Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Marco Longhi and Fleur Anderson

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab) [V]]

I am speaking in utter frustration, having heard many of the comments so far in the debate today, I am speaking in support of the amendments tabled by the Opposition and by the hon. Members for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith), and I am speaking on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of leaseholders, including in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, who are staring down the barrel of this scandal. And I thank the cladding action campaigners across the country.

I welcome the Bill, but it is too small and too slow. There is frustration across the House of Commons today. We can do this right and do it faster, and we must. Today, we had another statement of support for leaseholders from the Minister, who said that he agrees with the intent to give leaseholders peace of mind and financial certainty, yet the Government did not write that into the Bill and are not supporting the amendments. No leaseholders of buildings of any height should be made to foot a bill of thousands of pounds that they cannot afford.

At the sharp end of the failings of this Bill are millions of leaseholders trapped in unsafe homes who are suffering enormous stress, anxiety and emotional anguish, and who feel totally abandoned. I have met many of them in my constituency. Their lives are on pause and might be for years. This is what some have told me. One said:

“As every day, week or month goes by, our financial liability and stability become ever more disturbing and deeply troubling. When will it end?

Another resident, who bought her flat using money inherited from her mother’s passing, said to me:

“Despite my emotional attachment to my flat, current circumstances make me almost wish that I had never bought it. It is a burden and a hindrance to me moving forward with the next stage of my life, at a prime time when I want to start a family.”

Another resident, a victim of domestic violence, has been trying to sell her property to raise money for legal fees. She has had to receive food parcels due to lost income during the pandemic. Her insurance premiums have now increased by 500%. Under no circumstances should leaseholders, regardless of the height of their building, have to pay for cladding remediation costs that are the fault of developers and a failed regulatory system. Funding should be based on fire risk, not on height. It should include upfront costs—it should not be loans—for all leaseholders and it should include other fire safety issues. Some Putney leaseholders face up to £100,000 in charges.

At the current pace of spend, the building safety fund, which has only approved 12 applications, will only approve all the applications—the 532 applications—by 2031. The pace of change is far too slow, so I urge colleagues on both sides of the House: please do the right thing today, back the British people and make sure that lease- holders do not pay.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con) [V]]

One of the lessons from the Grenfell tragedy was that a number of companies in the construction sector had been recklessly gaming the system, resulting in unsafe materials being used. But crucially, construction and post-occupancy inspections did not pick up those risks.

As someone who worked in oil and gas and then in construction over several years, I can see the very different approach taken by the two sectors. Many of our constituents who live in leasehold flats face significant costs, such as waking watch costs and several other fire risk liabilities not related to cladding. The new £30 million waking watch relief fund, the £1.6 billion remediation funding and the commitment to recruit hundreds of specialist risk assessors and specialist workers show that this Government are committed to resolving the problem and to supporting people stranded in their property through no fault of their own.

I wish to raise issues brought to me by a constituent. At present, buildings over 18 metres will have all cladding remedial work paid for by the Government. Those in buildings between 11 metres and 18 metres will be offered a loan, with residents in buildings lower than 11 metres receiving no financial support at all, the latter being the situation my constituent’s daughter finds herself in. Although it is right to target remediation first at highest-risk buildings, there is a question of fairness as to who pays if a person happens to have purchased a building that is not as tall.

In addition to the removal of cladding, inspections have highlighted further building faults, such as missing firebreaks, wooden balconies and combustible insulation. The repair costs alone could be in excess of £25,000 per flat. There is no provision for support with these repairs, which will be required before a fire safety certificate can be issued, allowing the resident to eventually sell their home. They would not have been privy to these liabilities as the conveyancing process would not have highlighted the possibility of these risks existing at point of purchase. Risk awareness at the conveyancing stage is something that I raised in my ten-minute rule Bill.

Fire safety officers should not only be competent by the certifications that they hold; they should be present and responsible for sign-off on site at all key stages. While the amendments before us were tabled with good intentions, we cannot delay the Bill any longer. I hope that Ministers will consider a post-construction and occupancy model for fire safety, much as gas and electrical checks are carried out, to pick up on changes to the fabric of a building that could be made over time.