Business of the House

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

King Alfred is reputed to have founded the Navy and his army defeated the Danes and kept us safe. The British Army, the British Navy and the Royal Air Force have saved our country and provided wonderful service to it, over not just decades and centuries, but more than 1,000 years. My hon. Friend is right to bring to the attention of the Chamber this important event and to make sure that the people of Ashfield are known to be backing our armed services. He is right to do so and I am grateful to him for raising this matter.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wholeheartedly associate myself with the comments made by the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) about the armed forces, particularly this week. It is good to see questions being raised about the leasehold mis-selling scandal and to see other Members, on both sides, raise concerns about all sorts of issues that leaseholders face, particularly in major apartment blocks. May we therefore urgently have a comprehensive and full debate about the responsibilities of building developers and their liability for building defects, including in my constituency? Leaseholders are having to deal with a shabby situation. These issues often relate not just to fire safety, but to the actual construction of buildings, to water and to all sorts of other things. The situation is completely unacceptable.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I think all of us, as constituency MPs, have had constituents complain that they have bought a new house that has had defects and they have found it extremely difficult to get those defects put right and have suffered considerable inconvenience. For one constituent of mine, the defects were dangerous, because of the poor quality of work that was done. This is a real issue, because although we need to build more houses, we need to build them safely and people need to have some form of redress if mistakes are made.