Flats and Shared Housing: Fire Risk

Debate between Matt Rodda and Kate Green

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the fire risk in flats and shared housing.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I start by paying tribute to the Grenfell families. As I said in the House last week, it is difficult to imagine the suffering that they have been through. They deserve our respect and our support. I also pay tribute to those in the fire service, who protected local residents as best they could and with such dedication during the night of the tragedy, and to all those in the local community and beyond who have supported local people as the aftermath of the tragedy has unfolded across London and, indeed, across the country.

Today’s debate is an opportunity to discuss some of the many important issues that have arisen in the aftermath of the Grenfell disaster. I will focus my remarks on the following: cladding, of both aluminium composite material and other materials; fire doors and other fire safety matters; problems in flats under 11 metres tall, of which we have many in Reading and Woodley, in my constituency; and, above all, the need for a completely new approach to fire safety from central Government, the fire service, local government and, indeed, the construction industry, all of which have important parts to play. I urge the Minister, who is listening attentively and has offered her support, to urge her colleagues in Government to take determined action on the matter, which has been going on for too long.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. He has not specifically said that he will do so, but I hope that he touches on the concerns of leaseholders in such blocks, and how they are to meet the often very high costs of remediation. They cannot always access the block insurance that the developer has taken out in their name, or in the name of their managing agent. I hope that the Minister will address that point, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will touch on it.

[Matt Rodda]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes an excellent point. I will address that very issue, which is of great concern to many of the residents I represent and to many people across the country. I heard a very moving report on BBC radio over the weekend discussing the concerns of a young couple in Leeds who were living in a block with ACM cladding and who were deeply traumatised not only by the fire safety issues, but by the lack of amelioration of these serious problems. That links to insurance, and to the situation that leaseholders in such blocks face.

I find it simply staggering that two and a half years after the Grenfell disaster, the Government are still only beginning to address this terribly important issue. Little ACM cladding has been removed in that period. In my borough of Reading, four blocks were identified by Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service as having ACM cladding on the exterior. I believe that only one of them is in the process of having that cladding removed, and that represents a very serious continuing fire risk.

I have been advised that that risk may be getting worse because of the continued possibility of human error. Although additional fire safety measures have been instituted—such as waking watches, where fire wardens are on site during the night—as time goes by, there is a greater possibility that a resident or another person will accidentally do something that induces a fire risk, or that some other problem will cause an accident or a terrible tragedy. I have been advised by fire service personnel that with the passage of time, the risk of human error increases, so the fact that nothing has happened to address the issue in the past two and a half years is significant. The problem is ongoing, and it may be getting worse because of the lack of response from central Government.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) rightly pointed out, local residents who live in blocks with ACM cladding face significant stress and concern. The issue affects many of us around the country, because many towns and cities have blocks containing that dreadful material and very few buildings have had it removed. Many of the people affected are private tenants or leaseholders, who have little recourse to take any substantial action on their own. They are often locked into a situation where the freeholder has the power to remove the material but is struggling to do so. Alternatively, they may need to come together with other leaseholders, and it may be difficult in practical terms to agree a way forward. I urge the Government to address that issue in particular. I hope and believe that the Minister is very much in listening mode and will consider how best to push that forward immediately.

I will also pick up on some related concerns. ACM cladding has been mentioned in the Grenfell inquiry, the second part of which opened only yesterday. Without going into significant details, it is worth pointing out that from the opening day of the second phase of the inquiry, it appears that some businesses involved may have known about the potential fire safety risk of ACM cladding some time before the Grenfell disaster. That relates to the problem of current ACM cladding. Cross-party support for much tougher action appears to be emerging. I listened with interest to the comments of Lord Porter, the Conservative chairman of the Local Government Association and a Member of the other place, who rightly picked up on the Government’s lack of action on this important matter.

There are many other forms of cladding, and I will mention some concerns that have been raised with me about the wide range of other materials. In Reading, two buildings have other types of cladding that have caused fire safety concerns. One is the Chatham Place development—it is a series of large multi-storey blocks near the town centre—which has wooden cladding. Wooden cladding is a serious issue, which we need to address as well as ACM; indeed, it played a part in the recent fire in Barking, which was very nearly a complete tragedy. Luckily, residents managed to escape.

Serious concerns have been raised regarding other forms of composite material. Crossway Point, another large block in my constituency that contains a lot of social housing, has other forms of cladding that also need to be addressed urgently. Indeed, there was another fire in Bolton, in the north of England, from which students had a very lucky escape; the Minister is nodding wisely. I appreciate that colleagues in central Government are aware of the problems, but I ask them to act as fast as they can to deal with the wide range of cladding issues.