Building Safety

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That point has been made by other hon. and right hon. Members. I do believe that developers are living up to their responsibilities to deal with life-critical safety defects in medium and high-rise buildings, but as we have discussed, some buildings fall outside those categories. We are working on bespoke solutions for those.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

As the Secretary of State knows, not only are developers frustrating leaseholder rights. In response to his last statement, I raised the case of Mandale House in my constituency; leaseholders in Daisy Spring Works have the same, or a similar, problem. The common factor is the managing agents, Y&Y Management, which also has freehold interests. That company is not simply denying leaseholders their rights: it is doing so on the basis of challenging the legality of the Secretary of State’s own legislation. Those leaseholders do not have the resources to challenge Y&Y’s lawyers, so I have shared the relevant information with the Secretary of State’s Department. Can he reassure me that he will use all of the resources at his disposal to tackle Y&Y and ensure its leaseholders get the rights under the Building Safety Act that he intended?

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely. I want to be really fair to the hon. Member: he is doing the right thing. He has highlighted an abuse and has contacted the Department in a co-operative and detailed fashion. The Minister for Building Safety, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire, has been looking closely at that case. There is more that we can do, and I thank the hon. Member on behalf of his constituents for being tenacious in trying to get a good deal for them.