Fire Safety Bill

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

Of course, these are technical issues and many players have to be brought into the game together and aligned, but I do not want it to be another eight years before we get to a final resolution on these matters. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will be able to do that during his tenure of office. I will be very happy if that is a long time, but not as long as that. I urge him to give us some alternatives to the formulations brought forward in the debate and a sense of a real and pressing timeframe to have these matters resolved.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Of course, those of us on the Opposition side welcome the Bill and support the clarification to fire safety law that it brings. In the wake of the terrible Grenfell Tower tragedy, which will stay etched in our minds despite the passing of time, it is so important that building owners take responsibility for managing and reducing the risk of fire. A key element of that is to seek to clarify which parts of the burden are covered by those requirements and what the responsibilities are. So why does the Bill feel like such a missed opportunity? It is partly about the amount of time it has taken for us to get this point, as my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) outlined.

Back in October 2019, the Government pledged to implement the Grenfell inquiry’s recommendations in full and without delay, yet here we are with the thinnest of bills amounting to three clauses, ducking the main issues and failing to include even the simplest of recommendations such as inspections of fire doors and the testing of lifts. But it is also a bigger missed opportunity, precisely because the Government have failed to learn the lessons. Of those there are many, but I want to briefly focus on one.

Public Order

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She speaks with great passion on behalf of her constituents in highlighting the abhorrent and appalling attacks that our police officers and police animals have been subject to. First, the people who commit such attacks should all feel the full force of the law—there is no doubt about that—but we should also recognise that assaults on police officers have an intolerable impact on them as individuals. They are human beings; they are people too. They have family members and loved ones who worry about them when they leave home to go to work. That is why, as I have said previously, we will bring in legislation later this year on protecting our police and the police covenant to ensure that they have their rights upheld in statute.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

This weekend we saw neo-fascists and the far right marching on the streets of Britain. Now more than ever, we need a Government and a Home Office that can be trusted to tackle the racism and prejudice that still exists in British society, yet the lessons learned report on Windrush found that the Home Office displayed “ignorance and thoughtlessness” on issues of race, while the majority of the victims of that policy are still without compensation. Given that, can the Home Secretary tell me how people can be expected to trust the Home Office to adequately address racism in British society?

[Priti Patel]

I recall that when I came to the House I actually called out the Home Office for the “institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness” that was identified in the Wendy Williams lessons learned review. I have read that entire review, and I hope the hon. Lady has too. On her question about dealing with racism, I have made it my personal commitment to work with Wendy Williams to bring in many of the recommendations, and I will come to the Floor of the House, as I have said several times already, to talk about that further.

When it comes to compensation—I am sure the hon. Lady has already heard what I have had to say—every single case is treated in the right way: individually. These are all individuals who have experienced a great deal of suffering through dreadful treatment, yes by the Home Office but also by successive Governments. It is important that everybody in this House recognises that when it comes to compensation, every single person is a victim and every single person deserves the right kind of treatment, commitment and support so that they receive the right level of compensation.