Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

There is a shared desire in Parliament to ensure that absolutely everyone in our society lives somewhere decent, safe and secure. We are united in that commitment, and our thoughts naturally turn to the still unimaginable tragedy of Grenfell Tower. It should not have taken such a deadly fire, with such a terrible loss of life and suffering, for us to face up to the failures of building safety that have built up over decades under successive Governments. We are determined to do our duty by those whose lives were changed forever that night, right the wrongs of the past, and bring about the biggest improvement to building safety in a generation.

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

The Minister will know that cladding issues affect thousands of my constituents, as do the wider issues of fire safety and building safety. Will he make clear when the legislation will come forward on both fire safety and building safety? Will he also give us an update on the EWS1 forms? He told the House in November that there had been negotiations, through the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, with lenders, but many of my constituents say that they are still facing serious issues in acquiring those forms.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his question, and I shall certainly address the fire safety and building safety legislation as I advance through my remarks. With respect to the EWS1 forms, he will know that RICS has undertaken a consultation on the reform proposals, which ought to reduce some of the burden that some people face. That consultation closed on 26 January, and we await its results, but certainly as a result of the negotiations that we undertook with the industry and with RICS, some 450,000 people who might otherwise have been affected by the EWS1 forms are no longer obliged to complete them.

We know that, through no fault of their own, many leaseholders have found themselves in a most challenging, difficult and, indeed, agonising situation. Their situation is undoubtedly a complex one. Its roots extend over many years, and there are no easy answers.