an early stage, which was asked to provide scrutiny and challenge to the council. That is a normal usage of words when such a task force is appointed, but I take the noble Lord’s point. I certainly agree with him that Sir Martin Moore-Bick has made a very good start on the inquiry, which will run its course, as will the police’s consideration of criminal charges; I must be very careful not to say anything in detail about either of those. I understand the position that he is coming from and will seek to read the relevant article to which he referred.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his clarification on a number of issues so far. I seek responses to two issues that I think would benefit from further clarification.

First, there is a single sentence on page 4 of the Statement that says:

“Remediation work has started on two-thirds of buildings in the social housing sector”.


By implication, remediation work has not started on one-third of buildings in the social housing sector. Is the Minister in a position to explain why that is the case? Is there a list in the department as to which blocks we are talking about and which local authorities we are talking about, and why that remediation work has not yet started? What is the timescale for starting going to be, and what is the timescale for completion of that remediation work? The Minister may not be able to respond to all that today—to do so in a letter later would be fine—but is it possible to define what remediation work actually is? It is one thing to strip off cladding, which is dangerous, but replacing it with suitable cladding which is warm and will reduce people’s energy bills is clearly important. So I am not quite clear what remediation actually means.

Secondly, and very briefly, we have a date for the publication of the social housing Green Paper, which will be “by recess”. It would be helpful to the House if we knew when a debate would take place on the Green Paper. I hope that it will not just be the case of the Green Paper being published and then going out to consultation and the House itself not having the opportunity to debate it. I hope that, rather, time is allowed for a full debate on that Green Paper, because we have been waiting for it for many months.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I thank the noble Lord very much indeed for that and shall seek to deal with the points that he has raised. On remediation, I do not disagree with him on the importance of ensuring that any appropriate measures take account of the need for proper insulation and ensuring that we meet our climate change targets, and so on—but the most important thing here is the target of ensuring that people are safe. That is the remediation that we are talking about. That work in relation to the public sector has started on two-thirds of buildings. In relation to the other third, interim measures will be in place; for example, 24/7 security workers will be there to ensure that fire wardens are there.

I shall seek to cover the point on the timescale in a letter, if I may, with some more detail that the noble Lord asked for. One reason why the work might not have started on one-third of the buildings is that it may displace tenants—so full account must be taken of that. Suffice it to say, appropriate interim measures will be agreed with fire and rescue authorities in relation to those that have not had work started on them yet.

The noble Lord asked for a debate on the social housing Green Paper, and I hope that we can accommodate that. Of course, there are means available to the Liberal Democrats and others, too, and I am sure that somehow we will make sure that there is proper consideration of this important Green Paper. One reason for the delay to which the noble Lord refers is that we were very keen to talk to people, through Grenfell United and others in the community, to learn about particular points that they may feel needed addressing in relation to the social sector—points that have been made in relation to dealing with complaints, and so on, that arise. That is one reason that it was felt appropriate to take that into account in working through the Green Paper.