Residential Leaseholders and Interim Fire Safety Costs Debate
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Stephen McPartland
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Residential Leaseholders and Interim Fire Safety Costs
Stephen McPartland Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con) [V]
I thank the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) for securing this very important debate. She spoke eloquently and movingly about some of the tragic stories that she has heard about in her constituency in London. Sadly, those stories are reflected in my constituency and in constituencies up and down the country.
The costs of intermediate waking watch measures and of insurance premiums going up by thousands of per cent are just heartbreaking. Even as we speak in these debates, people are going bankrupt, and the Government do not seem to be listening to the howls of pain from leaseholders up and down the country, as they beg for support and assistance.
We are almost four years on from Grenfell and we are not getting this matter right; we are not helping. Unfortunately, the Government are actually making the situation worse by not working with leaseholders and the relevant groups, such as the UK Cladding Action Group—End Our Cladding Scandal. A variety of brilliant recommendations have been made by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, which is chaired by our wonderful colleague, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who is taking part in this debate. It is imperative that we help these leaseholders.
When we look at insurance premiums as a measure, which a lot of people do not recognise, we see that they may have gone up by 2,000% or even 3,000%. The Government are taking 12% in insurance premium tax on those rises, so the insurance premium tax take on those insurance premiums is currently higher than the insurance premiums themselves were a year or two ago. That is astonishing.
On waking watch, the fire services have told us that they have almost no control over it. Waking watch is not new; it was introduced years ago and was used, for example, if a hotel fire alarm did not work. At the moment, however, waking watches are being used by management companies as the first resort instead of the last resort. As a result, our local fire services do not have any ability to go in and help the leaseholders, who are being told, “Well, you need to have a waking watch”. There are no other options for them. The fire services should be given some powers to be involved in a responsible waking watch, when it is needed, or to consider what other evacuation orders or measures could be put in place. And the costs are just staggering. I have constituents in Vista Tower in Stevenage who are paying £15,000 a week and they just cannot afford it; that sum is impossible for them to afford. They are paying almost as much as some of their mortgage payments and they are now going bankrupt.
I urge the Minister—please listen to the pain of leaseholders up and down the country. Stop talking and start doing. Start helping my constituents and those in a similar situation up and down the country.