Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Sarah Jones and Royston Smith

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. We heard from a lady this morning that the cost of insurance for her small block had gone up from £30,000 a year to £500,000 a year. We heard from a lady who lives in a block in Kent—I know one Government Member has stood up for her in this place many times—where the residents have already spent £500,000 on a waking watch. It is quite extraordinary.

I was alarmed to see reports this afternoon that the Prime Minister’s press secretary, Allegra Stratton, has said:

“Our problem with McPartland’s amendment is that, far from speeding things up for constituents across the country who are worried about finding themselves in these properties, it would actually slow things down.”

That mirrors the intervention that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has made, and it is an absolute cop-out. We are four years on, and leaseholders are struggling. We think that 11 million people are affected by this—not necessarily those living in dangerous blocks, but those living in blocks where they do not know, because they have not got the forms sorted and they are paying more insurance. That is a huge crisis.

[Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady recall that in the Opposition day debate called by the Labour party just a few weeks ago, I asked the Minister, if our amendment is defective, why do the Government not take it, fix it, and make it work? They had the opportunity then. Does the hon. Lady think they should have done that?

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: if there were any problems with these amendments, they could have been addressed by the Government through this process. They had 12 weeks between the Bill leaving the Lords and coming here to try to effect some of these things, but have chosen not to.

The amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) are to prevent leaseholders from being billed for fire safety repairs. Labour’s amendments went further, because the McPartland-Smith amendments—supportive and good though they are—would not cover leaseholders in blocks where flammable cladding had been added at some stage following the building of the block. Labour’s amendments would have included, for example, Grenfell Tower, which was built in the ’70s but to which the flammable cladding was added later, in 2017.

In our amendments (f), (g), (h) and (i) to Lords amendment 4, we have sought to go even further, to make sure that the cost of fire safety problems from refurbishment jobs such as the cladding of Grenfell Tower cannot be passed on to leaseholders. Our amendments (f) and (g) would ensure that leaseholders cannot be passed on the cost of remediating problems issued under the fire safety order wherever the problem was created. Labour’s amendment (i) would ensure that the Bill protects leaseholders from the day it comes into law, instead of an unknown date in the future, and Labour’s amendment (h) would have ensured that if the fire safety order is extended in the future, the Secretary of State must publish an analysis of the financial implications for leaseholders—although that amendment was not selected today, as it was out of scope. [Interruption.] You are hurrying me along, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I am turning pages so that I can speed up, which I will of course do.

To conclude, Labour’s amendments in lieu are straight- forward. They are based on issues that the Government need to address and have pledged to do so, but have not acted on. The risk of fire and looming bankruptcy will not wait while the Government dither and delay, with inaction or failed proposals that keep many lease- holders in debt. Each amendment I have spoken to today corresponds to a broken promise from the Government.

Today is another chance for the Government to finally put public safety first, and bring forward a set of legally binding commitments to deliver on the promises they made to leaseholders and implement the recommendations of the Grenfell phase 1 inquiry. Blameless victims of this crisis, who are in dangerous homes and facing financial ruin, expect nothing less. As debates over the past four years have repeatedly shown, solving this issue fairly would command cross-party support, and today should be a day to deliver justice. It is not too late for the Government to put the British public first and do the right thing.