Building Safety and Social Housing

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean)]

It is a pleasure to conclude the debate on behalf of the Government.

Six years on—as the powerful and moving contributions to the debate have illustrated—the still unimaginable events of 14 June 2017 continue to demand searching answers from us as a country about who we are and who we aspire to be. They reaffirm the unshakeable commitment across this House to those most affected: the commitment to provide long-term support for recovery and the rebuilding of shattered lives, and to provide a legacy worthy of the 72 men, women and children who lost their lives. We honour their memory, and the courage and dignity of the bereaved and the survivors in the Grenfell community. I am pleased to see them represented here today; it was humbling and a privilege to have a conversation with a few of them before I came to the Chamber. Their quest for truth and justice and their campaigning, in the interests of others, to reform systems that so grievously failed them is humbling and inspiring in equal measure.

As we have heard, the issues raised by those in the Grenfell Tower community had been present for many years. Their calls for change went unanswered and their concerns were ignored. They were failed by the institutions and mechanisms developed to support and protect them. As the Secretary of State has said, we are determined to learn from the past so that no community ever again suffers as they have. More than anything, that must mean people being safe in their homes.

As the Minister responsible for housing, I am aware of the heavy debt we owe the Grenfell community. Over the past year, that has involved making homes with the most dangerous cladding safer, protecting leaseholders from unfair and punitive remediation costs, getting those responsible to face up to their financial and moral responsibilities, and fundamentally overhauling and strengthening the entire building safety system.

The Grenfell community has also rightly kept up the pressure on my Department to ensure that we never again ignore the voices of people living in social housing, and that it provides the safe, decent homes and respectful, good-quality services that they expect and deserve. Awaab Ishak’s tragic death underlined the urgency of that work, which we are taking forward through the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill, amended to include Awaab’s law—new requirements for social landlords to address hazards such as damp and mould within a fixed timeframe.

There is, of course, much more to do, and I do not underestimate the toll that six long years of waiting for the truth and for justice to be done has taken on the people of North Kensington. Like them, we keenly await the publication of the Grenfell Tower inquiry’s final report—we have already begun implementing recommendations in the phase 1 report—and the outcome of the ongoing Met police investigation. We also look forward to seeing a fitting and lasting memorial delivered at the Grenfell Tower site through the Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission, working in partnership with the community. I join the Secretary of State in paying tribute to the commission’s work. However, beyond truth and justice, the greatest legacy we can deliver is a continued commitment to listening, learning and acting to secure a better future for all—a profound commitment that I know is shared across the House.

Let me turn to some of the points raised by hon. Members in the debate. We heard from the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), from the SNP spokes- person, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), and from the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), as well as from the two Labour spokespeople, the hon. Members for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) and for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker). I thank them all for their contributions.

We recognised that sprinklers could play a greater role, so we lowered the threshold for the provision of sprinkler systems in new blocks of flats from 30 metres to 11 metres in 2020, following a consultation on sprinklers and fire safety measures, through changes to approved document B. Sprinklers are only one of a range of measures that can be provided in buildings, and building owners are already bound by a clear obligation to ensure that existing buildings have a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment in place. Retrofitting sprinklers is not always the right option; other fire safety measures, such as measures recommended by phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower inquiry, may be more appropriate for an individual building.

I was asked how people living in buildings under 11 metres can be helped when they face expensive bills for remediation. It is the ultimate responsibility of building owners to ensure that residential buildings of all heights are safe, and the consensus is that the level of risk tallies with the height of the building. The risk to life is usually lower in buildings under 11 metres in height, which are very unlikely to need costly remediation to make them safe. Indeed, a fire risk appraisal of external walls conducted in accordance with the PAS 9980 principles will often find that lower-cost mitigations are more appropriate in low-rise buildings. Nevertheless, my Department has committed to looking at buildings under 11 metres where remediation costs are involved on a case-by-case basis. We think that is the right approach.

We have banned ACM cladding on all new builds. At the end of May 2023, 96% of all identified high-rise residential and publicly owned buildings in England had either completed or started work to remove and replace unsafe cladding, and 450 buildings—92%—no longer have unsafe ACM, with 84% having completed ACM remediation work. We continue to keep up the pressure to ensure that that job is finished.

[Fleur Anderson]

Is there a date by which the Minister would like to reach 100% removal of ACM cladding?

[Rachel Maclean]

Of course, we would all like to see that happen much more quickly. That is why we are continuing with the legislative measures that we have set out, including the Building Safety Act and all the other work that goes behind that, as the Secretary of State said.

I was asked about social housing regulation. The direction of travel is clear: residents have spoken and reform is coming to the social housing sector. We are committed to implementing the new regulatory regime enabled by the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill. I thank Opposition Members for assisting us with passing the Bill. The new regime will be implemented in 2024. The Secretary of State will consult on any directions to the regulator, and the regulator will then need to consult on its proposed consumer standards. That is just part of a wider programme of work to drive up the quality of social housing and reduce the number of non-decent rented homes by 50% by 2030. That includes tougher regulation and a strengthened housing ombudsman service, a review of the decent homes standard, and providing residents with more performance information.

Mr Deputy Speaker, 72 months since the Grenfell community lost 72 family members, friends and neighbours, the enormity of what happened that night in June 2017 remains inescapable. Those who never made it out of the tower paid with their lives, in the homes where they should have been most safe, for collective failings, including on the part of the Government, for which we have apologised. Six years on, those left behind continue to wait for answers and for those responsible to be held to account, not just today but every day, as they count the cost of precious lives cut short—six years of missing seeing loved ones grow up or grow old; missed life milestones; meals unshared; ordinary, everyday memories unmade. No apologies—no words—are enough to right those wrongs.

As the Secretary of State said, we will be judged not on our words but on our actions—actions to make homes safer and greener; to improve social housing and amplify the voices of residents; to make sure that those responsible step up or face the consequences; to provide long-term support for the Grenfell community for as long as it takes; to learn from the past, get to the truth and see justice done; and to ensure that everyone in our society has a safe, secure place to live that they are truly proud to call home. Let that be Grenfell’s abiding legacy.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered building safety and social housing.