Grenfell Tower and Building Safety

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady will know that there are already measures in place to deal with empty homes and to provide incentives for them not to be left empty. In terms of finding the necessary homes following the Grenfell tragedy, considerable progress has been made over the summer in acquiring mostly new homes in Kensington Row, Hortensia Road and elsewhere. A considerable amount of work has also been done to convert some of the temporary homes into permanent ones, at the residents’ request.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

The statement reports that the weaknesses discovered following the Ronan Point collapse have not been fully addressed or remedied. That collapse took place nearly 50 years ago. We also read that 165 existing tower blocks have the same combustibility and dangers that existed at Grenfell. Does not this show a continuing catastrophic failure of building regulations? Do we not need an examination not only of combustibility but of all the other structural problems that are likely to affect those who have the misfortune to live in multi-storey blocks?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise this matter. This is precisely why I have asked for an independent review of building regulations. Also, in the light of the discovery at Ledbury Towers in Southwark, I have written to Dame Judith Hackitt and asked her to ensure that she considers those types of structural considerations. As well as building regulations, there are also wider questions. The issue at Ledbury Towers was discovered because of Grenfell Tower, but it is a structural issue. The work should have been done after the Ronan Point disaster, and there are some really big questions for the local authority to answer. The cracks that were discovered were large enough to put a human hand through or to put books in. Those cracks did not appear overnight. They had been there for some time—months, or even years. How can it be that the local authority was seemingly able to act only after the Grenfell tragedy?