Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 2 Report

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Angela Rayner

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Angela Rayner)]

This Government accept that the final report of the Grenfell Tower inquiry must be the catalyst for long-lasting systemic change. All Members of the House, past and present, will have shared my anger over its shocking findings. The inquiry chair, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, and his dedicated team uncovered damning evidence of political, corporate and individual failings going back decades. These led to the loss of 72 innocent lives, 18 of them children, on that terrible night in June 2017. It was a deadly betrayal and a national tragedy that must never happen again. I repeat today what the Prime Minister said in September to the bereaved families, the survivors and those in the immediate Grenfell community, some of whom are with us today in the Gallery: on behalf of the Government, the British state and those responsible, I am very sorry.

The inquiry report made 58 recommendations, of which 37 were directed at the Government. The Government accept the findings of the report and will take forward all the recommendations. Our response published today addresses each in turn and goes further, to set out our wider reforms of social housing and the construction sector. As we make these vital changes, we will publish quarterly reports on progress and update Parliament annually. The Government are open to scrutiny and will remain accountable for their actions.

We will prioritise residents and protect their interests, make sure that industry builds safe homes, and provide clearer accountability and enforcement. To have anyone anywhere living in an unsafe home is one person too many. That will be our guiding principle, and it must be that of anyone who wants to build or care for our homes. That will be an important part of the legacy of Grenfell.

For nearly eight years, despite their pain, the bereaved, survivors and members of the community have campaigned with determination, not wanting anyone to suffer as they have. It is fair to say that the building system we have today is not the same as the one that was justly criticised in the report—the one we had leading up to the tragic events of 2017. But it is also clear that there is still much more to do, so I can announce that we will create a single construction regulator and a chief construction adviser. We will set out our detailed plans later this year.

I am accepting the recommendations to professionalise fire engineers and assessors, to licence principal contractors and to review the role of building control. Where standards are clear and industry has clarity and certainty on how individuals and firms must behave, it encourages investor confidence. This will improve the safety of residents, and support the construction industry and our mission to deliver economic growth.

We have pledged to build 1.5 million homes over the Parliament to tackle our country’s acute housing crisis, as part of our plan for change to improve the lives of people across the country. It is vital that these future homes, as well as existing homes, are safe and of high quality, and I welcome how some parts of the industry have stepped up to lead the necessary change in culture and approach.

But lest we forget, Sir Martin found that just about every institution and organisation charged with keeping the tower safe and protecting those who called it home failed. His most devastating conclusion was that every single death was avoidable. The inquiry uncovered serial incompetence and negligence, complacency and inaction, and blatant dishonesty and greed. The organisations that failed included the Government and regulators; the Department I now lead, which failed to act on known risks and ignored, delayed or disregarded matters affecting the safety of life; and the manufacturing companies, including Arconic, Kingspan and Celotex, whose products were used to refurbish the tower. The report found that they acted with systemic dishonesty as they mis-sold and marketed them. Their disgraceful mercenary behaviour put profit before people and exploited the regulatory regime to evade accountability, with fatal consequences. To my disgust and their shame, some have shown little remorse and have refused even to help fix the building safety crisis that they did so much to create.

Companies must be held to account for their role in Grenfell. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office is announcing today that she will use new powers under the Procurement Act 2023 to investigate Arconic, Kingspan, Saint-Gobain as the owner of Celotex at the time and other organisations. I expect swift, decisive action and will ensure that progress is reported.

But we must do more to make sure that the right rules are in place. To this day, critical gaps persist in how construction products are regulated. Only with rigorous reform will we transform the culture that allowed the tragedy to happen. To achieve that, we are also publishing today a construction products reform Green Paper. It will help us to cut out the rot in the sector and allow competence to take root. Safety will come first and a culture of responsibility will prevail. We will celebrate those who lead the way, and those who fall short will suffer the consequences. In the future, rogue companies will be held to account. Our Green Paper sets out our ideas for prison time for executives who break the rules and unlimited fines where safety is put at risk. We will do whatever it takes.

Across the sector, there is appetite for change. That change is overdue, and we will lead it. I pay tribute to the enduring resilience and resolve of the bereaved families, the survivors and the members of the immediate community. Their campaigning has seen new legislation passed, which members of this Government supported, that has made our public realm more secure. Everyone is safer thanks to the Building Safety Act 2022, which set new standards for the construction of residential buildings in England. The Act introduced the Building Safety Regulator and provisions for high-risk buildings. All people living in flats now know that the entrance doors, external walls and structure of their homes are in scope of fire risk assessments thanks to the Fire Safety Act 2021. There are new duties for owners and managers of buildings and blocks of flats. The Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 ensures that landlords are held to account.

I have challenged the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to demonstrate how it has changed by becoming an exemplar landlord and local authority. I will be keeping a close eye on its progress, and we will listen to its tenants to assess whether it has succeeded.

We are pushing ahead with the remediation acceleration plan to fix all buildings around the country that still have dangerous cladding, and where building owners fall short, we will act. We are introducing regulations to improve the fire safety and evacuation of disabled and vulnerable residents in high-rise and higher-risk residential buildings. As of 1 April, ministerial responsibilities for fire functions will move from the Home Office to my Department, in line with the inquiry’s recommendation that we bring responsibility for fire safety into a single Department.

People and their safety are front and centre of our inquiry response, but there remains a stark and terrible reality: the bereaved, the survivors and members of the Grenfell community are still waiting for the justice they need and deserve. Justice must be done. The ongoing Metropolitan police investigation is among the biggest it has ever undertaken, and the Met has the Government’s full support. In September, the Prime Minister rightly said that this tragedy poses questions about what social justice means in Britain today, and whether the voices of working-class people, those with disabilities and those of colour are ignored and dismissed. I am here to say that we will not be that country. We will be a country where decent housing, security, safety and peace of mind are shared by all and are not just the privilege of a few.

The lessons of the inquiry should not have taken a tragedy to unearth. We will honour the memory of those who lost their lives by bringing about meaningful change in their name—change that will make life better for everyone. We are under no illusions about the scale of the task at hand. The responsibility to deliver lasting change is the privilege of leadership. That will not be done by Government alone, but we will put our voice and power in the service of the cause that the Grenfell community has continued to fight for nearly eight long years. Together we will bring about the transformational change that the people of this country deserve. It is with that admiration for the spirit of the Grenfell community and the determination to honour it that I commend the statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

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[Angela Rayner]

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for his comments and the way in which he makes them. I hope genuinely that we can work together to continue this piece of work. I recognised in my statement the work of the previous Government, through the Building Safety Act and other measures, and we will continue to work in that vein.

I hope that the shadow Secretary of State recognises some of the work that we are already doing. We have brought forward a significant amount of legislation on social tenancy, on empowering tenants through the Renters’ Rights Bill, on protecting leaseholders, and on our remediation acceleration plan. The Government will deliver those legislative changes as soon as parliamentary time allows. The legislation commitments are detailed in the plan. That includes creating certainty on buildings that need remediation and on who is responsible for remediating them; making obligations for assessing and completing regulation remediation clearer, with severe consequences for non-compliance; and giving residents greater control in situations of acute harm where landlords have neglected their responsibilities.

The shadow Secretary of State asks about a single construction regulator. We accepted that recommendation in principle, but the single regulator will deliver the functions recommended by the inquiry, with two exceptions to avoid conflicts of interest: setting the rules for construction products and policing its own compliance. We will consult on the design of the regulator in the autumn.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

Today is yet another long, exhausting day for the loved ones of the victims of Grenfell, who are still having to fight for justice nearly eight years on. I welcome the Secretary of State’s response and look forward to the Select Committee’s scrutiny of the Green Paper and the proposals for the single construction regulator.

If we are honest, however, what the Secretary of State has outlined will not tackle the root cause of the systematic ignorance of tenants’ concerns—that toxic stigma at the heart of our social housing sector. What steps is she taking to ensure that tenants have a voice in the social housing sector and are shown respect when they raise concerns for their families?

We must never forget that 41% of the victims of Grenfell were disabled. That figure underlines the collective failure of the system to protect those in need. The Government’s commitment to residential evacuation plans for disabled people in high-rise buildings is a welcome step forward, but I would be grateful if the Secretary of State clarified how the Government intend to make residential personal emergency evacuation plans—PEEPs—enforceable if the responsible person fails to identify the vulnerable resident. I am also pleased that funding has been allocated for that in the social sector, but in reality disabled people live in all types of housing. Will she commit to ensuring that disabled people in the private rented sector have the same access to evacuation plans as those in the social sector?

None of the families present in the Public Gallery should have to be here. The tragedy in 2017 happened in the holy month of Ramadan, and as we approach Ramadan this week—a time that should be dedicated to reflection, healing and togetherness—too many families are still fighting for justice. No family member present should have to spend their time demanding accountability when they should be focused on recovering from their trauma. I pay tribute to them for their tireless efforts, and pledge to continue to be a voice for them in their fight for justice without any more delay.

[Angela Rayner]

I know that my hon. Friend, as Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, is committed to the rights of social housing tenants. As she outlined, the social housing system has not been fit for purpose, and those failings contributed to the Grenfell tragedy. We are driving up standards in social housing through stronger regulation and enforcement measures, strengthening tenants’ voices and improving access to redress. Those reforms will ensure that landlords are held accountable for the quality of the homes and services that they provide.

At the heart of the new regulatory regime is the requirement for all landlords to treat tenants with fairness and respect. Social landlords are required to understand and provide information and support that recognises the diverse needs of their tenants, including those arising from protected characteristics and language barriers. The Government will lay regulations as soon as possible this year on the social housing provider funding made available for residential PEEPs. We will direct the regulator to set standards on the competency and conduct of staff to ensure that tenants are treated with respect.

At a national level, we have extended the social housing residents panel to help ensure that tenants’ voices and experiences inform policy development. We will keep a new regulatory system under review. We will evaluate its effectiveness by 2028 to ensure that it is delivering the improvements we need. We will set out further measures to strengthen residents’ voices in the long-term housing strategy later this year.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Angela Rayner

2nd reading
Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Before the Deputy Prime Minister responds, may I say that if there are declarations of interest to be made, even in interventions, they should be made on the Floor of the House?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. That is why we have moved at pace. The previous Government promised an employment Bill to protect workers and they did not deliver. Within our first 100 days, we are delivering this employment Bill.

Losing a loved one is among the hardest things for any of us. That is why in this Bill we are setting a clear standard for businesses, giving employees the right to bereavement leave. Taken together, these new rights for working people—sick pay when they need it, an end to exploitative zero-hours contracts and to fire and rehire, bereavement leave, expanded entitlements, paternity leave and new protections for women in work—represent the biggest upgrade for working people in a generation, but we are not stopping there.

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[Angela Rayner]

We have already written to the Low Pay Commission, as I have set out, and we want to go further through the fair pay agreement to make sure that carers are recognised for the valuable role they play. Care workers are not just people who do the shopping or call in for 15 minutes; they handle complex needs in the community and look after some of our most vulnerable loved ones. They should get the recognition they deserve, and that is why we are taking these measures.

We know the valuable contribution that trade unions make. That is why we are resetting industrial relations. The Conservatives presided over strike Britain with their scorched earth approach to strikes. First, we are repealing the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023. Anyone with a brain could see that that legislation would do two things: increase tensions and fail to prevent a single day of industrial action. We said so at the time, and what happened? The rail dispute cost our economy over £1 billion. The law has failed and has no reason to stay on the statute book.

We are also repealing nearly every part of the flawed Trade Union Act 2016, which tried to smother trade unions in form filling and red tape and prevent them from doing their job. We will go further by strengthening the voice of working people by making it easier for trade unions to get recognised, giving them the right of access to workplaces and making sure that they have enough time to represent their members. When the rights of working people are flouted, a new fair work agency will be empowered to investigate. Today we are also launching a consultation on modernising trade union laws so that they are fit for the modern workplace and our modern economy.

In under 100 days, we have put together a transformative package that marks a new era for working people. We know that the Conservatives will oppose this every step of the way. We know because they have history, just as they opposed Labour’s minimum wage and now, shamefully, want to take us back to the dark ages when women were denied maternity pay. It is clear that they are out of step with modern Britain.

Our plans mark a new way forward—a new deal for working people, making jobs more secure and family friendly, banning exploitative zero-hours contracts, supporting women in work at every stage in their life, a genuine living wage and sick pay for the lowest earners, further and faster action to close the gender pay gap, ensuring that rights are enforced and that trade unions are strengthened, repealing the anti-worker, anti-union laws, turning the page on industrial relations and ending fire and rehire, while giving working people the basic rights that they deserve from day one in the job. This is a landmark moment, delivered in under 100 days. This is a pro-business, pro-worker, pro-growth Bill and a pro-business, pro-worker, pro-growth Government. Today, after 14 years of failure, we are starting a new chapter and decisively delivering a better Britain for working people.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.