Building Safety and Resilience

Oliver Ryan Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Please allow me to start by congratulating the hon. Members for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) and for Guildford (Zöe Franklin), and my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) on their quite fabulous maiden speeches. I am sorry to have to correct all of them, but my constituency is in fact the most beautiful and the most brilliant in the country.

[Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)]

Has my hon. Friend ever been to Burnley?

[Oliver Ryan]

Slanderous!

I stand here, honoured beyond belief, to represent the great towns of Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield—towns that are part of the story of our nation. This is the land of dramatic sandstone avenues, of hills and skies, of romantic scenery in the shadows of Pendle Hill. This is the land of regimented urban landscapes, of terrace tops and towers nestled among chimneys and waterways, cushioned by villages, farms, country pubs and proper pints. We are England and Lancastrian and we are proud.

Burnley, the “meadow by the Brun”, first recorded in the 12th century, has long been a hub of culture and commerce. We have a 13th-century market, the 14th-century Towneley Hall plays, and the 15th-century St Peter’s church. Indeed, coming over the moors from the wrong side of the Pennines, Charlotte Brontë visited Gawthorpe Hall in Padiham, Wordsworth wrote of the site of Pendle Hill, and Burnley’s most prolific poet, Henry Houlding, led a literary renaissance for northern towns in the 19th century.

Once the epicentre of the global cotton trade, the workers of our towns built this country. It was said at its height that Burnley’s cotton industry had clothed Britain by breakfast and the rest of the world by dinner. We are a birthplace of movements, too—suffragettes such as Margaret Aldersley, and fighters, leaders and thinkers. Non-conformists are we—radicals and reformers—and once the seat of a Labour leader no less in Arthur Henderson.

I say all this because I want to stress that our story did not start or end with the mills. Looms for a long time were our tools. In our hands was the industrial world made, but now we are so much more. We do not buy the standard story of decline. We are a place determined, with eyes focused on the future, hungry to play our part.

By the way, we have no greater example of Burnley endurance and enterprise than Burnley Football Club. Yes, sometimes in the face of emotional trauma—at times extreme—they are twice champions of England and one-time winners of the FA cup. Let me say, I believe for the first time ever in this House, “Up the Clarets!”

As towns, we are now a thriving, dynamic, multicultural symbol of renewal and creativity. To be made in east Lancashire is to be a benchmark of quality, particularly in our manufacturing, aerospace sciences and cultural industries, with world-beating, amazing, innovative companies putting us on the map. We are also unusual politically, in that the constituency has been represented by all three major parties in the past 10 years alone, although I hope to bring a very lengthy period of stability in that regard.

Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield are so often painted as towns with problems and extensive poverty, which is true, but to end our description there is to misunderstand our mindset, our mission, our sense of history and community. Our fight is not in trading narratives as to how we got here. We have problems, yes, but we do not simply retreat to the warm nostalgia of our history. We know that that way lies only stagnation. Our fight is in creating solutions for tomorrow. Less interested in rhetoric, storytelling and ideology, towns such as mine want outcomes. For us, one’s ability to deliver solutions means a lot more than the colour of a rosette. Outcomes are what matters. What is good is what works. In our public services, that means dependable quality, transparency, choice, the interests of users coming first and an approach that challenges every vested interest in the public interest.

Reflecting on this mantra and the debate today, I want to talk a little about our housing stock. First raised by my predecessor, Peter Pike, in his maiden speech of 1983, the once proud regimented sandstone avenues that I spoke of earlier—once a step up for families—are now in a poor and worsening state. Too many of my constituents live in substandard, under-insulated, cold and mouldy homes. Low land values lock out investment, but, more critically, lock out families from the decent accommodation that they deserve and write off whole communities as just not worth the investment. If we are to continue to thrive we need more housing, newer housing, more social housing and a decent retrofit programme not seen on a scale since the last Labour Government. It is only through that growth that we can achieve the sort of improvements in our public services that we need. That is the only way that we will attract the secure jobs and dynamic workforce of the future.

Too many of our young people are stuck in a generational cycle of worklessness, which holds back entire families, because of a lack of opportunities, skills, connectivity and, actually, confidence. We will only truly grow as a country when people in places like ours feel that growth touches them; when prosperity reaches the doorsteps of our terraces; when we break the cycle and say, “If you have the will, we will give you the way. No one left behind.” In my time here, I hope to represent to the best of my ability those values and ambitions.

At this juncture, as is tradition, I pay tribute to my predecessors: in Burnley and Padiham, Antony Higginbotham; and in Brierfield and Nelson East, Andrew Stephenson. Both very decent and hard-working men, they campaigned on many local issues in their years in this House, and had many friends across the House, which was testament to their character. I genuinely wish them both well for the future.

I am the great-grandson of Irish immigrants, from Dublin and across Ireland, who made their life in Manchester. I was aged two, and one of two kids to a single mum, when Labour took office in 1997. It is because of that Government that my mother was supported through illness to raise us, by an NHS with the time and resources to care. Schemes such as Building Schools for the Future, first praised by my predecessor Kitty Ussher in her maiden speech in 2005, gave me this future, and I am one of many. We stand on the shoulders of giants in this place, but I was able to climb on to those shoulders only because of a supportive family, who are watching from the Gallery, and the ladder that that Labour Government provided for kids like me and families like mine, from towns like mine. I know that this new Labour Government will strive to do the same, and I for one am enormously proud to be a part of it.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Sarah Gibson to make her maiden speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Norris]

A theme of this debate has been that we will not make the changes we need to make or keep people safe in the way they should be able to expect without really strong political will, at whatever level and whatever point politicians touch the process. It is incumbent on all of us to use all the levers and tools we have to ensure that we meet our responsibilities. Where colleagues have not done so, they really must reflect on that, frankly, and change.

[Oliver Ryan]

The Minister is being very generous with his time. I wonder whether he will meet me and representatives from Burnley council, which has a very good retrofit scheme that actually makes profit for the council and seems to retrofit street after street of terraced houses in Burnley. I note with interest the comments made by the shadow Minister about arm’s length companies used under the previous Labour Government to precipitate retrofit programmes. In areas such as Burnley, including Burnley Wood and Trinity, that approach worked and actually brought a great deal of investment into streets that are, quite frankly, still in need of repair and retrofit. Is the Minister interested in coming to Burnley to meet me on that front, and may I praise him for his kind words about Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield earlier?

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for that kind offer. Of course I will readily accept a visit to Burnley—perhaps through the lens of my role as the local growth and towns Minister. We could have a very interesting visit and I would be glad to do it.

I am conscious of the time; I am going to run out of it, unthinkably. We may have to pick up any further interventions in a different form, because I want to get to the points about buildings insurance, lending and service charges raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Runcorn and Helsby (Mike Amesbury), for Eltham and Chislehurst and for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee).

One thing we know is that there has not been enough change in this space over the past seven years, but there has been change in the insurance bills that many leaseholders have been facing. We understand the financial and emotional impact that extreme insurance premiums have been having on leaseholders. Affected leaseholders have been burdened with paying too high premiums for too long. I assure colleagues that we are working actively to reduce premiums for leaseholders, and we are reviewing how better to protect leaseholders from costs and push for fair premiums for leaseholders in buildings with fire safety issues.

Colleagues have talked about buying, selling or remortgaging homes. We have seen improvements in that space, but we remain vigilant. We will continue to hold particularly the 10 largest lenders to account following their commitment to lend on properties even where remediation is not yet complete. They must keep that promise.

On service charges, by law, variable service charges must be reasonable. As colleagues have raised, that has been stretched significantly by some of the practices we have seen. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 contains measures to ensure that leaseholders get key financial and non-financial information so that they can scrutinise and hold to account the organisations that they are working with on service charges. Not all of that legislation has been commenced; secondary legislation is required, but we are working on that actively. We just want to get it right.

My hon. Friend the Member for Reading Central (Matt Rodda) talked about the pace of remediation. Again, we accept that the pace is too slow; we have said that throughout, and what we have seen in Dagenham and Slough are horrific reminders of the risk that unsafe cladding still poses to far too many people. The Deputy Prime Minister has been very clear on her intention to drive that forward—again, there is that political will—and to get more action out of manufacturers, freeholders, developers and organisations with responsibility for making sure that buildings are safe. Too many building owners are still not acting quickly enough, so we will investigate, pursue the most egregious actors who are creating unacceptable delays, and hold them to account. The message from this Dispatch Box and from this Government is clear: “Use the routes we have created to get your buildings fixed, and get on with it.”

I now turn to the points made by the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and the hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) about the inquiry. The right hon. Gentleman expressed concern that the report would be shelved, and the hon. Lady was concerned that it would just be words, so again, let me make the commitment—this speaks to the response I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner)—that the report’s recommendations must be considered with the seriousness that this tragedy deserves. We will look at all 58 recommendations in detail; there will be a debate on the Floor of this House; we will respond in full within six months; and we will be listening to the community throughout the process. We will update Parliament annually on our progress so that we can be held to account, but we will also get on quickly with the things we can do, whether that is speeding up remediation or reforming construction products. The change has not been at the pace that it ought to have been, but it will get better. I can commit that the report will not, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, just be shelved—far from it.

The hon. Members for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) and for Woking (Mr Forster) mentioned buildings under 11 metres. Our approach to cladding remediation has been to prioritise the risk of loss of life. It is generally accepted that the risk to life is proportional to the height of buildings, so the risk to life is usually lower in buildings under 11 metres, and they are very unlikely to need the same costly remediation. Building safety remediation works may be required in a very small number of those buildings, but so far, our casework as a Department over the past couple of years shows that of the more than 160 cases that have been raised, only three have fallen into that category. As such, we think that is an appropriate distinction to draw.

My hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) made a point about RAAC. This issue is different in Scotland than it is in England: Scotland has its own responsibilities, which the Scottish Government must work within, and as I said to my hon. Friend, we will work within the best practices too. It is the duty of building owners, including local authorities if they are the owner, to fulfil their duties to manage building safety and performance risks of all kinds—including RAAC—in a proportionate manner.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), talked about personal evacuation plans, or PEEPs. We must ensure that the most vulnerable in our society are protected. On 2 September, through a written ministerial statement, the Government announced that the Home Office will bring forward in the autumn proposals to improve fire safety and the evacuation of disabled or vulnerable residents in high-rise and higher-risk residential buildings in England. Those proposals will be called residential PEEPs. Through them, residents with disabilities and impairments will be entitled to a person-centred risk assessment to identify the appropriate equipment and adjustments to aid their fire safety and evacuation, as well as a residential PEEP statement that says what vulnerable residents should do in the event of a fire. The Government have committed funding next year to begin that important work by supporting social housing providers to deliver PEEPs for their renters.

The shadow Minister also mentioned product hallmarks. We stand by what was said in the written ministerial statement—I would have hoped that gave enough confidence —but for clarity, this is about stronger standards, not weaker standards. I hope the hon. Gentleman can take confidence from that.