Building Safety

Debate between Robert Jenrick and Felicity Buchan

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for welcoming much of the substance of today’s announcement. I draw her back to my earlier remarks: to the best of my knowledge, the Scottish Government have made no use at all of the funding that they have been provided with through the existing building safety fund. Important questions now need to be answered by her Government in Scotland as to what is actually happening there. What are they doing to support leaseholders? How are they making those buildings safe?

With respect to the financing scheme that we are bringing forward in England, it will be a matter for the Scottish Government—or, indeed, the Welsh or Northern Irish Administrations—to decide whether they wish to create a similar scheme. We have set an upper limit of £50 a month, which provides a great deal of comfort to leaseholders that they will never need to pay more than that per month. That is about the equivalent of the average service charge for a purpose-built block of flats. I appreciate that it is a cost that no one would wish to bear, but it is a reasonable one in balancing the interests of the taxpayer with providing support and protection to the leaseholder. We will bring forward further details on how that scheme works as quickly as we can.

It is important also to say that the arrangement that we will be creating is not a loan to an individual; it is a financing scheme with buildings. The loans do not sit with the individual and will not affect their credit rating. These are loans on a long tenure that will remain with the building, ensuring that the leaseholders themselves can move on with their lives.

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for working so closely with me on cladding issues over the past 15 months. I have been calling for a substantial and comprehensive package for cladding remediation, so I warmly welcome this announcement, which, importantly, allows funds to be deployed very quickly and does not require taskforces or legislation. I have called for a package of £5 billion to £10 billion; I quickly tried to tot up all the numbers as the Secretary of State went through the details, and I think this funding could be approaching certainly the middle if not the upper end of that range. Will he confirm that and assure me that money will be deployed as quickly as possible?

[Robert Jenrick]

I praise my hon. Friend, who has been a fantastic Member of Parliament for Kensington since she was elected and has raised with me this and other issues arising out of the Grenfell tragedy almost every week—in fact, we meet every week to discuss these issues.

My hon. Friend is right to say that this is a very substantial intervention. We have already made £1.6 billion available, and we estimate that it will require another £3.5 billion to complete the remediation of unsafe cladding on buildings over 18 metres and to make good on the promise we have made today to leaseholders. In addition to that, we will bring forward the financing scheme, the details of which, as I said, will be published shortly, but it is a very generous scheme and there is a significant cost to the taxpayer in ensuring that the £50 cap gives that added level of protection and reassurance to leaseholders.

The total intervention that we are making today is, as my hon. Friend says, one of many, many billions of pounds. That is a difficult judgment, which the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have made with me, but we believe this is a fair and generous settlement to help everybody to move forwards.

Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Debate between Robert Jenrick and Felicity Buchan

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for all the support that my council has received during coronavirus. One issue that my council faces is that we raise an awful lot in business rates, given the high property values in Kensington. We get very little of that back, yet our high streets are really suffering because of the crippling level of business rates. Does he agree that we need a fundamental review of business rates?

[Robert Jenrick]

I join my hon. Friend in praising her local council, and in particular the excellent local council leader she is lucky to have, Elizabeth Campbell, whom it has been my pleasure to work with this year on many different issues.

My hon. Friend is right to say that business rates are a challenge. Of course, this year the Chancellor has provided a business rates holiday, which so many businesses on our local high streets have benefited from. It will be for him to decide whether or in what form that should continue into the next financial year, and no doubt he will bring forward further details on that next year. There will be a fundamental review of the future of business rates, and I am sure she will contribute to that in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Jenrick and Felicity Buchan

Monday 15th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Robert Jenrick)]

Yesterday marked three years since the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire. No words will ever be enough, but my thoughts, and I am sure those of the whole House, are with the survivors, the bereaved and the community of north Kensington. Over the weekend I laid a wreath beside the tower on behalf of the Government. We will continue to work to ensure that this tragedy can never happen again.

Once again, I want to thank everybody across local government for their continued and dedicated response to covid-19. We have backed those efforts with £3.2 billion of additional funding, and today I want to reassure councils that I am working closely with Cabinet colleagues on a comprehensive plan to ensure their financial stability for the remainder of this year. I will say more about that shortly. Finally, as many shops reopen their doors to the public this morning and we look to the next phase of our recovery, my Department will be leading efforts to revitalise our local economies with a collective determination to realise Britain’s enormous potential.

[Felicity Buchan]

In order to get our high streets back up and running, we might need a temporary relaxation of licensing laws—for instance, to get more tables and chairs out on pavements. Clearly we do not want a free-for-all, but what steps is my right hon. Friend considering?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am very sympathetic to the argument that my hon. Friend has made. I would like to see more outdoor seating and for it to be easier and cheaper for small businesses to get licences. I would also like to see more temporary markets and more pedestrianisation, and for it to be easier to do things such as putting marquees outside pubs for longer this summer. These are all things we need to do to help our economy get going in the summer months, and I will be working with local councils to bring forward our proposals very shortly.

Building Safety

Debate between Robert Jenrick and Felicity Buchan

Monday 20th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

I welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend will consult on whether height alone should be the determining factor or whether there should be a more sophisticated matrix of risks. I am very concerned about vulnerable residents in the likes of care homes and hospitals. Will they be taken into consideration in the matrix of risks?

[Robert Jenrick]

I welcome my hon. Friend to the House and will no doubt work closely with her on these issues in the years ahead. I think it was right to take the decision that height alone was too crude a measure and that we needed to consider this carefully and involve a whole range of factors, including the likely use of the building and the likely nature of the residents of that building, whether it be a hotel, student accommodation or something else. That is exactly what we are doing, and we will use the best possible expert advice to draw up a new regime.

We saw in the Bolton fire, where the building was 17.6 or 17.8 metres high—just a matter of centimetres away from the 18-metre threshold—that height alone was simply too crude a measure and that building safety needs to be proportionate to the building. Height is likely to continue to be a very material factor—perhaps the most material one—but a range of other factors now need to be considered.