Grenfell Tower

Robert Neill Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Just a year ago, following the tragic and horrific fire at Grenfell, the Prime Minister promised to

“do whatever it takes to keep people safe”.

Nearly a year later, every piece of failed safety regulation and every piece of flawed guidance that was in place before Grenfell is still there. That is not acceptable.

Although it is welcome that the Government have belatedly found the funding to help with the remedial works on social housing blocks, they have offered precious little to people living in privately owned blocks. I want to focus on the plight of leaseholders, who feel that the Government have abandoned them and hung them out to dry.

Let us consider briefly why this cladding is on buildings in the first place. Following the deadly Lakanal House fire in 2009, when six lives were lost, an inquest was held. It reported to the Government in 2013. The coroner told the Government that the fire safety regulations were confusing, not fit for purpose and needed to be revised, but the Government did nothing. The same ACM cladding with a polyethylene core continued to be put up on residential buildings. It was put on Grenfell in 2016, and Grenfell went up in flames 2017 with such lethal and tragic consequences.

If the Government had acted on the coroner’s advice after Lakanal, people would never have died in Grenfell Tower. The cladding is on buildings because the Government did nothing to correct the flawed regulations when they were told they were a problem. The moral duty to act was on the Government, but instead of accepting that, the previous Secretary of State made an art form of palming off the blame on anybody else. In this Chamber, he said that it was the responsibility of developers, freeholders, managing agents and insurers, even though there is no proven legal obligation on any of those people to pay for the removal of cladding. The two first-tier housing tribunals found leaseholders responsible for the costs. However, the previous Secretary of State said that he wanted no costs to be passed on to leaseholders, yet he took no action to ensure that. Leaseholders have been left living in unsaleable homes, fearful for their safety, and in fear of unaffordable debt that is often more than they earn in a year.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Constituents in Bromley and Chislehurst have exactly the same problem. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, as was mentioned earlier in the debate, the difficulty is that there is no mechanism for enforcing a moral duty and no means whereby leaseholders can get recompense? Should the Government consider some emergency funding comparable with the help that is being given to those in publicly owned blocks?

[Mr Reed]

The hon. Gentleman makes the legal point much more eloquently than I could. I hope that the Secretary of State will listen to that.

Here is a proposal for what the Government might do. First, they should fund the removal and replacement of flammable cladding on all residential blocks on which it is found, whether in the private or public sector. We simply cannot leave leaseholders living in limbo, their lives on hold for years while these issues are dragged through the courts at a snail’s pace. If it turns out that developers, freeholders or whoever are legally liable, the Government can then claim the money back. My guess is that it will turn out that the Government are liable for failing to correct guidance and regulations that they knew were flawed for years before this happened.

The Government’s first priority must be the protection of human life. We cannot allow any more Grenfells. It is not acceptable just to leave this cladding on buildings in which people are living. This dangerous cladding must be taken down, wherever it is found. No more delays, no more Grenfells; let us get this cladding taken down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

This was an appalling tragedy. I understand the situation as a London MP, but it has had consequences across the country. It concerns me as a former fire services Minister and as a former Minister dealing with planning matters in the Department for Communities and Local Government. I know that the Secretary of State wants to get this right; he starts with great good will. The best thing we can do is to ensure not only that the causes are discovered, but that the lessons are learned. I will not touch on building regulation issues today—I will perhaps save that for tomorrow—but I do want to hark back to my intervention on the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed).

I am pleased that the Government have made increased public funding available to ensure that cladding on council-owned or housing association tower blocks is replaced and rectified. That is the right thing to do. The Secretary of State’s predecessor said that the owners of private blocks should ensure that the costs did not fall upon the leaseholders. Morally that is right, but there is no legal mechanism for enforcing that.

The Northpoint building in my constituency was converted from offices to flats in 1999 by Alfred McAlpine, and the flats are on long leases. The building was certified as compliant in 1999. It was then checked in 2009 after the Lakanal House fire, and was held to be compliant. A subsequent check after the Grenfell Tower fire led to it being classified as category 3, which is the worst level of combustibility.

There is no suggestion of any negligence on the part of the contractors or those who carried out the previous investigations—certainly nothing that will found any cause of action on behalf of the leaseholders. There is nothing in the lease to suggest that any breach of duty by the managing agents, the freeholders or anyone else involved in that building would remove liability from the leaseholders. The findings in recent litigation in the upper tribunals have, in fact, gone against leaseholders and in favour of freeholders. Freeholders are often commercial companies that have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders. I am afraid that moral obligations are not going to be enough.

In this case, Alfred McAlpine, through a series of mergers and takeovers, ended up as part of the Carillion Group, which is now in liquidation. The prospect of there being any redress for the leaseholders of the Northpoint building, even if there were a legal mechanism, is non-existent. The Minister should therefore look into some kind of emergency mechanism; we are not talking about large sums of money in the overall scheme of things.

[Giles Watling]

Is my hon. Friend suggesting that we need a change of law for such cases?

[Robert Neill]

Well, that may be something to look at for the future, but it cannot be done retrospectively and it would not help the position of current leaseholders. We need something that assists them.

It may be that something can be recovered at some point if people are found to be at fault, but we need a bridging arrangement to enable leaseholders to carry out remedial works. They often have very little equity because the flats are virtually unsaleable, and they are either first-time buyers or downsizers so are financially pressed at the best of times. I suggest that some bridging arrangement to help them through that period would be a practical means of ensuring that the Government meet that moral duty, which there is currently neither a legal nor a practical means of achieving. Such an arrangement would give a greater degree of parity between those in the private sector and the Government’s welcome approach to those in the public sector.