Building Safety and Resilience

Debate between Mike Amesbury and Marie Goldman

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury (Runcorn and Helsby) (Lab)]

I congratulate the new hon. Member for Chippenham (Sarah Gibson) on a brilliant maiden speech—it was quite emotional at the end there—and all hon. Members who have made maiden speeches today. My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Oliver Ryan) is still a young lad now, but he was an even younger lad when I had the displeasure of campaigning with him in Burnley—he had shorts on, but he still managed to win. It is great to see him in his place and it was a pleasure to listen to his maiden speech.

This debate is obviously about a very serious matter. My thoughts, and the thoughts of everyone in the Chamber, are with the 72 people—men, women and children—who lost their lives in the Grenfell fire over seven years ago. It was an appalling event and the survivors and the community are yet to see justice. That might mean criminal prosecutions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) rightfully highlighted—I know he is urging for that to happen at pace, as he did yesterday during Justice questions—or, in regard to the broader building safety crisis, ensuring that buildings are made safe at pace.

Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s phase 2 Grenfell report and recommendations make for difficult reading. In fact, digesting them will make us angry. We all have to channel that anger, collectively and responsibly, to ensure that the victims of Grenfell and previous fires, such as Lakanal and in Kirby, are responded to by the body politic and the new Government—my good colleagues and hon. Friends now on the Front Bench. Just think about this: each and every one of those 72 people who lost their lives should still be with us today, enjoying the life that we enjoy and having the frustrations that we have.

As the report says, the event was entirely preventable. It was entirely predictable. But the lessons from history, whether that be Lakanal or the earlier fire in Kirby, were not learned. They were not acted upon by successive Governments of all political persuasions or by industry. I will not name the companies referred to in the report for obvious reasons to do with the court case. Government, product manufacturers—you name it, Grenfell was the result of organisations and individuals, as the report says, being systematically dishonest. Dishonesty was hardwired into the construction and building industry, putting profit before people’s lives.

We cannot escape the fact that this was a political decision, driven by ideology. The coalition Government are referenced in the report: their time in office was basically a bonfire of red tape. It was deregulation—build them high, build them cheap and refurbish them cheap—and the consequences are all too clear. Indeed, residents of Grenfell alerted the council of the day, regulators and the powers that be that this was an accident waiting to happen, and it did happen, with all those consequences for all to see.

Of course, some of this has continued. We have had companies gaming tests of products that were put on high-rises—products that should never have been there. Let us be frank: those products are solidified petrol. Thousands of them were put on high-rises up and down the country—high-rises insulated by solidified petrol. This country is quite unique in the fact that it greenlighted those products through deregulation. It is no coincidence that we had fires such as Lakanal and Grenfell.

[Marie Goldman]

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the gaming of the system and the tests. Was he as appalled as I was to read about the way in which those tests were gamed? It is said that those products, which were designed not to burn, failed the tests, so the companies went back a second time. One of the issues with the tests was that the temperature had to not rise too much, so the companies insulated the temperature gauges rather than admit that they had a product that ultimately was not fit for the purpose they were trying to sell it for. Is he appalled as I am that that practice was allowed to happen, and does he agree that the testing houses need to shoulder some responsibility for the fact that it was allowed to happen?

[Mike Amesbury]

Absolutely I am appalled, and as I have said, those products are still with us. My hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Margaret Mullane) will refer to a recent incident in Dagenham where they were trying to remediate the problem.