Building Safety Bill

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is an honour and a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) as the 54th speaker on the call list.

I thank nearly every Member from all parts of the Chamber—Members have spoken powerfully and with insight in this Second Reading debate. I put on the record that I found the last-minute publication of the written statement both discourteous and disrespectful to Members from all parties. That point was reiterated as a point of order and Madam Deputy Speaker raised her concerns as well.

As the shadow Secretary of State for Housing, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) argued eloquently and powerfully, this is an occasion that requires the best of all parliamentarians, and that we put any vested interests aside and step up to respond urgently to the building safety crisis. Our concerns are focused on what is not in the Bill, rather than the new regulation landscape it creates for building safety with the Building Safety Regulator, the new housing ombudsman and improved standards, which are all very welcome. We will certainly support those measures, although in some cases we may amend them as we go forward in the journey of the Bill.

The Executive—the Government and Ministers before us—must listen not only to the Opposition, but to those voices on the Government Benches that are growing in number. Ministers must listen to all stakeholders, who will provide evidence throughout the Bill’s journey over the coming months in both this House and the other place. We all have a shared goal of providing a voice and justice for the millions of leaseholders and residents across all our areas and of making buildings and, vitally, people safe more than four years on from Grenfell when 72 people tragically lost their lives.

Those leaseholders include people like Will from UK Cladding Action, who spoke recently on the TV about the many complexities of his personal experience of the building safety crisis, which the measures contained in the Bill must have an impact on. He referred to the pressures in terms of mental health. Indeed, that point was eloquently raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) in regard to his constituents.

There are key questions to ask. Does the Bill help Will from UK Cladding Action as a leaseholder to pay an invoice for £30,000 that recently arrived through his letterbox? My hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) spoke about constituents in her patch who have just had bills for £100,000. Unfortunately, the plain answer is no. Will the Bill deal with the horrendous and astronomical rise in insurance premiums that Members from all parts of the Chamber have highlighted in today’s debate? Again, the answer is an unequivocal no.

Will the Bill change the size and scope of the building safety fund to help constituents in places such as the Decks in the Runcorn part of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg)? One part of the development is below 18 metres but still at risk, as it contains all the toxicity of the building safety crisis, and the other is above 18 metres. The Bill definitely will not help the likes of Julie and those constituents in Runcorn.

In fact, speech after speech and case after case from the 42 members who got in to speak today has shone a light on the open and painful wounds of what is missing from the Bill. To give some examples, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) highlighted the dreadful impact of the EWS1 system. We are still having flats valued at zero, unsellable and un-mortgageable. Today, at the very last minute, we get a written ministerial statement claiming that the Government are going to change the marketplace. In fact, lots of the content seems to be recycled and reproduced from a statement that was spun some months ago, but I will ask the Minister a number of questions.

Will the guidance note issued in January 2020 be withdrawn? It is essential that it is. Will the matter be legislated for? Do those buildings below 18 metres, which now seemingly do not require an EWS1 form, have to have cladding removed? Do they have to have remediation for all the other things, whether that is missing firebreaks or inappropriate construction, such as the use of timber, as some Members have mentioned? We need answers to those questions. It is very important. Leaseholders need answers to those questions.

Some hon. Members referred to the black hole of the building safety fund. Martin from the excellent Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, who the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), knows very well, referred to the application process as tantamount “to knitting fog”. Indeed, “Inside Housing” today highlights the case of a building in Wandsworth that meets the height threshold but has been rejected by the fund. I urge the Minister to correct this wrong. While the Minister and his team are at it, why do they not make sure that more than 12p in every pound of that fund is getting out of the door?

The Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee has made a strong and consistent point about the need to include social housing providers within the scope of the fund, a point echoed by the Local Government Association and the National Housing Federation. The much-trumpeted £5.1 billion for cladding remediation would not have come about if it were not for those brilliant campaigners at the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign, who were not going to be ground down or quiet in their quest for justice. There were 17 promises made by Ministers, including the Prime Minister, that people would not have to pay historical remediation charges. That promise has not come to fruition in the 217 pages of this Bill.

We are also yet to see the details of the unwanted loan scheme, which has failed in Victoria, Australia, let alone a bold and just “polluter pays” approach directed at many of the Government’s friends and donors in the big developers community.

In opening the debate, the Secretary of State referred to clause 124, purporting to amend the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to protect leaseholders from costs relating to historical defective work, a point highlighted by the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West. It simply reasserts the status quo of requiring the landlord to pursue insurance, public grant and warranty claims that have not worked so far. Like much of the Bill, it makes reference to secondary legislation to follow, with no details or protection for leaseholders.

The Secretary of State also referred to the inclusion of section 38 of the Building Act 1984 and the retrospective changes to the Defective Premises Act 1972, a legal remedy to bring an extension from six to 15 years and the right to bring actions against developers responsible for shoddy building work. It sounds great in theory, but will the Minister highlight how many times this David and Goliath approach has been successful under the current six-year regime?

Will the Minister also advise the House of how leaseholders will pursue the special delivery project vehicles set up and closed down by developers, or where they will get the millions of pounds to pursue claims? How long will the counter-claims by developers, which will follow and be made under human rights legislation, take? It seems that the Minister has designed a job creation scheme for lawyers, a frenzy of litigation and further delays.

As my hon. Friend the shadow Housing Secretary asserted, we need a cast-iron legal guarantee to protect leaseholders from historical remediation costs. We will be working on a cross-party basis for amendments to achieve just that.

Finally, we are calling for the establishment of an interventionist building works agency, not dissimilar to that in Victoria, Australia, to get a grip on the crisis through assessment of risk, from building to building, from start to finish, with a crack team of experts in this field. It is find, fund, fix and recover, with a “polluter pays” principle. The hundreds of thousands of leaseholders trapped in this living nightmare deserve nothing less, and they require all the willing to step up and do the right thing. Let us make good law together beyond Second Reading.