Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Neil O'Brien Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con) [V]]

It is a particular pleasure to see the new Minister in his place today. He is a man who has spent a lot of his life working to improve housing conditions for the poorest people in this country, so he is absolutely the right man in the right place at the right time to take forward this hugely important work.

Much has already been said, so the few additional things that I would add are as follows. First, it is important that we look at the other dimensions of fire safety as well as just cladding. I have been asking written questions about fire doors in particular. I was told that we do not hold any central data on the quality and state of fire doors in social housing blocks. I hope that the Government will audit, and get social landlords to audit, the state of those doors, making sure that they have at least the 30-minutes protection that we expect, and that we will work through all the other dimensions of fire safety as well as cladding.

When it comes to cladding, may I express my hope that we will see the people behind this tragedy brought to justice? It has been absolutely extraordinary to watch the proceedings of the inquiry and to see some of what has come out. In The Times the other day, Dominic Lawson summarised exchanges of emails between employees at Kingspan after the Grenfell tragedy. They joked about rigging tests and about how they lied, saying, “Yes, mate, it’s all lies. All we do here is lie.” The testimony of an employee of Celotex, Jonathan Roper, said that his company had behaved in a completely unethical way. Then there are the officials from Arconic, who are refusing to testify at the inquiry, hiding behind the French blocking statute. I hope that the Government will use all the means at their disposal to put maximum pressure on the representatives of these companies to come and face the inquiry and, ultimately, to face justice for what has been done.

Finally, I encourage Ministers to keep going in their efforts to remove unsafe cladding. I welcome the £1.6 billion that is being spent on this. I welcome the progress that is being made in reducing and removing ACM cladding. The removal of ACM cladding from the social sector is great. I hope that Ministers will continue to press on with the new regulator for construction products, so that such a tragedy does not happen again. Ultimately—let me put it like this—I hope that we can make sure that those who are suffering through no fault of their own are not made to pay and that the people behind the Grenfell tragedy are made to pay.