Leaseholders and Cladding

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his contribution and for his ongoing interest in and commitment to this very important area of work. As I said earlier, we do not want leaseholders to carry the burden of these costs. That is why we are working with Michael Wade, who has a 40-odd-year history in the insurance market, to find innovative solutions to what is a very complicated problem. It is why we have also put aside a significant amount of public money in this financial year to remediate the buildings that are most at risk where the owners have no other means of paying.

My hon. Friend also asks about waking watch. We have published data on the costs of waking watch so that leaseholders are able to see the relative differences in charges by waking watch providers. It is entirely wrong that some providers charge so much, and I would point leaseholders to that data so that they can better understand where they may get better service. They may also know that alarm systems can pay for themselves within seven weeks and obviate the need for waking watch.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s scrutiny report on the draft Building Safety Bill, published today, makes for powerful yet sobering reading, not just for Members across the Chamber but, importantly, for the hundreds of thousands of leaseholders that are trapped in this living nightmare, left to foot the cost of a broken building safety system that they did not create. Before this, we had another powerful HCLG Committee report, a Public Accounts Committee report and a National Audit Office report, which repeatedly made it clear that, well over three years on from Grenfell, where 72 people lost their lives, the Government need to step up and step in to make buildings safe with a greater sense of urgency.

There are too many aspects of the building safety crisis to mention: the cost of remediation being passed to leaseholders and, yes, the interim costs such as waking watch; the snail’s pace of the work; other safety issues, such as firebreaks and wooden balconies not covered by the funding; the lack of prioritisation according to risk other than simply the height of buildings; and the ongoing saga of the external wall survey forms, despite this weekend’s botched announcement by the Secretary of State. How many reports are we going to need?

By my count, the Government have promised 11 times in this Chamber and beyond that leaseholders should be protected from the cost of remediation. Now we witness Minister after Minister shifting sand, referring to “affordable” costs put on the shoulders of leaseholders and enshrining in the draft Building Safety Bill the building safety charge—clause 89, there in black and white for people to see. Will the Minister tell me and the House what additional invoice paid in 28 days he defines as “affordable” or, as referred to at the Dispatch Box today, “reasonable”? Please answer that question.

Finally, will the Minister explain why those companies and developers that knowingly engineered false test results for insulation and cladding products, then riddled thousands of homes with flammable materials, are getting away scot-free?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his questions. It is not true to say that leaseholders are being left to foot the bill. He and the House know full well that the taxpayer is spending £1.6 billion in this financial year to help remediate those buildings most at risk where the owners are unable to pay. Of course, those discussions across Government are ongoing. We keep the situation under review. However, I remind the House that it is not fair simply to place such a burden on the taxpayer. Developers and owners must step up and play their part.

The hon. Gentleman raised the question of the external wall system 1 form, which he knows is a form produced by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors; it is not a Government form. I am pleased that, as a result of the negotiations undertaken by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and Lord Greenhalgh, the EWS1 form will no longer be necessary for those buildings that are not clad. The industry has made that clear. That will be to the benefit of something like 450,000 leaseholders. But there is more to do, and we will continue to do it.

The hon. Gentleman asked me what affordability is. It is a very subjective matter, because what is affordable to one person is not to another. We want to ensure that, as a result of the work that my noble Friend is doing with the financial services sector and the insurance sector, we come up with appropriate and innovative solutions to ensure that unfair costs do not fall on leaseholders for defects that may be identified down the line.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to commentary on lies told about fire safety tests. I entirely agree that that was wrong. It was outrageous. Where firms have been proven to lie, they must of course receive the full force of the law.