Building Safety and Resilience

Debate between Matt Rodda and Judith Cummins

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)]

May I also pay tribute to the Grenfell families at this very difficult time, following the recently published report? My thoughts are also with the families of those affected by the fires in Slough and east London.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) and others for their excellent maiden speeches today. I thank the Minister for her explanation of Government policy, and for the reassurance that she has given us. The issue of building and fire safety is important to Reading residents, so I will mention a few local matters and ask the Minister few brief questions.

In the years since Grenfell, I have been constantly reminded and aware of the awful briefing that I had from Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service immediately after the tragedy. It was sobering and will stay with me for many, many years. I was told of the scale of the problem in our county, not just in Reading but in other towns such as Slough, Wokingham and Bracknell. What I heard from the fire service about the scale of the problems that it was uncovering, and the serious threat to human life from building safety issues, was incredible.

To give the House some idea of the problems, which relate to cladding and other issues, the fire service explained that it had discovered holes in what should have been safe partition firewalls, and dangerous cladding in buildings across the county, and that it would take a very long time to carry out assessments across the whole of our county—just one English county—to fully understand the risk to residents, not just in taller buildings but, as hon. Members have mentioned, in lower-rise flats below the limit set for some of the measures. The service set out other problems, including wooden cladding, poorly designed fire doors and the need for waking watches. Incredible work followed on those issues over a number of years. It has taken a huge amount of work locally and, I am sure, across the country to tackle that awful legacy.

There have been significant delays in addressing many of the problems. Although they were uncovered some years ago, it took a long time to tackle them under the previous Government’s watch. In many cases, local residents were left waiting several years for remediation to privately owned or housing association blocks. I welcome the measures that the Minister outlined to speed up that work and continue to press forward.

Some issues were linked to local supply-chain problems. I thank the many responsible owners who took early action, including a number of housing associations, and indeed some responsible private owners, in my constituency. However, like other hon. Members, I have discovered continuing, often very serious, problems with some overseas owners and management companies. I have had some truly awful casework involving residents who have spoken in graphic terms about the pressure that they have been put under because of these issues. There were young couples who found it difficult to get to sleep at night because they knew that they were living in a block in which there was dangerous cladding. The overseas management company was not taking action to tackle it quickly enough. To make matters worse, they could not sell their property and had to live there, in some cases facing very high costs to remove the cladding. I welcome the Minister’s action on all those things, but I wish that the previous Government had sped up their measures to tackle this huge problem across the country.

I have questions for the Minister. I appreciate that other Members have yet to speak so I will be brief, but I want to hear more from her about action to tackle management companies based overseas, and how she plans to roll that out. I appreciate that might be difficult. I hope to hear more about the action that the Government will take to tackle manufacturers of dangerous cladding, though I realise that in many cases they are overseas companies.

I welcome the Minister’s action, and the vigour with which she has pursued this issue in a short period of time. I recognise her very genuine commitment, and know that this problem is serious in her constituency in inner London, too. I thank our new colleagues again for their excellent maiden speeches.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Peter Lamb to make his maiden speech.