Social Housing and Building Safety

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I know he is passionate about helping young people, particularly those at risk of homelessness and those who need decent homes. It is thanks to him that I have had the opportunity to meet people from Centrepoint, an amazing charity that has done such good work for so long. I look forward to the opportunity to see more of the work it is doing, which he has championed, to help those who are most in need of support to have a safe and decent roof over their heads.

I mentioned the legislation we are bringing in, which of course follows on from the publication of a new vision for social housing by my late colleague James Brokenshire. I think we would all want, as we reflect on James’s life and legacy, to recognise that one of the issues about which he was most passionate was making sure that the vulnerable and the voiceless had a champion in Government. It was his determination to set us on a path to stronger rights and better protections for tenants in social housing that has resulted in the legislation that my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North is bringing forward.

Under that legislation, we will ensure that tenants know that they will be safe in their home, that they will be able to hold their landlord to account and that complaints will have to be dealt with promptly. They will know that they need to be treated with respect and that those who work in housing, to whom I am enormously grateful, will have the support and the extra professional training that they need to ensure that they work effectively with tenants. We also want to ensure that, in those circumstances—I hope they become progressively rarer—where there are real and genuine problems and an urgent need for action, there are new powers for rapid inspection and for unlimited fines, to ensure that appropriate steps are taken.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for the Bills he is bringing forward. He talks about bringing in legislation to improve safety for social rent tenants, which is good—but is that in parallel with the safety that leaseholders and private sector tenants in similar kinds of blocks also expect? Will everybody who lives in or owns a flat that is safety compromised be as safe as his legislation seeks to make social rent tenants?

[Michael Gove]

Yes, that is our intention. The hon. Lady’s question gives me an opportunity to restate and underline one or two things, to make them perhaps a little more clear than I had hitherto. To my mind, and this is very much the theme of this debate, there are two big issues that the Grenfell tragedy threw into the starkest relief, which we should have addressed beforehand and which the tragedy makes it imperative that we do not forget.

The first issue is building safety. We have a compromised and weak regime that needs to change. We need to improve regulation, ensure that those buildings that are unsafe are made safe, and ensure that the people in those buildings do not pay for it, but that it is those who were contributors either to the system overall or to the state of those buildings who pay. That is one important set of issues.

There is another parallel and related set of issues. We know, because we can hear on tape the voices of those who were in that tower saying beforehand that they were not being listened to, at a time when changes were being made to their own home, that they were not paid attention to. That symbolises a wider problem of too many people in social housing not having their voices heard or their interests and lives protected. Of course, the two come together.

The tragedy raises other issues, on which I, my Department and others have reflected, and which I hope this House will return to as well. As the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) rightly says, people in the private rented sector need their rights protected. We have some legislation that we will be debating in this House in due course that is intended to better protect the rights of those in the private rented sector by, for example, getting rid of section 21 evictions. I know the very close interest she takes in housing, so I hope we will have an opportunity to look at that Bill; if she has thoughts about how we can ensure that we do an even better job for those in the private rented sector, I look forward to working with her.

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[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

As others have reminded us, next week will mark five years since the Grenfell fire which claimed 72 lives. I want to add to the tributes to the residents and campaigners for the work they have been doing to keep the issue alive and call all of us involved to account.

Despite progress to some extent since the Secretary of State has been in post, we should not be under any illusion that the building safety crisis has somehow been fixed. Years before the Grenfell fire, the coroner’s recommendations relating to the Lakanal fire were not acted on by the Government, regulators or the building industry. The Lakanal inquiry report was one of many, many warnings that went unheeded. The building safety crisis triggered by the Grenfell fire has had a huge impact, not least on so many of my constituents living in buildings that would be safe and secure had those warnings been acted on. Instead, they are living in fear.

The worst incident in my constituency relating to the building safety crisis is that experienced by the shared owner leaseholders and students of the Paragon building in Brentford. They had to be evacuated, with a week’s notice, in October 2020. The cladding had already been removed but the inspections revealed fundamental flaws in the system-built housing blocks. Hard-working leaseholders and students just starting university were cast out. As shared owners, the hard-working leaseholders struggled to get back on the housing ladder, as the Notting Hill housing partnership could not afford to give them the current value for something they would be buying now. They were given only the deemed value of their property at the time, and it was too low to buy another property as a shared owner in west London. Their salaries had not increased significantly, but the values of alternative properties had. Meanwhile, all the costs of the compensation, the legal and organisational costs, had to be covered by Notting Hill housing partnership from its building and maintenance budget.

That was the most severe example, but I have had hundreds of emails in the past five years from other constituents. Leaseholders have had to pay for replacement cladding and waking watch and they may not get recompensed, depending on the situation. Residents were told that they needed a completed EWS1 form to sell their home, yet only about 300 trained professionals across the country could do those checks, so constituents had to put their lives on hold while they waited for a survey. Once the surveys took place, many residents in blocks across my constituency—in Hounslow, Isleworth, Brentford and Chiswick, and indeed, across the country—found that other major problems were apparent in their flats, such as inadequate fire breaks, incorrect insulation and more. In Richmond House in south London, a fire ripped through a small four-storey block of 32 flats. There was no flammable cladding but it was built wholly inadequately. Luckily, no lives were lost. That fire took hold in 11 minutes.

The consequences of all that mean that my constituents face life-changing bills, which can ruin them, and the uncertainty of having to put their lives on hold. The former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), refused to act. At least this Secretary of State acknowledges that the Government have some responsibility and that the response of Government since Grenfell has—I think his words were—“occasionally been insensitive”. I thank him for being honest enough to acknowledge that at the Dispatch Box today.

After months, we finally saw the Government taking action, but it is still too little, too late; and, as Members have said, what support there is applies only to certain defects and not to many others, including structural defects, fire breaks and non-fire defects. We have seen only the tip of the iceberg in regard to defects, thanks to systematic failures across the construction and regulatory sector. Meanwhile, my constituents still face bills for non-cladding defects. There is no help for those mired in the mortgage crisis and unable to sell their homes, and building insurance charges are skyrocketing. One of my constituents saw a 500% increase this year.

Furthermore, social rent landlords were not recompensed for the cost of the building safety crisis imposed on them in places where they house social rent tenants. They have had to dip into their capital budgets, further undoing any growth in the number of social rent homes that we need and adding to the irrelevance of the Prime Minister’s announcement today.

To me, the announcement that personal emergency evacuation plans will not be mandatory in buildings at risk was particularly shocking. The plans are crucial for residents with disabilities and their families to ensure that they can escape buildings during a fire. That was a recommendation from the first report of the Grenfell inquiry. I recently spoke to a constituent whose husband needs a PEEP. In this case, he needs a special chair to ensure that they can get him out of their flat and down the stairs. My constituent rightly said that the Government’s position is “woeful and discriminatory”. It is outrageous that the Government refuse to ensure that residents with disabilities are given the support that they need to escape during a fire. As we know from the past decade, if this is left to the invisible hand of the market and private companies in the sector are relied on to do the right thing, they will not do so.

I will finish by touching on social housing, particularly after the Prime Minister’s announcement. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) for her graphic and emotional descriptions of the plight of her constituents in housing need in band A. I have many similar stories—I wish they were just stories, but they are lives.

After 12 years of Conservative Government failure to fix the housing market, Ministers are recycling and reheating old pilot programmes, with no new funding and no real plan. The Government know what they need to do: support councils such as Hounslow that are building more council homes and homes for social rent. The Government need to do far more. Hounslow is doing what it can with the resources that it has available. In the past three or four years, it has built more than 1,000 new council homes. It has also bought 500 homes, brought them into council ownership and allocated 20 of those to local care leavers. That was done with the help of the Mayor of London. Labour-led councils and Mayor Sadiq Khan are doing the right thing. If only we had a Government with the same commitment, they could do so much more.

With those 1,500 new homes, Hounslow Council is finally, after 10 years, achieving only level pegging on social rent and council housing numbers. Since the Conservative Government reinstated the 70% price discount for right to buy more than 10 years ago, Hounslow has steadily lost far more social rent homes than have been delivered. Nationally, as the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), said, only 2,500 new social rent homes were built and 11,000 were sold. The gap is massive and growing. Most of the homes that have been sold through right to buy are now owned by private landlords, who are charging tenants three times the rent paid by the council tenant living next door. With many of those tenants on housing benefit to meet the gap between their salary and rent levels, that is a massive bonanza for private landlords, at a cost to the taxpayer.

Although I welcome proposals to give more of a voice and more rights to social rent tenants, in my view that only covers one set of people. Council tenants often feel frustrated. They are not always happy, but at least they have elected councillors who can support them with management and maintenance issues. Also, management, maintenance and investment decisions are taken by the council in public, but that is not true for housing association tenants. Many of my constituents are tenants of the larger registered social landlords. They are distant and opaque and often do not even respond to me and my caseworkers, let alone to their tenants. Legislating is therefore the right thing to do, but it has to be done properly. And what about private tenants? Too often, they are bullied and even evicted by rogue landlords, rather than listened to and supported. There is very little to actually improve the voice of leaseholders in private blocks. And there is, of course, the other subset: shared owners.

After 12 long years in power, it is clear that the Government still have no real plan to fix the housing crisis, no plan to end the injustice facing leaseholders and no plan to ensure that we build the good, high-quality, truly affordable homes that families in my constituency want and need.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The communities of Tunstall, Burslem and Kidsgrove could not have a better advocate than my hon. Friend, and I could not have a better ally in shaping measures on urban regeneration. To drive urban regeneration, we will be increasing the council tax surcharge on empty homes. That is a means of making sure that we deal with that scourge and bring life back to all our communities.

Critically, we will also reform the compulsory purchase rules, because the way those powers operate often thwarts the desire of Homes England and others involved in the regeneration business to assemble the brownfield land necessary to build the houses and to get the commercial activity that we want in those communities. The reform in the Bill will ensure that the assembly of land required for urban regeneration becomes easier, so more of the homes that we need are built in the communities that need them in our towns and cities, rather than on precious green fields. The legislation also introduces new measures to facilitate the creation of the urban development corporations that have been integral in the past in driving some of the changes that we wish to see.

A significant part of the Bill seeks to reform the planning system, which I know is an issue of concern across the House of Commons. We all recognise that we have a dysfunctional planning system and a broken housing market. There is a desperate need for more new homes to ensure that home ownership is once more within the reach of many. It is more than just the planning system that needs to change: as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will outline later this week, changes need to be made to everything from the mortgage market to other aspects of how Government operate to help more people on to the housing ladder. Planning is part of that.

As well as making sure that we have the right homes in the right places, we must recognise, as the Bill and my Department do, why there has been resistance to new development in the past. Five basic and essential factors have led to resistance to development and our Bill attempts to deal with all of them. First, far too many of the homes that have been built have been poor quality, identikit homes from a pattern book that the volume of housebuilders have relied on, but that have not been in keeping with local communities’ wishes and have not had the aesthetic quality that people want.

One of my predecessors in this role, Nye Bevan, when he was the Minister responsible for housing in the great 1945-51 Government, made it clear that when new council homes are built, the single most important thing should be beauty. He argued that working people have a right to live in homes built with the stone and slate that reflect their local communities and were hewn by their forefathers, so that when someone looks at a council home and a home that an individual owns, they should not be able to tell the difference, because beauty is everyone’s right. I passionately believe that that is right and there are measures in the Bill to bring that forward.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State rightly references the important role of local people in new developments, but the Osterley and Wyke Green Residents’ Association and Brentford Voice have expressed their concerns that the national development management policies in the Bill give the Secretary of State powers to overrule local people and the local plan, and that unlike for national policy statements, there is no requirement for parliamentary approval. In reality, is the Bill not the latest in a long line of power grabs by this Government?

[Michael Gove]

I am allergic to power grabs. I am entirely in favour of relaxing the grip of central Government and strengthening the hand of local government, which is what the planning reforms here do. The reference to the national development management policies is simply a way to make sure that the provisions that exist within the national planning policy framework—a document that is honoured by Members on both sides of the House, of course—do not need to be replicated by local authorities when they are putting together their local plans. It is simply a measure to ensure that local planners, whose contribution to enhancing our communities I salute and whose role and professionalism is important, can spend more time engaging with local communities, helping them to develop neighbourhood plans, and making sure that our plans work.

Non-commissioned Exempt Accommodation

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I hear the good work that the Minister is doing on the pilots, but what is to stop a rogue landlord, who wants to just take the cash and provide no services, carrying on as before in the pilot areas that he is talking about?

[Eddie Hughes]

The hon. Lady gives me the opportunity to make an important point. The “more than minimal” line was not prescribed in law—to a degree, one might say that it is even worse than that, because it came about through case law and legal challenge. Landlords and the services that they provide are a difficult area and are difficult for councils to challenge.

Fortunately, through the pilots, we have been able to help to educate council officers and explain best practice so that they have been able to challenge. The problem is that that needs to be focused and done all the time. Obviously, any council can challenge the support that is being provided, but that requires the council to put in the effort—perhaps to go round and visit the property and speak to the tenants to understand the support that is being provided—and determine whether it feels that meets the threshold and subsequently challenge. Part of the problem is that councils have done that, but because of the low level, they have lost such challenges. We need to ensure that we are helping those providers because there are a lot of good providers out there. We need to do our best to support and encourage them and then, I hope, signpost people to the appropriate accommodation for them. I appreciate and accept the difficult situation, but as I say, I hope that we will understand best practice better from the pilots and share it more widely. As I have said, should legislative changes be required, that is not something we would shy away from.

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[James Daly]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a fair point.

As I said in my intervention on the shadow Secretary of State, the motion says the sector is being impacted by

“a chronic shortage of genuinely affordable housing, reductions in funding for housing-related support, new barriers to access for single adults requiring social rented housing”.

I agree. For a single person in my borough it is nigh on impossible to get any accommodation whatsoever. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson), I battled for 16 years to get housing for clients with the most acute social problems. I told court after court that unless these people were put somewhere with appropriate support and stable accommodation, the sentence imposed by the justice system would be pointless, because they would come back. I said the same thing time and again, and nothing ever changed.

We must be open and honest, and we must not be critical. We have to think about how we can improve the housing stock in all our boroughs. When I start my contribution by saying that we do not have enough housing for people in my borough, there is clearly something wrong and we have to do something about it.

We have a plan called “Places for Everyone” on Greater Manchester’s strategic housing need. It has been submitted to the Secretary of State, and I am sure it will come across the Minister’s path at some point. Such documents will affect all our areas, and certainly the areas that the shadow Secretary of State and I represent, for years to come. In a document of well over 300 pages, I can find virtually no reference to social housing or social rented housing. This is our strategic housing plan to meet the needs of individuals in Bury and elsewhere.

Throughout my 10 years as a councillor in Bury, I said that our housing stock is far too expensive. It costs more than £300,000 to buy a three-bedroom house in the vast majority of my constituency in the north of England, which is beyond people, certainly people with support needs. There is a glaring and obvious need to build social rented housing and genuinely affordable housing in Bury. There are brownfield sites in the borough that could be used for this purpose, and we still do not have it. We can talk about sticking plasters to address the problem, but we also have to focus on the long-term strategy to overcome it.

The only such provision in Greater Manchester’s strategic plan for the next 25 years says:

“Make provision for affordable housing in accordance with local planning policy requirements, equivalent to at least 25% of the dwellings on the site and across a range of housing types and sizes (with an affordable housing tenure split of 60% social or affordable rented and 40% affordable home ownership)”.

In a document of many hundreds of pages, that is it. That is literally it. There is no bespoke plan—the shadow Secretary of State has disappeared—whether it is in Wigan, Rochdale or wherever it may be. Unless we have that plan, social rented housing will not be at the centre of public policy. Local authorities cannot run away from this. The temptation of local authorities of all political persuasions is always to blame the Government for everything.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that local authorities cannot put anything about social rented housing in their strategic plan without a Government commitment to fund it? My council, Hounslow, is building 1,300 council homes, almost all of it from the council’s own proceeds. That is it, and the council is doing it at a slower rate than the right to buy. Even at this rate, the council is losing council homes because it does not have the funding from central Government. We were building hundreds of thousands of new council homes in previous decades because they were funded by Conservative and Labour Governments, and he needs to be challenging his Government to do that now.

[James Daly]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, but, in respect of Greater Manchester, I think she has answered her own question. If what she says is the case, what an indictment it is of the Labour councils in Greater Manchester that they have not even bothered applying for the Government funding that would underpin that long-term strategy. I have been a councillor for a long time and we have been asking them for that strategy, in order to take advantage. I could cite the billions of pounds that are available to support these strategies, but Labour councils in my area—[Interruption.] Heads are being shaken, but Labour councils in my area have made no effort to address this problem. I want to take this opportunity in this Chamber to encourage my local councils to be as proactive as the hon. Lady’s.

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[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), who represents the constituency I grew up in. More importantly, she made such a powerful point to illustrate the importance of this debate. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who is temporarily not in her place, for bringing this debate about, and the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), who is also not here at the moment, for his response. I listened to him carefully. He certainly understands the issues, because of his former roles at Birmingham YMCA and in the housing movement before he entered this House, but we need more than his understanding and his pilots.

MPs have raised so many examples of the poor standards, the poor support and the lack of regulation faced by too many tenants living in exempt accommodation or supported housing across the country. We must not forget that almost all those living in exempt accommodation are the most vulnerable and the most in need of care and support, almost by definition. They include those with mental health needs, those recovering from serious addiction, those fleeing domestic abuse, those leaving prison or the care system and those with other vulnerabilities. What they have in common is that they need and deserve to get their lives back on track and to move on, but for many, the abuses of exempt accommodation prevent that from happening.

There are many good examples of supported housing and exempt accommodation, such as Look Ahead, which provides housing and support for 18 to 25-year-olds with complex needs in my constituency. When I visited last autumn, the residents told me about the help they were getting from Look Ahead staff with their benefits, with getting on courses and into work, with having meaningful activities to occupy them when they were not able to study or work, with support with parenting and with the other basics of day-to-day life that these young people are not able to get from their parents for a variety of reasons. Look Ahead, like other charities and community interest companies, is set up to support vulnerable people, as well as to provide a roof over their heads, and not to make a profit. Staff told me that cuts to funding and universal credit mean that they struggle to provide the level and quality of support that they are set up to offer and want to be able to provide for these youngsters.

There are also rogue landlords, however, who exploit the system permitted by the exempt housing benefit provisions. They are making obscene profits at the taxpayers’ expense and then costing taxpayers more in the long run through the price of neglect of those vulnerable people. We have heard many examples in the debate.

Not all exempt accommodation has been exported from London. I am aware of several such houses in my west London constituency. A constituent with mental health problems was placed in a run-down house with no support for his needs and was living in fear of another resident with aggressive and violent behaviour. Constituents living near such supported accommodation have been affected by antisocial behaviour and racist, sexist and homophobic abuse from the residents. Those residents have no meaningful activities to keep them occupied or sanctions on their actions, as they would if the supported accommodation was properly run.

This is yet another example of the wider trend that we have seen under the Government of the most vulnerable people in society being a mere afterthought. The sweeping cuts to local authorities such as Hounslow, which has lost £150 million in grant funding since 2010, have had an impact. Funding for social housing nationally has seen huge cuts, as has already been raised today. Support services have been shredded before our eyes.

The safety nets provided by local authorities, Government agencies and the always-valuable third sector have fallen away. The cumulative effect of those cuts has had an impact that hits the most vulnerable hardest—including those living in exempt accommodation owned by rogue landlords. We are talking about people who are vulnerable now, some of whom are a risk to themselves or perhaps those around them. Most want to move on with their lives, but the support that they need to do that is no longer there.

Exempt accommodation appears to exist in a vacuum largely outside regulations or the control and influence of local authorities. We have the Care Quality Commission to regulate the quality of care in our health and care settings, and the prisons inspectorate for those in custody, but nothing to ensure that such landlords are providing the care and support that the residents badly need. The limited powers that councils have to regulate HMOs do not apply to exempt accommodation and the schemes that we have heard about from the Minister are merely discretionary.

My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), who is no longer in her place, reminded us of Supporting People, which was a good model of providing support for people in need. It was introduced by the Labour Government and ended by the Conservative Government. Now, 11 years later, the Government must act, and soon. We need stronger regulations, not just discretionary standards. We need a social housing regulator with powers to deal with rogue landlords who are not only ripping off the taxpayer but putting the most vulnerable people in society at risk.

We need providers to pass a fit and proper persons test before they are allowed to provide exempt accommodation. We need a stronger inspections regime to keep providers on their toes and a regulator that has full powers of enforcement to clamp down on those who still flout the system. That is the least that the vulnerable residents of exempt accommodation and their neighbours deserve. When I intervened on the Minister, he conceded that he would not shy away from further regulation if a case was made, and I hope that he does not shy away from it.

Levelling Up

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That is absolutely, totally, 100% correct, and it is my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary who deserves all the credit.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Hounslow is in the second most prosperous UK sub-region by gross value added, but thanks to 11 years of Government policies, 40% of Hounslow’s children live in poverty, so when will levelling up address inequality within communities as well as between them?

[Michael Gove]

That is a very important point. What we need to do is to make sure that we work with the Mayor of London, but also with Hounslow Borough Council and those who are involved in providing opportunity for young people in the communities the hon. Member represents, to give them a better chance in the future.

Building Safety

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend raises a very important case. I will look at what we can do to help his constituents. I will not make an absolute promise from the Dispatch Box at this point, but the situation he describes is clearly unacceptable.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

The shadow Secretary of State said that we cannot make a building half safe, but some residential buildings are possibly more dangerous than others. In October 2020, over 800 leaseholders and students were evicted from the Paragon blocks in Brentford, with one week’s notice—that is how dangerous they were deemed to be. They were built using a modular form of construction, and the eviction came two years after the flammable cladding had already been removed. I have reason to believe that the Paragon situation—there are other examples across the country—was a result of the modular form of construction, to which the out-of-date building regulations do not apply, as well as poor, shoddy and badly supervised construction works. When will the Secretary of State bring up-to-date building regulations through the system, and when will he address the lamentable culture in the construction industry, which the counsel for the Fire Brigades Union at the Grenfell inquiry described as being driven by an

“agenda of deregulation, privatisation and marketisation”?

When will he do something about that?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes an important point about modular construction. Through the Buildoffsite Property Assurance Scheme guidance, we require appropriate adherence to principles with modular construction, which should keep buildings safe. She is right that the Grenfell inquiry has also had a number of accounts from a number of witnesses that raise issues of concern. Although it is important that we continue to take action even before the inquiry concludes, I would not want to pre-empt the inquiry’s conclusion on all the issues she mentions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely, and we will be saying more about how we can ensure that the remaining tranches of the levelling-up fund are allocated fairly. Accrington and Oswaldtwistle speak to me even now as communities that I would love to visit, with my hon. Friend as my guide.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Not only have reforms of permitted development rights led to a new generation of slum housing, but the latest developments pose a huge risk to the beating heart of our high streets. Communities in this position have no voice and no say in these conversions, and councils are powerless to stop them. Will the Government at least give councils and communities some transparency, and release in full the promised regulatory impact assessment of the Department’s changes to permitted development rights?

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

The hon. Lady is quite wrong in her assertion. Local authorities do have powers to deny permitted development. Prior approvals are required in respect of matters such as aspect, parking and access before the buildings can be constructed. Authorities can also apply for article 4 exemptions for areas in which PDRs will therefore not apply. I can tell the hon. Lady that as a result of our PDR changes, 84,000 new homes have been built which otherwise might not have been built, often on brownfield sites and often in town centres, to the betterment of those people who want to live in them. These are advantages for home dwellers.

Planning (Enforcement) Bill

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Friday 19th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) on his success in the private Member’s Bill ballot and on choosing planning enforcement as his topic. I thank him for taking the time to meet me earlier this week to discuss the detail of his Bill. I also congratulate the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) and my friend the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), with whom I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group for cycling and walking, on their contributions.

As has been expressed in the Chamber through speeches and interventions, there cannot be many MPs or councillors of all parties and none who have not had constituents complain about the delays and apparent weaknesses in the planning enforcement system. The Bill seeks to address the most egregious breaches of planning law—those of multiple abuses. Often, but not exclusively, they are on the green belt or on metropolitan open land and on other green open spaces, involving uses such as junk yards, coach and lorry parks and mobile home parks. I cannot imagine the pain and stress experienced by immediate neighbours and those in the communities affected by the damage caused by these sites while they are operating.

I would like to add another example of egregious abuse: too many houses in multiple occupation. I have seen some truly terrible housing conditions in Hounslow, with back-garden shacks—not even sheds—and front rooms of small terraces split into two, with eight bedsits squeezed into a home. I think that Hounslow was the first local authority to use the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 against such abuses. The victims of this abuse of the planning system are the residents who are charged rip-off rents, and their children. Furthermore, it appears that in these egregious examples, the perpetrators’ names come up repeatedly in different places.

[Nickie Aiken]

I absolutely accept the hon. Lady bringing up HMOs as an issue. Does she agree that planning enforcement should be strengthened to prevent the ongoing blight that concerns people particularly in London—especially in my constituency—of short-term, one-night lettings under Airbnb or Booking.com? The 90-night rule should be enforced under planning law.

[Ruth Cadbury]

I appreciate the pressure that the hon. Member faces in her constituency. My friend the hon. Member for North Devon expressed concerns about seaside resort cities and my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) is also experiencing this blight. The Airbnb situation is a further example of weaknesses in the planning system. Perhaps the planning system in a wider sense needs strengthening rather than planning enforcement—that might be the subject for another debate and another Bill—but I understand the pain of the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) and that of her constituents.

I agree with the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge that it is not fair that while everyone else play by the rules, a tiny number are apparently able to cock a snook at the council and their neighbours. His Bill is not aimed at the far more common lower-level breaches such as residential extensions built higher or closer than allowed in planning permission or under permitted development rights, but neighbours say that the system takes far too long to sort out even those cases. People do not appreciate that planning enforcement is not like licensing, where a miscreant’s premises can be closed down immediately.

I turn to the Bill’s clauses. First, it would create a single England-wide database of all major or repeated planning enforcement breaches that would be publicly available. The cost of maintaining the database is to be covered by charging planning fees. Does that mean increasing current fees? Local planning authorities are currently each required to maintain their own register of enforcement and stop notices, which contains details of enforcement notices, stop notices, breach of condition notices and planning enforcement orders. The data is there, but it is not all in one place.

If enacted, the clause would make it really easy for planning enforcement officers to see whether they were dealing with regular offenders who work across a number of council areas. This could certainly be useful. For example, in prosecuting cases for failure to comply with enforcement notices, local planning enforcement officers could join up and bring a bigger case against that particular individual. A database would also provide a source of reference, so that planning officers could look at the types of breaches that have been enforced against and how officers in different boroughs dealt with them, such as the wording used for complex breaches.

Let me return to how the database would be resourced. The Bill refers to making a call on planning fees. However, there are any number of pressures on planning department budgets, thanks to 10 years of Government cuts to local councils, so if there were any opportunity to raise funds from planning fees to support the planning system, I am sure that borough planning officers would have a long list of greater priorities to spend that money on, such as employing more staff. This week, the Royal Town Planning Institute told me that it had a report of one authority that has just five planning officers to deal with everything: planning policy, planning applications and enforcement. Besides, why should well-behaved applicants be subsidising the prosecution of unauthorised activity? Although I appreciate the intent, and the proposal has some merit, I fear that the database could be seen as a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Clause 2 would require all applicants for planning consent to declare if they or their company has ever had any planning enforcement action taken against them. One difficulty is that planning applications and planning permissions run with the land, and not the person who makes the application as such. It would therefore be quite easy for anyone to circumvent the need to declare whether they have had enforcement action taken against them or their company by simply getting someone else to put their name on the application.

Appearing on the list could also be held against someone in determining any application they make subsequently. Each application has to be judged on its merits and not the prior actions of a person making a new application on a different site. The provision could catch many perfectly innocent people who just do not understand the planning system. It ignores the fact that the majority of people subject to enforcement action breach the system unwittingly; in the vast majority of cases the process of being served with an enforcement notice leads them to rectify the mistake and, in the process, learn about the planning system. Why should they be forced to declare and have their past mistake hanging over them?

Clause 3 would enable the local planning authority to seek an injunction in the High Court, with the effect of a stop notice, so that no further planning applications could be considered on that particular site. Now, I am no planning lawyer but my understanding is that provisions for injunctions are already available to local planning authorities under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

I share the frustration of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge with the situation in his constituency, and the cases raised by other Members. I do not know what other remedies were sought by the planning authorities in these egregious cases, nor why they did not work. As he will be aware, there are a number of tools in the enforcement officers’ armour that can be used to tackle ongoing and serious breaches of planning consent, and the ignoring of planning enforcement notices. Those tools include stop notices and temporary stop notices, POCA, planning enforcement orders if there may have been concealment—I remember the case of a farmer who built a house hidden behind walls of hay bales; I think he was prosecuted in the end—and injunctions, as I have already said.

Many of the appalling cases described by the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge are subject to other criminal and civil proceedings relating to pollution, noise and smell, housing conditions and tenure, health and safety breaches, modern slavery and more.

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

The hon. Lady is demonstrating well the complexity of these cases; our constituents all feel frustrated by how long and complex they are. As my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge said, our constituents have to put up with it while cases go on for months and often years. Does the hon. Lady welcome the fact that my hon. Friend has brought this issue to the House for us to examine? Hopefully, Ministers can take the matter back to the Department and it will come back later in the planning enforcement paper.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The hon. Lady anticipates the end of my speech.

In the planning system, enforcement action is intended to be remedial rather than punitive. That might be the difficulty. To carry out development without the necessary consent is not in itself a criminal offence, and as I understand it this place has always baulked at the idea of making it one; however, the failure to comply with a planning enforcement notice is a criminal offence and carries the risk of heavy fines and, ultimately, imprisonment.

We have a lot of sympathy for the Bill and, most certainly, for the reasons why the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge has brought it to the House, and we understand why so many Members with green belt and open space in their constituencies are present, but we are not convinced that the specific measures in the Bill will actually address the egregious breaches. Clearly, a failure somewhere in the system has allowed to arise the situation about which Members have spoken so eloquently; it is cumbersome and slow.

In conclusion—

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Will the hon. Lady include in her conclusion a consideration of whether it is appropriate for people to be able to continue to appeal against enforcement notices? That is where a lot of the abuse arises, particularly in respect of the length of time.

[Ruth Cadbury]

As I say, I am no planning lawyer. The situation clearly needs to be investigated. The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge described just that situation when we met earlier.

We would like assurance from the Government that there will be a review of the particularly extreme examples of planning abuses and the cases that go on and on for many years. Particular attention should be given to cases in which it appears that the same offenders try the same tactics at multiple sites, which is the reason why the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge had the idea of a database. The review should consider whether aspects of planning law should be amended to better address the kind of breaches that have led the hon. Member to introduce the Bill.

Budget Resolutions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

This Budget comes on the back of a lost decade for many of my constituents—a decade of lost investment, a decade of lost opportunity and a long decade of crippling cuts to essential services. This applies no more so than for our further education colleges and sixth forms across the country, and that is the topic on which I shall focus in the short time that I have available this evening.

The Chancellor announced that schools funding for up to 16-year-olds will eventually match the per-pupil levels of the previous Labour Government, but adult skills and 16-19 further education miss out by an estimated £4.8 billion. The Government talk about levelling up and putting skills centre stage but, in reality, the swingeing axe of austerity still falls.

Tracey Aust, principal of West Thames College in Isleworth, told me that, by 2024, per-student funding at her college would not have gone up for 14 years—14 lost years. The current per-student funding is just £1,050 per annum, compared with £6,600 per university student. That has meant cuts in the college year on year: less choice of courses; less career advice; fewer opportunities to link with local employers; and less mental health and welfare support. Furthermore, vocational courses cost more to deliver than desk and whiteboard courses. Together, these two factors make it much harder for this excellent college to provide world-class education and the skills that our economy needs in the future.

West Thames College’s principal also said that replacing BTECs with the new T-levels would risk more students falling through the gaps, as the T-levels require level 2 and above entry requirements. The Department for Education’s own equality impact assessment on T-levels said:

“Those from SEND backgrounds, Asian ethnic groups, disadvantaged backgrounds and males are disproportionately likely to be affected.”

That is yet more levelling down.

Colleges such as West Thames College have done amazing work, ensuring that young people get a world-class education and the skill that they need for later life in the jobs that need doing. Yet they are being held back by a Government who spout warm words about skills and retraining, but then offer virtually no support.

With the climate crisis hardly getting a mention in the Budget, nothing was said about green skills. FE colleges are critical in this regard. They provide the essential learning that will be needed, including designing, installing and maintaining heat pumps, solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars and better insulation; and rewilding our natural spaces. We cannot deliver net zero here in the UK if UK people do not have the green skills, and we cannot level up if people who want to work and who want to get better paid work do not have the skills that this country needs in future.

Better skills need better funding. We need to invest in people and to invest in productivity. Time and again, this Government have been warned about their inadequate investment in skills, and this Budget is just tinkering around the edges. This Budget does not make up for the lost decade that West Thames College and other colleges across England have faced. This is a lost decade that will leave a scarring impact on so many.

Building Safety Bill (Sixteenth sitting)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

The hon. Member for Weaver Vale has already indicated that he wishes to withdraw the new clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 15

Waking watch

“(1) Within one year of the day on which this Act is passed the Secretary of State must carry out and publish a review of the impact of the advice of his department since June 2017 on—

(a) the implementation of 24 hour ‘waking watch’ fire patrols and other interim fire safety measures in residential buildings in England awaiting fire safety works;

(b) costs arising from waking watches and other fire safety measures on leaseholders; and

(c) building insurance premiums and safety requirements of building insurance;

(2) The review must include an assessment of the effectiveness of waking watch as an interim fire safety measures, and a comparison with other measures must be included.

(3) The review must recommend industry changes and Government action necessary to reduce reliance on waking watch and interim fire safety costs for leaseholders.”—(Ruth Cadbury.)

This new clause would ensure the Government undertake a review of waking watch policies.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Miller. New clause 15, which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale and others, addresses waking watch. It says that within a year, the Secretary of State must

“carry out and publish a review of the impact of the advice of his department since”

the Grenfell fire on

“the implementation of 24 hour ‘waking watch’ fire patrols and other interim fire safety measures in residential buildings in England…costs arising from waking watches…building insurance premiums and safety requirements of building insurance”,

and the cost of other interim fire safety measures. Subsection (2) would require

“an assessment of the effectiveness of waking watch as an interim fire safety measures, and a comparison with other measures”.

Subsection (3) would require the review to

“recommend industry changes and Government action necessary to reduce reliance on waking watch and interim fire safety costs”

that leaseholders face.

After the Grenfell Tower fire, waking watches were one of the solutions—one then thought of as temporary—to the cladding and fire safety crisis in residential buildings. All involved assumed that the crisis would pass as either buildings were deemed safe or remediation works rendered them safe before too long. Sadly, more than four years on, too many residential buildings constructed in the last 20 years and awaiting remediation are still deemed by fire safety experts to be so unsafe that they require waking watch services—a 24-hour building patrol of at least two people, and more for larger buildings.

I will deal first with the other fire safety measures implied in the new clause. Subsection (1)(b) and (c) crucially focus on the costs that many leaseholders have faced because of waking watch programmes and others, along with the impact of insurance premiums, while awaiting a permanent solution to a building’s fire safety risk. As we have heard many times before, insurance is one among a mounting series of costs hitting leaseholders. Research in The Sunday Telegraph recently showed that insurance premiums have increased by up to 1,200%. For one of my constituents, the cost has risen from £234 a year to £1,734.

I will now address waking watches. One of my constituents, a leaseholder in a flat in Hounslow, wrote to me about their experience and that of their neighbours. They live in a small block of 25 flats, half of which are for social rent. The block is being charged £48,000 per calendar month plus VAT. My constituent described the £48,000-a-month service as “three men” who

“sit in a cleaning cupboard in the lobby and periodically patrol the small corridors connecting the flats and the stairwell to check for fires.”

We have heard many serious concerns raised about the quality and standards of waking watches in our postbags. A report in The Times found that staff had joked about running out of Netflix programmes to watch, and a report by Which? in 2020 found similar concerns about staff even sleeping when they were on site. In my constituency, when flammable cladding went up—cladding that was awaiting removal—the waking watch in the adjacent block did nothing. Residents called the emergency services, not the waking watch service being paid to do so.

However, this is not about individual staff members; rather, it is about the wider system. Are there basic standards for waking watch contracts in residential buildings, or numbers of personnel per floor or per 10 flats? Are there stated skill levels, a job description or on-the-job reporting? For instance, anyone using a toilet in a restaurant, or even in the Palace of Westminster, will know when it was last cleaned and what to do if they feel that it does not reach a specific health and safety standard. Do leaseholders have an equivalent assurance as to the safe operation of the waking watch in their blocks, which is somewhat more serious than the cleanliness of a toilet? Certainly, they do not feel safe, based on our postbags.

Is waking watch really an interim measure? For my constituents in one block, a new management company came in and slightly reduced the price of the waking watch. A new fire alarm was fitted, which they were told would get rid of the requirement for waking watch, but—such luck—new guidance issued by the Government meant that the waking watch had to remain, so they continue to pay for it. There is nothing to help people in this situation. It is a rather fitting epitaph for the Government’s approach not only to the cost of waking watch but to the fire and building safety crisis. As my constituent said,

“nothing has changed in terms of leaseholders incurring a monthly expense. The announcement last year of a £30 million Waking Watch Fund (which has yet to pay any money out) will do nothing to help people in this situation.”

Some buildings with a waking watch will soon be re-clad or their fire safety defects otherwise remediated; the owners will have done the right thing, or their building safety fund application will have been successful. However, sadly, too many buildings will continue to require a waking watch for the foreseeable future for a number of reasons, which in my constituency alone include: ineligibility for the building safety fund, as the fire risk is not one of inflammable cladding; the building being below 18 metres; or the owner or head lessee being in dispute with the builder over where the responsibility lies. If the owner or the head lessee is a housing association and some flats are for social rent, for which the building safety fund is not to be used, the housing association will have to fund the remediation from its precious capital fund, which is allocated to build new social rent housing, not to make good faults for which that housing association is not responsible, particularly when the block was built by a volume housebuilder and the housing association took over as part of a section 106 agreement. Finally, the other reason why waking watch may continue and safety defects go unrectified is if there is a disagreement between safety professionals as to the actual level of fire risk.

The specifics of each waking watch vary, but generally people are employed to monitor buildings, both internally and externally, for fire and to alert residents in the blocks should there be a fire—that is the theory anyway. A report by the National Fire Chiefs Council said that waking watches alone are

“impracticable for a long-term solution”,

yet they have become widespread and long-term. In London alone, nearly 600 buildings require a waking watch, and there are an estimated 1,000 buildings nationally. These waking watch services have to be funded somehow. The Minister will no doubt refer to the £30 million funding pot that is largely being spent on new alarms, but many reports have pointed out that that funding will not end the need for waking watches, as I pointed out.

I spoke this morning about the toll of the building safety crisis on the mental health of leaseholders. I know from listening to those in my constituency that widespread use of waking watch patrols only adds to their anxiety, on top of the rising bills. One constituent told me how hearing the footsteps is a constant reminder of the risk that so many leaseholders face. I urge the Government to consider the review that the new clause seeks and to provide real answers to the many thousands of leaseholders who hear those footsteps.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this important point. I am aware that the use of waking watches, especially those put in place by building owners since Grenfell, is causing concern to residents. It is vital that they are used appropriately and only in the most limited circumstances. I hope that the hon. Lady will feel able to withdraw her amendment, although I understand the motivations behind it.

--- Later in debate ---

The hon. Lady mentioned the waking watch relief fund, which provides £35 million to incentivise the installation of a common alarm system. By the end of August that fund had allocated over £22.5 million, covering around 264 of the highest-risk buildings. We estimate that that has benefited over 20,000 leasehold dwellings. I appreciate what the hon. Lady is trying to achieve, but I remind her that on 16 September we reopened the waking watch relief fund so funds can be made available to those in the greatest need. I hope that the hon. Lady recognises that the practical application of new clause 15 will not be to offer any material assistance to leaseholders. On that basis, I encourage her to consider withdrawing her new clause.

[Ruth Cadbury]

I thank the Minister for his considered response to new clause 15. He said that the review our amendment seeks provides no practical use to leaseholders. I would suggest that having a review and putting it on the public record would be very valuable, because it might expose some of the issues.

[Christopher Pincher]

I sat down a little prematurely. What I might have said is that, as the hon. Lady will know, the House of Commons has many and varied methods to bring Ministers to the Dispatch Box to address questions or answer debates. I think she will find a way for her voice and the voice of leaseholders to be heard in this matter if she thinks it appropriate.

[Ruth Cadbury]

I hear the Minister’s point. A review being incorporated into legislation would have a little bit more weight, particularly with a response being drafted by the Government, rather than through MPs bringing anecdotal evidence as part of their casework.

The Minister said that the waking watch mitigation is only there while the removal of unsafe cladding and the installation of fire alarms is awaited. As I have explained—he would know this if such a review was to take to place—the taking of those actions has not stopped waking watch being considered essential by the fire safety professionals employed by building owners and managers.

In the spirit of collaboration and collegiality, however, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 16

Monthly building safety updates

“(1) The Secretary of State must within three months of the day on which this Act passes and monthly thereafter lay before each House of Parliament a report on the progress of cladding remediation.

(2) The report must include an overview of—

(a) the progress of the remediation of non-ACM cladding;

(b) the remediation progress of—

(i) social residential buildings,

(ii) private sector residential buildings,

(iii) student accommodation,

(iv) hotels,

(v) hospitals,

(vi) care homes, and

(vii) publicly owned buildings identified has having in need of remediation due to unsafe cladding of any height,

(c) data collected from fire authorities, including—

(i) the numbers of waking watches,

(ii) other interim safety measures, and

(iii) fire alarms installed in residential buildings awaiting remediation or other building safety work.

(d) estimated dwelling numbers in all estimates.

(3) The report as set out in subsection (1) shall include—

(a) regional breakdowns of all data points;

(b) identify whether remediation has been funded through government funding, developer or freeholder funding, through warrantee or by other means; and

(c) detail what proportion of government funding has been allocated and paid out in the period since the last report was published.

(4) The report will no longer have to be published when all buildings identified as having cladding in need of remediation have completed remediation.”.—(Mike Amesbury.)

This new clause would ensure the Government provide regular written updates on the progress of the remediation programme of non-ACM cladding in line with what is currently published on ACM cladding.

Brought up, and read the First time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Amesbury]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The new clause would ensure that the Government published an assessment of the impact of building safety costs on registered providers of social housing. The National Housing Federation last week announced that one in 10 affordable homes planned by housing associations will no longer be built, because of the costs of making buildings safe. The impact of the Government’s decision to effectively lock out social landlords from funding, because costs are less likely to fall on the shoulders of leaseholders, is clear in the report: 12,900 out of 116,777 new affordable homes will be cut from plans in order to prioritise spending on building safety. Earlier this year, the G15 group stated that their bill would be £3.6 billion by 2036. Nationally, housing associations stated last year that it would cost £10 billion to make all homes safe from fire risk over the next 10 years. The National Housing Federation also announced last week that social rent homes would be the hardest hit, because they build the majority of that tenure within their own income envelope rather than with Government grants.

I need hardly remind the Minister that the country managed to build only 6,644 homes for social rent in 2019 and 2020, but lost 24,120 from the stock, resulting in a net loss of 17,476 homes for social rent. With one in 10 households stuck on waiting lists for more than five years to get a home, we absolutely cannot afford to be losing more social homes. We must build them at scale.

I was glad to hear that the new Secretary of State appears to agree with me and so I hope that addressing this aspect of the building safety crisis can form part of the thinking in this respect. It is not just home building itself that will be impacted. The 61 housing associations surveyed by the National Housing Federation said that they would have to divert £730 million away from routine maintenance such as upgrading kitchens or bathrooms or doing other essential safety work. Half a million social homes are considered to be non-decent—as we have seen in the coverage on ITV. Shockingly, 40% of those are classed as unfit for human habitation. These homes may have mould or damp, rodent issues, or physical damage.

[Ruth Cadbury]

My hon. Friend is giving an excellent description of the current state of much social rent housing. That is partly because the landlords—councils and housing associations—have not had adequate funding to bring them up to scratch, and the building safety crisis in relation to social rent homes is adding to that. The Minister may want to attack the Labour Government, because that is what Conservative Governments frequently do, but does my hon. Friend agree that, while the Labour Government brought 1 million social rent homes up to standard 20 years ago, such a programme needs to happen again now and this crisis is only making that pressure worse?

[Mike Amesbury]

I concur with my hon. Friend. When I was a councillor in the Manchester area, I saw the results of that very standards programme. But we cannot excuse landlords; it is on their shoulders to ensure that the types of horrific cases that we have seen are sorted quickly. We cannot afford to allow money to be taken away from tackling these issues. Analysis has shown that housing associations have paid six times as much as developers to get buildings fixed. Given the huge profits that have been made in the private sector, it is a scandal that it is not doing more to pay to fix faults, many of which it created.

The first amendment that Labour tabled in the Committee centred on the impact of climate change on building safety. Building safety considerations are competing with building green houses. The Government have announced funding, but it will take much more to ensure that social homes are warm and energy efficient. With housing accounting for 14% of our emissions, we must make that a priority.

The new clause would ensure that the Government looked at the impact of this crisis on future levels of house building in the UK by social home providers, on homelessness and on the maintenance of social homes. It would require them to make recommendations for action necessary to ensure that building safety issues do not inhibit our ability to reach the house-building targets, and that current provision of housing is maintained and improved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Amesbury]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The very notion of shared ownership implies to me—and I am sure to others in Committee—an element of joint responsibility. Yet it is abundantly clear that, when it comes to picking up the remediation costs to fix a plethora of faults throughout the landscape of shoddy development, there is nothing shared about it. I know that Ministers and departmental officials will have seen the emails, letters and case studies, many of them exposed by the media, that shine a light on the desperation of many residents in shared ownership properties. I was recently made aware of one such building in London, which was covered in flammable cladding and has wooden decking. It is under 18 metres, so leaseholders are not covered by the Bill. They are not classed as high risk. A bill for £85,000 per household from their housing association has just landed through their doors. Some residents own as little as 25% of their flat, but risk being responsible for 100% of the cost.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Does my hon. Friend agree—from what he was saying, I think he does—that the Government must address this iniquity in shared ownership, where shared owners own only a proportion of their flat yet are responsible for 100% of the cost? Does he also agree that for constituents such as mine, fire safety has been a crisis? They were evacuated from their homes at a week’s notice by their social rent landlord from a property built by Berkeley Group. They are homeless, and they cannot get on the housing ladder, even though the housing association has been able to repay them the market cost of the share they own. Does he agree that that is wholly iniquitous?

Building Safety Bill (Fifteenth sitting)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Christopher Pincher]

Again, I am grateful to the hon. Member for St Albans for the new clause and for how she comported herself. She mentioned the outstanding parliamentary question and, once the Committee concludes today, I will search for it, search for the answer, and ensure that she receives it as quickly as possible.

While I understand the intent behind the new clause, I am unable to accept it today. I believe it is unnecessary, as its intention is already being met. As the hon. Lady said, and as I have expressed previously, significant funding for leaseholders and for remediation is being made available, and I will unpack some of that for the Committee.

The hon. Lady will know that we are spending a significant amount of money on the remediation of in-scope high-rise buildings that are clad with ACM. For 97% of ACM-clad buildings, remediation has either happened or is under way. For socially owned ACM-clad buildings, 100% have been or are being remediated. We have also made available money through the building safety fund to ensure that non-ACM-clad buildings are made safe. So far, £734 million has been allocated. A significant number of buildings have begun their remediation process and 689 have been allocated support.

We have also said that we will bring forward proposals to ensure that appropriate support is available to leaseholders and building owners in the 11 to 18-metre cohort. We are doing further work to assess the prevalence of such buildings, and that will inform the final solution that we land on. We are considering all options to ensure that leaseholders are protected and helped.

The hon. Lady asked whether we believe in the polluter-pays principle. It is a rather—how can I put it?—crude term, but we certainly want to ensure that those who have the responsibility for the defects that have bedevilled so many buildings, and those who own them, pay what they are due. That is why we have announced a residential property developers tax, which we estimate will raise £2 billion. Clause 57, which we have agreed to, gives powers for a building safety levy on high-rise developers. We estimate that that will account for some half a billion pounds of income, and that is due at the gateway to approval stage for the new building safety regime. We certainly believe that those who have the broadest shoulders and those who are responsible for the defects that affect a great many buildings should pay their way, but we believe that the new clause will not work because implementing it will be costly, slow and disproportionate to the financial returns and their timely receipt, and that the Government will need to create a new administrative board to manage the fund.

I should tell the hon. Lady and the Committee that the new clause also risks the mortgage and insurance industries bringing significant and protracted legal challenges. We want them to undertake a much more proportionate and sensible approach to value ascription and risk definition, rather than the risk-averse, computer-says-no approach that they have taken to date. I think this amendment would obscure that sensible and simple objective.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Why is something along the lines that the hon. Member for St Albans proposes not appropriate here but appropriate for the Motor Insurers Bureau? What else is the Minister doing to address the retrospective challenge of those buildings that are already built? The proposal he mentioned is for new buildings that will be completed only once this legislation is enacted.

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Lady is simply wrong; what I am saying is entirely retrospective. The £5.1 billion we have allocated for high-rise in-scope buildings is already allocated, and that is for buildings that already exist. The funding mechanism we will bring forward for buildings in the 11 to 18-metre cohort is for buildings that already exist, and the moneys that will be collected through the levy and the tax can be used for buildings requiring remediation that already exist.

[Ruth Cadbury]

With respect to the Minister, the point that this amendment makes is to ensure that the polluter pays. The grant from the Government appears to be all taxpayers’ money and, from what I can tell, the Government are taking no action to hold to account financially those developers and builders who are the cause of the problem for residents now.

[Christopher Pincher]

Again, the hon. Lady is wrong; the residential property developer tax is a tax on the developer sector. The high-rise levy is a levy on the developer sector. We want to ensure we have a mechanism, and we believe we do have one, that is speedy, targeted and suitably flexible to meet the challenges of what we know to be a new—in the sense that it was not recognised until the Grenfell disaster—and evolving terrain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daisy Cooper]

I am grateful to the Minister for responding. I would highlight two points. The first is that the Minister suggested that new clause 10 was not necessary because of clause 139, but I respectfully highlight the fact that clause 139 relates to an independent review of the building regulatory regime and the regulation for construction products, so this is a process. Clause 139 relates to future regulation; it does not apply to the remediation of historical fire safety defects.

Secondly, although the Minister was at pains to highlight that he appreciates the urgency, I would highlight that clause 139, on the future review, requires only that the Secretary of State appoints a reviewer within five years of the Act passing. We have tens of thousands of innocent leaseholders who cannot wait another five years for their houses to be made safe so that they can get on with their lives. I said before that the purpose behind the new clause was to highlight the emergency and the urgency with which we would like the Government to act. Many of us feel as though the Government are not acting with the necessary urgency, but I hope the Minister hears that point. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 11

Assessment of mental health impact for leaseholders in dwellings with building safety risks

“(1) The Secretary of State must carry out a review of the impact of building safety issues on leasehold tenants’ mental health.

(2) The review as set out in subsection (1) must be laid before each House of Parliament within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, and must consider the effect on leasehold tenants’ mental health arising from but not limited to—

(a) residing or being a leasehold tenant in a building which has had or currently has building safety issues;

(b) any financial pressures on leaseholders as a result of charges due to building safety work, conducted based on advice given by his department since 14 June 2017;

(c) supply of mortgage finance.

(3) The review shall include recommendations on any mental health support to be provided to leasehold tenants’ as a result of findings under subsection (2).”.—(Ruth Cadbury.)

This new clause would ensure the Government publish an assessment considering the impact of the building safety risks on leaseholders, and whether further specific mental health support is required.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Ruth Cadbury]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Dowd. The new clause seeks an assessment of the mental health impact for leaseholders in dwellings with building safety risks.

It may be normal in areas such as health, social care and justice to consider in legislation the mental health impact on victims, but it is unusual in matters of the built environment. I hope in my comments to address the impact that the crisis is having on the mental health of millions of people across the country. Any MP who has looked into their postbag will know the turmoil and trauma that the crisis has caused to leaseholders. As the hon. Member for St Albans said earlier, they are innocent parties—the only innocent parties—and they have had the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.

The new clause makes three aspects clear. First, there is the trauma caused to people by living in a building that is unsafe and that they fear could go up in flames. Then there is the trauma of the financial bills that so many leaseholders face, which can run into tens of thousands for many. Finally, there is the trauma caused by being trapped and unable to sell or remortgage a home. That is a toxic trio that we know is impacting people’s mental health. Survey after survey has confirmed the huge impact.

In a survey for Which?, a leaseholder called Georgie said:

“I don’t know of any leaseholder whose mental health isn’t affected in some way due to this horrendous situation.”

That chimes with the findings in the landmark report by the Cladding Action Group, which found that nine out of 10 of those surveyed said their mental health had

“deteriorated as a direct result of the situation”.

Some 94% said they were anxious and worried, 83% said they were angry—rightly, I might say—and 59% felt abandoned, which is a point I will come back to later. People also said they had had to take time off work. Health conditions had been made worse. Many were seeking or planning to seek medical help for stress. Some 67% said their mental health had got worse since they were last interviewed. Those numbers should serve as a chilling reminder of the impact, toll and misery of this crisis—a crisis that this Government have effectively caused.

It is hard to convey just what the fear of living in an unsafe building must feel like—how it must feel for people to go to sleep at night not knowing if they are safe in their bed. A constituent who wrote to me after the fire at Grenfell told me that they went past and saw the fire raging from their bus. The images of that night are seared on that constituent’s brain, as it is in the minds of so many other people, even if we just saw it on the TV.

Grenfell was, of course, not the only residential fire with serious consequences. The Cube fire in Bolton and Richmond House in south-west London are just two in recent years. Locally, there are many more examples. Luckily, Sperry House in Brentford was caught in time before the fire raged across the full building—before life was lost. Thanks to the fire services, it was caught in time.

[Mike Amesbury]

Yesterday, Sky highlighted the case of Zoe, who lives in a cramped, one-bedroom flat with small children, but is unable to move out of the flat because of the toxicity of the building safety standards. That is having a huge effect on her mental health issues, including about schools in the future and just the anxiety my hon. Friend illustrates.

[Ruth Cadbury]

My hon. Friend gives yet another illustration of the stress and mental health impact of this crisis. On the subject of people almost frightened to go to sleep at night, people with disabilities and their carers face even greater anxiety and worry over fire safety risks and whether they would be able to get out of their home to safety. Many are struggling to get adequate personal emergency evacuation plans sorted with their building managers.

Paragraph (b) relates to those facing staggeringly high bills. Every day, we see more and more reports of the skyrocketing costs facing leaseholders. One of my constituents, who is a shared owner in Brentford, is facing a bill of £15,000, and says:

“I fear it will be significantly higher...I don’t have this money and it will bankrupt me. I fear homelessness...I’m going to lose the home I worked so hard for.”

Leaseholders across the country are facing staggering and life-changing bills to fix cladding and fire safety defects, and more. Service charges are skyrocketing and, for many, insurance premiums are also shooting through the roof. Two of my constituents are facing an extra £2,000 on their annual insurance bill. Many people face bankruptcy. That is bad enough in itself, because of course it means a lifelong impact, whatever one’s financial future. However, for accountants, lawyers and others, their professional status is permanently destroyed if they are declared bankrupt.

Overall, there is the fear of homelessness for people who got on the housing ladder—they did the right thing, as we often say—but are now falling to the bottom of the snakes and ladders board.

[Ian Byrne]

On the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, we had three sessions of evidence from many people across the country who have gone through covid, have lived since 2017 in unsafe buildings, as my hon. Friend has outlined, and are now in danger of bankruptcy and potentially losing their jobs through professional indemnity being withdrawn. It was heartbreaking to listen to the three sessions and see how life changing this was going to be and the consequences they will have in years to come, affecting their lives, their children’s lives and future generations of the family’s lives. The impact this is having on people’s mental health should not be understated. As I have said, it could not have come at a worse time, with covid, being locked in a house or a flat that was potentially dangerous during lockdown, or fearing for their own lives in a flat they believed was unsafe. They had the pressures of covid and of living in an unsafe building, so for me this new clause is hugely important, after having listened to the evidence sessions with my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Thank you.

[Ruth Cadbury]

I thank the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for the work it did on this important issue. It has put these issues on the public record in a way that we do not have time for today, so our thanks go to the Committee.

Paragraph (c), on mortgage finance, is about the inability to move as one’s family or job situation changes. Normally, one would be able to sell and move somewhere nearer a new job or more suitable to one’s current family situation. Being unable to move causes further stress, even for those in flats with minimal risks. End Our Cladding Scandal estimates that last year there were around 1.2 million mortgage prisoners, and that figure will be growing. All this is largely due to the Government’s inept handling of the EWS1 survey process—an issue that is still not resolved, despite the grandiose claims from Ministers every three months when they want an easy headline.

--- Later in debate ---

Although I understand the motivations behind the new clause, it would seek, in effect, to prioritise one group above another in the receipt of mental health services. I do not think that is the principle upon which crucial mental health and other medical services should be delivered. While the hon. Lady will, I am sure, reamplify the sentiments that lie behind her new clause, I hope she will seek to withdraw it.

[Ruth Cadbury]

I thank the Minister for his response to new clause 11. I am not sure whether he truly understands the impact of the building safety crisis on people, or he does but has no intention of dealing with it. I fear sometimes that it is the former. Only yesterday, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Ministers were advocating shared ownership—a subset of leaseholders. They are advocating that more people get into this mess, rather than addressing the impact on those who are already in it.

My colleagues spoke about the impact of homelessness, which causes mental health stress. On that point, people never expected to be a burden on the state for their housing situation. People did the right thing and got on the housing ladder—an aspiration of over 90% of people in this country. They got a loan and are paying for their home. Sometimes they are paying less in mortgage payments than they were in rent. That was before the charges started going up, of course. When those people become homeless, they add to the numbers of those who are already homeless. That situation will only apply to those whom the council have a duty to house, such as those with school-age children or who are vulnerable in some way, adding to the pressures on councils and the taxpayer. Of course, it will also add to the pockets of many private landlords.

Homelessness has a mental health impact, but it also has other impacts. There is an educational impact on children, who have to move schools because the only home their family is given is miles away. Many have to give up their job because they have been moved so far away that they can no longer travel to work. The Minister said, very helpfully, that anybody suffering from mental health problems can make contact with their GP. Is he not aware of the pressure on GPs at the moment? When did he or a member of his family last get an appointment within two weeks, which is often the wait time?

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Lady seems to be conflating the timescale to the end of this difficult pandemic, the point at which the Bill will become law and when the report she asks for, if the new clause is accepted, will be made, and therefore the effect of the new clause on GPs. It is the case that GPs are under pressure. I am simply making clear the present process for people to access mental health services, which I think was the point that the hon. Member for Weaver Vale made to me.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The Minister was obviously not aware of the crisis in the primary care workforce before the health crisis; certainly, at our GP surgery, we were waiting more than two weeks for an appointment before March last year. The Government have known for years that there are too few GPs, and of course the pressure is getting even worse through covid. However, let us move on.

If one sees a GP because of a mental health concern and the GP accepts the seriousness of that concern, they will then have to do a referral. Waiting times for a clinical assessment, and beyond that, treatment, are growing all the time, and already were before covid struck.

[Christopher Pincher]

Will the hon. Lady explain how the making of a report will practically improve access to mental health services for the people who she quite properly says are affected by the building safety crisis?

[Ruth Cadbury]

First, it will acknowledge, in property law, that there is an impact on people of the lack of appropriate action by the Government. Secondly, when the Government actually accept the polluter pays principle, including builders and developers of existing homes, which is where the main concern is at the moment, they could recoup some of the costs from those builders and developers, which could contribute to additional mental health support. The importance of the new clause is to acknowledge that the building safety crisis is an awful lot more than a building safety crisis; it is a people crisis.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

I want to understand this from a practical point of view, so could the hon. Lady clarify—I apologise if she has covered this; I am listening intently to what she says—who would draft these reports? More broadly, given the obviously untold scale mental health impact this crisis has had, what assessment has she made of the impact on existing services, from which we would have to take professionals out of stream to draft these reports? I am keen to understand that point.

[Ruth Cadbury]

If we were to push the new clause to a vote and it was accepted, the details of that are in there. This is not unique in legislation. It can be done and it can be enacted if the Government will is there. We are trying to establish whether the Government actually care about the people who are impacted by this crisis.

[Mike Amesbury]

When 90% of leaseholders surveyed by UK Cladding Action Group and End Our Cladding Scandal cite mental health and anxiety as a major concern, and when 25% have considered taking their own lives—suicidal thoughts—there is a big issue. It is nearly five years on from Grenfell. My hon. Friend, a good colleague, makes a powerful case for the new clause to be included in the landscape of the new building safety regime in this country.

[Ruth Cadbury]

My hon. Friend confirms the power of this issue. Finally, I will address the Minister’s point about the Building Safety Regulator. To be honest, the point of the regulator is not generally, as drafted, to be concerned about people. The Minister said that the regulator will engage with leaseholders, but engaging with a leaseholder does not actually make them feel better.

My other concern is the growing number. We talked about the UK Cladding Action Group survey. It will have surveyed people who are probably aware of the situation they are in, but we know that people are still buying flats in buildings and more and more people are becoming aware of these issues. I would not buy a flat in a leasehold block, particularly one with a term of less than 20 years, because I have been enmeshed in this issue as a representative MP since before Grenfell. I know what it is like, but too many people are not aware, and are continuing to buy, get mortgages, set up homes and settle down in buildings that they then find are affected. I met the son of a friend of mine a couple of months ago, and he asked, “Could you explain to me this EWS1 problem? I am not moving, but some of my neighbours want to sell, and they did not know anything about it.” I said, “Well, how long have you got?”

[Daisy Cooper]

A number of colleagues have asked what the practical effect of this clause might be. It seems to me that, as the hon. Lady has just said, there is a lack of understanding and information about the impact this situation has on those leaseholders who are caught up in it. We could imagine that, under subsection (3) of the new clause where it says,

“The review shall include recommendations”,

some of those recommendations could, for example, include mental health first aid training in the blocks of flats that are affected, particularly during times when those buildings will be wrapped in plastic. They could include providing information sheets about the impact on people’s lives that those who are affected could take to their GPs, their councillors or others, so a number of practical things could be recommended as a result of a review that could be conducted under this new clause.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The hon. Lady makes a useful suggestion. I feel conflicted when somebody tells me excitedly that they are moving, or that they have just bought, because what do I say? Do I say how pleased I am for them, or do I ask, “Have you thought about this? Did you know about this? Was your solicitor employed by the developer?” and so on. These issues will lead to the mental health problems of the future among people who now are very happy and excited.

I will not press this new clause to a vote, but I am concerned about the rising tide of mental health problems, particularly among leaseholders, but generally among all residents in these blocks. I do wonder how many suicides there have to be before the Government take this on as yet another aspect of the emergency. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 12

Assessment of the impact of building safety issues on access to insurance

“(1) Within one year of the day on which this Act is passed the Secretary of State must carry out a review of the impact of building safety issues, including the provisions of this Act, on access to insurance.

(2) The review as set out in subsection (1) shall include assessment of the United Kingdom insurance market.

(3) The review must consider the impact of building safety issues, confidence in the building safety industry and the impact of advice given by his Department on building safety given since 14 July 2017 on—

(a) the availability and cost of insurance for residential blocks;

(b) the availability and cost of professional indemnity insurance for workers in the building safety industry;

(c) requirements placed on buildings in order to access building insurance; and

(d) the wider insurance market.

(4) The review must make recommendation as to any further action needed by Government or the industry to improve access to affordable residential and professional insurance across the United Kingdom.”—(Mike Amesbury.)

This new clause would ensure the Government publish an assessment of the impact of the building safety risks on the UK insurance market for residential buildings and professional indemnity insurance for those working in building safety.

Brought up, and read the First time.