Voter Identification

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why we are focusing on making sure that people are aware of this change and vote in a way that reflects the change so that May is successful. There is a huge amount of work to do to secure the integrity of the ballot box for the long term.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

The Government were warned that their voter ID scheme would disenfranchise many people, and specifically disabled people. The Royal National Institute of Blind People’s tracker survey found that 13% of blind and partially sighted people have no photographic ID. We know that not much additional resource is going into local authorities, so would it not make sense for the Government to invest significantly in making voting accessible and inclusive for everybody, including blind and partially sighted people?

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Lady takes a keen interest in this area, and she will be aware that we are making changes to encourage blind and partially sighted people to get more involved in the electoral process and at the ballot box in May, which is one of the reasons I met the Royal National Institute of Blind People on 8 February. I will continue to meet all organisations representing these areas to ensure that this works as well as it is able to in May.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Felicity Buchan]

We are committed to legislating for a decent homes standard, which is critical. I agree that enforcement is terribly important, which is why we have strengthened councils’ enforcement powers, including through penalties of up to £30,000.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

Awaab Ishak’s death was shocking, and such things should not be happening in our country in 2022. Everybody deserves a warm, safe and decent home to live in. His case shows what happens when people living in social housing are disregarded, as has been the case in my constituency after decades of Conservative control of Wandsworth Borough Council, which has allowed social housing stock to go into decay. What is the Secretary of State’s Department doing to assist investment in social housing?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady raises an important issue. I should say that Wandsworth under Conservative leadership was an outstanding and exemplary council in so many ways, but I understand that she has to make that point—the constituency Labour parties have to be kept happy and so on. The key thing is that all local authorities have an obligation, as do all registered social landlords, and we want to work with them to tackle the issue that she rightly raised.

Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [Lords]

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

As ever, my hon. Friend is 100% spot-on. Even before the Grenfell tragedy, it was clear that the way in which tenants were being treated in social housing in far too many cases, and—it pains me to say this—particularly in Kensington, was simply not good enough. We have vivid documentary evidence of the fact that the tenant management organisation that was responsible for the refurbishment of Grenfell simply did not listen to tenants and behaved in a high-handed fashion. Their safety was not given the importance it deserved. A number of residents, including Ed Daffarn of Grenfell United, a survivor of that night, were very clear about the risks that were being run, but they were not listened to. One of the most powerful lessons of the tragedy is the need for us to ensure that social housing tenants feel that their voice is being heard. As my hon. Friend for Walsall North said, any high-handed and aloof behaviour exhibited by some towards people who are the most deserving of our protection should end, and I hope that it will.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome the Secretary of State back to his position. May I return briefly to the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) about personal evacuation plans for disabled people? As the Secretary of State knows, the Home Office did not expect that recommendation. Is it his view that those plans should be in place for disabled people living in high-rise blocks?

[Michael Gove]

We do need to look again at the position. I have to be careful because the Home Office is a separate Department and I am not the Secretary of State there, but I do know that the new Home Secretary and the new Minister responsible for fire safety appreciate and understand the need to look closely at the concerns that tenants expressed on the previous position. I have to say that the previous position was taken in good faith, but we need to pay attention to the concerns expressed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi). I think all hon. Members on both sides of the House would agree that everybody should have a home that is safe, warm, of a decent standard and genuinely affordable, yet we know that many people live in homes that are not safe and certainly fall way short of even the Government’s decent homes standard.

Years of funding cuts to local authority budgets, as well as the four years during which the Government imposed a 1% social rent cut on local authorities, have inevitably taken their toll. The pandemic also hit housing revenue accounts hard, which has led to a huge issue in relation to the standard of social housing, but it is fair to say that the standard of most social homes was falling long before the pandemic—it has been going on for years.

In my constituency, housing and housing repair make up my biggest casework issue—every month, when I do my reports, it is always housing repair—and the same housing associations are always in question. More than 5,000 properties in my constituency are managed by housing associations. Many constituents raise issues about the standard of housing and about the poor customer service. Tenants are being made to feel that they should be grateful to have a home, and that the poor, substandard conditions and the management of those homes are not things that they have any right to question or even complain about. If this Bill goes some way to alleviate the challenges that they face, that can only be a good thing, because those challenges have had a devastating effect on tenants’ mental health and wellbeing.

One constituent has spent more than two years trying to get repairs to his home. He has been making complaints, but there has been no resolution, so he has had to live with a hole in his kitchen ceiling since January 2020. It really should not have taken an intervention from me to have that rectified. It should never be down to our offices, which can make things happen, to ensure that social housing providers fix the problems that their tenants face. Providers have a duty to ensure that the housing that they provide is of a decent standard because, as all hon. Members would agree, people do not live in those homes rent free; they pay rent and, in many cases, service charges.

The Grenfell fire made us all aware of the consequences of inaction when people living in social housing are disregarded and their complaints are consistently ignored. Such a tragedy should never have happened in our country in 2017—the year that I was elected. I pay tribute to Grenfell United and all the bereaved families and survivors of that tragic event. The Government promised justice and committed to ensuring that Grenfell would never happen again, but more than five years on from that tragedy, they have still not secured justice and no one has really been held responsible for what happened.

Many people, including my constituents, still live in unsafe homes that are not fit for habitation. It is right that we are debating the Bill, but it is long overdue, because the Government have failed in that. The Government’s Green Paper on a new deal was published in 2018—four years ago—so we are still going very slowly, at a snail’s pace.

The Bill is very important and should have been introduced earlier. If we want to deliver transformational change for social housing tenants, improve the quality of housing and ensure better regulation of the sector, the Bill needs to be improved. I am pleased that will happen in Committee, but I want to make a few points about the Bill as it stands.

There is nothing in the Bill to address the low levels of supply of social homes. There are thousands of people on the waiting list in Battersea. The reality is that for 12 years the Tories have not only failed to build social homes, but overseen the loss of homes at an unprecedented scale. Between 2010 and 2021, more than 134,000 homes for social rent were either sold or demolished, without any direct replacement. On average, that is a net loss of over 12,000 genuinely affordable homes every year, which is scandalous.

As has been said, it is over five years since the Grenfell fire. The Bill is too late for those people, and that is why I want the Minister to provide commitments on the timings for introducing the necessary regulations to ensure that the measures are enforced. Although the sector could act in response to the Bill’s changes, the Government should not and cannot rely on good will alone.

I mentioned earlier the issue of customer service, which many of my constituents continue to raise with me. Baroness Hayman was right when she said in the other place that

“housing management is no more complex than other professions that have legal requirements for training and development”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 October 2022; Vol. 824, c. 1032.]

The Bill as amended in the other place still does not guarantee that staff will be appropriately qualified or engaged in training and development so that they can provide the best level of service. Why will the Government not commit to ensuring that all staff are properly trained?

The regulator’s inspections, which we all welcome, are a vital part of the Bill, and they must deliver the change that tenants so desperately need. They are the main way to check that providers are abiding by the law and responding to concerns. Although I welcome the amendment agreed in the other place, I believe that more information is needed on how the regulator will conduct routine inspections on all its landlords to ensure that consumer standards are always met. Will the Minister give more detail on how the new inspections regime will actually work and be delivered? I would also like her to commit to sufficient new resources, because this will only work if investment is made and resources allocated to allow the regulator to effectively perform its inspector role and any other new duties that may arise as a result of this Bill. The Secretary of State talked about fire safety. I would like the regulator’s remit to be expanded to make sure that it will monitor building and fire safety.

As I have said, there are a lot of good things in the Bill and it is welcome, but it needs to be improved. It is a shame that it has taken so long, but we are where we are and I hope that, as the Bill continues its passage through the House, it can be improved in many ways to ensure that tenants, regardless of whether they are in social housing or the private rented sector, are at the heart of it, because they are the ones who really matter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Well, he is holding the Scottish Government to account. Nobody else is doing it.

I had the opportunity to appear in front of Mr Ken Gibson a few months ago—what a pleasure it was. The Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government are our partners in making sure that we can make levelling up a success. An example of that is the fact that the Cabinet Secretary whose letter the hon. Lady so elegantly holds has been working with the UK Government to deliver two new freeports in Scotland that would not have been possible if we were still in the European Union. I am glad to see the Scottish Government embracing one of the benefits of Brexit.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

5. If he will impose a legally binding deadline for remediation works on tower blocks in England that are deemed unsafe as a result of (a) cladding and (b) other associated fire risks.

[The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)]

The Government are providing funds to remediate unsafe cladding in buildings above 11 metres and have secured unprecedented pledges from developers to fix the buildings they constructed. Today, I have written an open letter to all building owners of properties with critical building safety defects to remind them that we have taken powers, through the Building Safety Act 2022, to compel them to fund and undertake the necessary work to make all buildings safe.

[Marsha De Cordova]

We still have no legal deadline in place to fix cladding and fire safety issues and no justice for Grenfell, and thousands of buildings, including in my constituency, are still unsafe. The Government have been dodging their responsibilities for more than the past five years. In January, the Secretary of State said that leaseholders are “blameless” and that it would be “morally wrong” for them to pay. Why, then, does he think it is fair for so many leaseholders, including in my Battersea constituency, to potentially have to pay £15,000 for non-cladding costs to correct problems that they did not cause?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes a number of important points. It is fair to say, and most people in the House would acknowledge, that, although progress over the past five years has not been everything that it should be, in recent months we have succeeded in securing commitments from developers to remediate the buildings for which they are responsible. With the publication of the open letter today and the passing of the Building Safety Act, a requirement has been placed on freeholders to pay for the work that is required. We have a cap on the commitments that any leaseholder has to enter into and that cap is consistent with the precedent in Florrie’s law. I look forward to working with the hon. Lady, as an assiduous constituency Member of Parliament, to make sure that those whom she serves are relieved of any obligation beyond that which is fair to ensure that their buildings are safe.

Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Buck]

I thank my hon. Friend and agree very strongly with her.

That gathering of parliamentarians, which is not on the parliamentary record, was very intense indeed. We pressed Ministers very hard for answers. In addition to the obvious shock that everybody was still feeling, there was an absolutely overwhelming demand for urgency not only in response to the catastrophe that happened in north Kensington but in relation to the wider lessons, which I will come to in a moment.

In the days that followed, including the day on which we gathered, it became immediately obvious that there was a failure of epic proportions on the part of the state, and particularly the local council in Kensington, and those of us who went to the Grenfell area to offer support in the immediate aftermath could see that. During that parliamentary debate, I asked what we were going to do, immediately and urgently, to deal with the homelessness crisis faced by hundreds of people. That quickly became a larger number, because over the following days there was an evacuation of residents from the Lancaster West estate surrounding Grenfell Tower. Having been the Member of Parliament for that area, I knew well the sheer scale of the homelessness diaspora resulting from Kensington council’s behaviour, and indeed of the wider homelessness problems in London.

In the immediate aftermath of the fire, people were sleeping rough. How was that allowed to happen? We discussed the issue, yet it was allowed to happen. It is important that we remember that five years on, because the way in which the institutions of the state failed the survivors, the relatives and the wider community set a tone for the whole of the following five years. Understandably, that fed into a deep and profound sense that they could not rely on the institutions of the state to offer them support and justice. One of the things that we have to do today is recognise that epic failure and collectively apologise for it. I am ashamed. Anybody who went down to north Kensington over those following days could not believe their eyes in seeing a failure on that scale.

Homelessness was one of the first issues raised, but it took months—it took years—for the housing needs of Grenfell survivors, relatives and the community to be dealt with, even though they were recognised within hours of the fire. The second immediate issue raised in Parliament on that day was the need for justice—the need for those responsible to be held to account for what had happened. We did not immediately know exactly who was responsible—which components of the system, from building design and maintenance to the emergency response—but people knew that there was a need for justice.

I do not think anybody would now say that the passage of five years means that justice has been served. That is not in any way a criticism of the inquiry, which has been profoundly rigorous in going about its work, but justice delayed is justice denied. Five years is far too long for the community to wait for justice. Urgency was the prevailing tone in the immediate aftermath of the fire, but five years on, the promise of urgency and the commitment to urgency have been denied. The community has been let down profoundly as a consequence.

Building safety has been a dominant theme in Parliament in the intervening five years, but we need to reflect again on emergency planning. The fact that it failed so catastrophically in Kensington tells us something quite profound, which we continue to raise in other contexts: there is an institutional belief that these kinds of things cannot happen here. There is a complacency about risks that should have been shattered comprehensively, forever, by what happened five years ago, but it has not. Again and again, we see the expectation that we should drive towards a deregulatory approach to services and a de minimis public sector, even though the capacity of the public sector, which failed so badly on that day, is so essential to ensuring that such things cannot happen again.

Within days and weeks of Grenfell, it became quickly apparent that hundreds of thousands of people across the country were living in buildings where such things could happen again—in some cases, they still are. That possibility has dominated our discussions in this Chamber. Ten days after Grenfell, I had to attend a meeting of desperate and frightened residents of a six-block, 22-storey estate in north Westminster that overlooked Grenfell Tower and had been covered with the same form of cladding. In many ways, they have been the fortunate ones: they went through terminal upheaval as the cladding was removed over the following winter. However, 10,000 buildings continue to be covered with some form of cladding. The people in them live with that risk. In many cases, they also live with the reality that they face financial ruin and are trapped, unable to move.

I completely recognise that the Government have taken some steps in their legislative programme to implement proposals on fire safety and building safety, but so little has been done compared with what is needed.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I have been in this place for only five years; the Grenfell fire and its aftermath have been a defining part of my term. A number of buildings in my constituency are still wrapped in unsafe cladding. Despite many years of promises that leaseholders would never have to foot the bill for fire safety and remediation work, and despite the Fire Safety Act and the Building Safety Act, leaseholders are still being burdened with thousands of pounds of debt to pay for all the fire safety and remediation work to be completed.

[Ms Buck]

I totally agree. So many people still live with the fear, the risk and the stress of having to contribute financially. As we have said again and again, so many of the people who bear the burden of cost and risk are the very last people in the chain of responsibility to have had anything to do with the circumstances in which they are trapped.

Five years on, as the inquiry continues its work, the Home Office’s decision not to implement the inquiry’s recommendation

“that the owner…of every high-rise residential building be required…to prepare personal emergency evacuation plans”

sends out the worst possible signal, particularly to survivors and to the north Kensington community, who are looking to the inquiry for answers on the long road to justice.

This is the fifth anniversary of an avoidable tragedy of epic proportions—a tale of corporate malfeasance, incompetence, indifference and institutional inertia, even after the Lakanal House fire had given us all the signals that Government action was needed. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East, I pay tribute to Peter Apps and Inside Housing for years of painstaking work in following the inquiry, reporting on it and giving us the information that we need to follow what would otherwise be a very complex story.

The chains of reporting by Peter Apps make salutary reading for every Member of this House, because they lay so bare what has gone wrong. For example, contractors and developers knew that the cladding system would fail. As Peter Apps has reported:

“In an email exchange…designers of the tower’s cladding system wrote: ‘There is no point in “fire stopping”. As we all know; the ACM will be gone rather quickly in a fire!’”

It is worth reading the dozens of reports that have been put on record in the inquiry, which give us revelations of that kind.

Five years on, I pay tribute to the survivors, the relatives, their representatives, the mosques, the churches, the community and Grenfell United, who have done such extraordinary work, in the aftermath of this tragedy, to hold the community together and support people, their dignity and their campaign for justice. But five years on, there is not yet justice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter]

Most of these buildings are in the planning process, and some have been withdrawn and resubmitted, as I hope is the case with this one. Fifty-five storeys and a single staircase is the proposal as things stand. There are many other examples across west London and the country, not necessarily of that height but 40, 30 or even 20 storeys. Grenfell Tower had 24 storeys, so we are talking about buildings of more than twice that size.

[Marsha De Cordova]

My hon. Friend alluded to the number of disabled people in Grenfell Tower. If the recommendation on personal emergency evacuation plans is not implemented, and the Government have chosen to reject it, what impact will it have on the many disabled people living in high-rise buildings? What trust and confidence does it give them if their Government are choosing to reject such an important recommendation to ensure they are safe and secure in their homes? The Government are saying these people’s lives do not matter by saying they do not need personal emergency evacuation plans.

[Andy Slaughter]

I could not agree more. The truth is that the Government have put it in the “too difficult” column, along with other things. It is not that they have an argument for why they do not need such plans; it is because they are saying, “Well, it will be too difficult, too expensive or take too much time, and we have other things to do.” That is extraordinary. I have long-term concerns about disabled people, or indeed young families, living in high-rise blocks, which are unsuitable accommodation. There is a much wider debate about the type of housing we build in this country, but this issue seems to be glaringly obvious.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

It has always been the NPPF’s function to have those national policies, which have been agreed and which ensure that plans are in conformity with what this House wills our overall planning system to be. It is no more than a more efficient way to make sure that the existing NPPF and any future revisions of it are included in local plans.

Another reason why we sometimes see opposition to development is infrastructure. One of the critical challenges that we must all face when we contemplate whether new development should occur is the pressure that is inevitably placed on GP surgeries, schools, roads and our wider environment. That is why the Bill makes provision for a new infrastructure levy, which will place an inescapable obligation on developers to ensure that they make contributions that local people can use to ensure that they have the services that they need to strengthen the communities that they love.

Of course, section 106 will still be there for some major developments, but one of the problems with section 106 agreements is that there is often an inequality of arms between the major developers and local authorities. We also sometimes have major developers that, even after a section 106 has been agreed—even after, for example, commitments for affordable housing and other infra- structure have been agreed—subsequently retreat from those obligations, pleading viability or other excuses. We will be taking steps to ensure that those major developers, which profit so handsomely when planning permission is granted, make their own contribution.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

On the issue of viability that the Secretary of State has just raised, how does the Bill seek to prevent developers from going back and using viability as an angle to, say, reduce the number of affordable homes that they are expected to build in any new development?

[Michael Gove]

The reason for the infrastructure levy is that it ensures a local authority can set, as a fixed percentage of the land value uplift, a sum that it can use—we will consult on exactly what provisions there should be alongside that sum—to ensure that a fixed proportion of affordable housing can be created. The hon. Lady is quite right to say that there are some developers that plead viability to evade the obligations that they should properly discharge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I start by putting on record my thanks to the brilliant London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, who has been delivering for Londoners across the city. We have all seen it, and we can all witness and attest to it.

Today’s Second Reading debate leaves me concerned about whether the Bill will seriously tackle structural wrongs—the Government do not have a good track record of fighting inequalities—and whether the Government can be trusted to deliver. I will focus my comments on levelling up and the proud city of London, and on affordable housing and good infrastructure. The Government claim that they want to reverse geographical inequalities by spreading opportunity more equally through economic, social and environmental measures, but levelling up is as important in London as it is to other regions, because data and evidence show that the economic fortunes of London and other regions are strongly correlated. We all know that when London thrives, the country thrives.

In my constituency of Battersea, we have great affluence and wealth alongside pockets of deprivation. That is reflected in the fact that London is one of the most unequal regions. The cost of living disproportionately impacts people living in London, with inflation and unemployment higher than the national average. That is why I am very proud of the new Labour administration in Wandsworth for declaring that it will pay all council workers the London living wage.

Given all the issues in London, I am concerned about the impact on the city of the provisions in the Bill, such as the national development management policies, which could scale back devolved powers in London. That will hinder all the positive actions and the progress that the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has made through building more genuinely affordable homes and good quality infrastructure.

That brings me on to housing and infrastructure, and I worry about the ambiguity and lack of detail in the Bill in relation to housing, given the Conservatives’ unhealthy reliance on donations from developers. We know that in 2020, the Tories received £11 million in donations. As one of my colleagues has said, the Tories’ relationship with developers is an example of the political elite working at the behest of private interests.

I know about the negative consequences of such close relationships, because the former Conservative-led Wandsworth Borough Council allowed developers to reduce their affordable housing rate in Nine Elms to just 9%, when it really should have been around 33% to 44%. We all know that that affordable housing requirement is a scandal, and we know about the problematic changes in the definition of affordable. It was the former Mayor of London, the now Prime Minister, who changed the definition in 2011 to 80% of market rates, when it had been set at 50%. It is a shame that the Bill does not seek to address that.

[Beth Winter]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill is seriously lacking on the question of affordability, and that when we look at the levels of homelessness in our country, including on our streets in London, we can see that serious amendments to the Bill are needed to address the urgent housing crisis?

[Marsha De Cordova]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. If we are not committed to building genuinely affordable homes, how are we going to house people? That is why I am really proud that the Wandsworth Labour administration has committed to building 1,000 affordable and social homes. That is what progress looks like.

It is crucial that the Bill does not prioritise developments or developers over people. The proposed infrastructure levy will be successful only if it delivers genuinely affordable homes. The Bill does not really address the issues around what the Government proposed on the right to acquire for affordable housing. When will the Government bring forward legislation to address the issue around the right to acquire? The infrastructure levy will be paid not up front, but on completion, so how will that alleviate any of the pressures on local authorities to build more homes? That will need addressing.

The Bill is thin on detail and I worry that it will leave us with some of the same problems. It is essential that the Government take all the necessary steps to ensure that the Bill challenges and alleviates the pressures around affordable housing and the infrastructure levy, and that it addresses some of the challenges that developers are imposing on our communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Andrew]

I hope my hon. Friend saw the enthusiastic nodding on the Front Bench, which will give him the reassurance he seeks.

The Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill represents a major milestone in our journey towards building a stronger, fairer and more united country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) said, it is for all parts of the country. It confers on local leaders a suite of powers to regenerate our high streets, towns and cities, and gives them unprecedented freedoms to build the homes and infrastructure that communities want and need, following all the BIDEN principles—that is, the Secretary of State’s, not the President of the United States. I also take on board the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston) about the environmental standards of homes. I hope to do some more work on that in the coming weeks.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I thank the Minister for giving way. He has not responded to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) about publishing an impact assessment. Will he confirm that one will be published, and will he let us know when?

[Stuart Andrew]

Yes, there will be, and it will come at the second stage of Committee.

Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for his common-sense perspective, which I completely share.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

My constituency has a proud record of welcoming refugees. Of the families who require settlement here, there will be some with an adult or a child with a disability who will have specific needs and require specific support. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether specialist support will be available—his statement did not allude to that—and whether there will be additional funding for it?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point. I know what a passionate and effective spokesperson she is for those living with disabilities. Absolutely, we will work with local government to ensure support is there for women, children and others fleeing persecution, many of whom will be living with disabilities and will need additional support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

1. What steps he is taking to protect leaseholders from the costs of fire safety remediation.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

15. What steps he is taking to protect leaseholders from the costs of fire safety remediation.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

17. What steps he is taking to protect leaseholders from the costs of fire safety remediation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

As the hon. Lady rightly points out, leaseholders find themselves caught in an invidious vice, whereby they are not only having to pay remediation costs, but also find that insurance costs and the capacity to sell on their flat are compromised by the situation in which we find ourselves. Making sure that individuals are in safe buildings is our first responsibility, and to do that we must make sure that the building safety fund pays out and that we get support for remediation from those in the private sector, who also have a share of responsibility. I hope to update the House on our plans shortly.

[Marsha De Cordova]

Leaseholders in Battersea should not be held responsible for paying for remediation works when their homes were sold to them with the assurance that they were safe. Due to the poorly regulated EWS1 assessments, there have been cases where homes were being awarded a B2 classification—the lowest category—leaving leaseholders expected to pay for the repairs. In one case, leaseholders in Battersea challenged that, providing evidence proving that the building was of A2 classification. What action is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that leaseholders are protected from erroneous EWS1 assessment outcomes and that the process is not a barrier to selling or remortgaging, including properties below 18 metres?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady’s question emphasises the complexity of the issue, but that is no reason not to take action to help her constituents and others. One of the principal concerns that I know many leaseholders have is that lenders will require the EWS1 form. The EWS1 form is a consequence of previous Government acts and decisions made by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and others. We need to ensure co-ordinated action across the piece to ensure we are in a stronger position to free people from the position in which they currently find themselves.

Leaseholders and Cladding

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) on securing what is clearly an incredibly important debate. We could spend many hours talking about leaseholders and cladding, which reflects the scale of the problem right across the country.

As right hon. and hon. Members would expect, I spend quite a lot of time talking to leaseholders, whether through the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold reform, the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership or the UK Cladding Action Group. I have had the privilege of talking to many of them about some of the issues they face. As has been articulated so well, these are lives that have been turned upside down completely due to issues for which they bear no fault. What they bear is the cost, anxiety and stress. Their lives are on hold, and it is incredibly upsetting for everyone who has been involved.

It has been nearly a thousand days since the Grenfell Tower fire, and since then we have had two Prime Ministers, three Secretaries of State and four Housing Ministers—everything but a partridge in a pear tree. We might have another reshuffle tomorrow. Hopefully we will not, because we want the Ministers and the Secretary of State to stay and fix some of the problems.

Most of the issues have been explained well in the debate, so I will focus on some particular questions to the Minister. If she does not have time to answer them all today, it would be great if she could write back to us. My first point is about the remediation of ACM cladding, which has been talked about a lot. We know that nine in 10 private blocks with Grenfell-style cladding are still covered with such cladding.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

There are still several blocks with flammable ACM cladding. My constituents at Sesame Apartments in Battersea are still living in a building that is wrapped in unsafe cladding. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister should give us some definitive deadlines for when those private blocks will be made safe?

[Sarah Jones]

I completely agree.

We know that 75 private block owners do not even have a plan in place to remove this cladding. Will the Minister confirm that, as the Secretary of State promised on 20 January, the Government will name all block owners who fail to put a plan in place by the end of January? Will she publish those names in tomorrow’s building safety update?

The Government’s £200 million fund for ACM removal on private blocks is nine months old, yet just a single block has so far been accepted for funds, and none has been made safe as a result of the fund. Labour has for years called on the Government to legislate to ensure that building owners cannot pass costs on to innocent leaseholders. Even with the £200 million fund, leaseholders are still exposed to risk, because state aid rules mean that fund payments are capped at €200,000 per property.

As the Mayor of London and the National Housing Federation said, the fact that the fund covers only ACM cladding creates a two-tier system. Will the Minister explain what protections she is putting in place to ensure that leaseholders are not handed the bill in the event that remediation costs exceed the state aid cap? What is she doing to protect leaseholds in blocks with other forms of dangerous cladding from being unfairly passed those costs?

Research from Labour revealed last year that up to 600,000 people are now stuck in unsellable flats because of flawed Government guidance relating to advice note 14, which is compounded by the failure to publish the Government’s tests into suspect non-ACM cladding. In recent weeks, new advice has been issued, and a new form from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors—the EWS1 form—for buildings whose cladding status is uncertain. In spite of those changes, in the past few days I, like others, have dealt with constituents who have been able to complete their sale. One constituent is facing major delays and bills over the work that she has been told needs to be done. Will the Minister give some clarity on how many sales are still being held up, how many EWS1 forms have successfully been signed off, and what the Government are doing to ensure that leaseholders are not being ripped off for those forms?

Interim measures such as waking watch, which other hon. Members have mentioned, were put in place after Grenfell as a very temporary measure before remediation works were undertaken. However, nearly 1,000 days on, leaseholders are still paying exorbitant costs—thousands of pounds per year—as a direct consequence of the Government’s failure to hold building owners to account and make their blocks safe. What plans does the Minister have to ensure that leaseholders who cannot afford to continue paying the costs are supported?

On non-ACM and data collection, ACM is the tip of the iceberg. High-pressure laminate and other forms of cladding are just as dangerous and should be removed. However, two years on, Ministers have failed to audit residential blocks, so we still do not know how many blocks are covered in HPL or other types of potentially lethal cladding. Ministers promised that that work would be completed by March this year, but an Inside Housing investigation report revealed that 70% of blocks remain uninspected, meaning that it is virtually impossible to reach that deadline. It is ridiculous that the Government have often shifted their deadline on publication of the non-ACM test results. Will the Minister today commit to a date for the publication of the tests, or explain to us the reason for the delay?

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. We need more time to discuss the matter—this is only a 90-minute debate—and the number of hon. Members who are here shows that. Not only should we have that debate, but we should come together to raise those points and work in a constructive fashion. The hon. Lady is quite right; 90 minutes is not long enough. We also need to, and we will, write back to the hon. Members present, because I cannot give a comprehensive response to everybody in the time that I have.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I take the Minister’s point about ensuring that we all get to express ourselves so she can hear our concerns. It is glaringly obvious from much of the engagement that leaseholders do not believe that they are being listened to or heard by Ministers. Will the Minister commit to meeting leaseholders and some of my constituents so that she can hear at first hand their concerns about their homes being wrapped in unsafe cladding?

[Esther McVey]

The Department has met leaseholders, and we have received and replied to letters from leaseholders. The hon. Lady is right: we have to have a bigger consultation and ensure that we meet leaseholders. Yesterday, Lord Younger met a group, some of whom are in the Public Gallery. It is imperative that we hear from the people who are most affected, and I absolutely agree that we should.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 1 Report

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

That will depend on the exact legal relationship in the building in question, and I am very happy to work with the hon. Lady to help investigate that. It is the responsibility of building owners to take action and, as she rightly mentions, many have for various reasons passed that on to leaseholders. I am acutely aware, as I said in the House yesterday, that some leaseholders feel trapped and unable to fund the mediation works that now need to happen, and that costs should not be a bar to that. As I said yesterday, we are now working with the Treasury to see if there are ways of providing financing to support those individuals.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for being generous with his time. On that very point, he mentions having conversations with the Treasury to look at different options—he said this in his statement yesterday—but is there any set timeline for the conversations that he will have with the Treasury on this point? I ask, because leaseholders have been in this position for two years and seven months, so the sooner we can resolve how to support them so that they do not to have to front the costs of any remediation works, the better. What is the timeline that he has with the Treasury to ensure that this can be sped up, because it has been over two years?

[Robert Jenrick]

I cannot give the hon. Lady an exact timetable, but it is worth saying that we have already—I will come on to this in my remarks—made available £600 million for building owners in both the social sector and the private sector. On expert advice, I have targeted that public grant funding towards ACM-clad buildings of over 18 metres. I will say again that all of the expert opinion I have seen has confirmed the decision that those are the most unsafe buildings and that they should be the priority for public funding. A number of building owners are already helping to remove cladding in their own buildings, and coming up with funding arrangements to help leaseholders to meet those costs, such as low-cost or zero-interest loan schemes. If the Government can assist in that, I think we should do so, because we want to see this cladding removed as soon as possible.