Leaseholders and Managing Agents

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Barry Gardiner]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has managed to get those condemnations on the record. I am sure that his constituents will be most grateful, as I am, for his doing so. He is right. The trouble is that the law is there: it is the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which makes it clear that unreasonable charges should not be levied, and that services and works have to be done to “a reasonable standard”. It is all there in statute; the trouble is that it is not enforced and that the mechanism for enforcement has gone awry, as I will come on to.

I already paid tribute to the Father of the House, whose long-standing campaign on this issue is an inspiration to us all. He co-chairs the all-party parliamentary group with my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), who has also done so much on this issue. Not with us at the moment is my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, who has done a huge amount over the years.

It is about not just those in this House; outside of the House there are many more. I pay special tribute to Charlotte Martin, who founded, with Nigel Wilkins, who is sadly no longer with us, the campaign against residential leaseholds, and who did so much, with Neil Mulcock, to usher in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

While the hon. Gentleman has a glass of water, I want to ask whether he agrees with the comments that my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) made about Railpen and the terrible impact it is having on leaseholders’ mental health up and down the country, including in the constituency of Stevenage. There have also been issues with the building that started the original campaign, as highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith).

[Barry Gardiner]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He highlights something that is really important to us all: the mental health problems that this issue causes. It is not just a financial issue; it has both physical and mental health implications.

There was one more person to whom I was going to pay tribute. If I left her out, I would be in deep trouble, because it is my own head of office, Jackie George, who keeps a database of more than 7,000 leaseholders in my constituency and who keeps in touch with them regularly.

In 2017, the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), committed the Government to act on leasehold abuses. Specifically, he committed them to legislate to prohibit the creation of new residential long leases on newly built or existing freehold houses, other than in exceptional circumstances; to restrict ground rents in newly established leases of houses and flats to a peppercorn; to address loopholes in order to improve transparency and fairness for leaseholders and freeholders; and to work with the Law Commission to support existing leaseholders. The Government said that would include making buying a freehold or extending a lease

“easier, faster, fairer and cheaper”.

In April 2018, the Government announced that managing agents in the sector would be subject to regulation by an independent body and that a code of practice would set out minimum standards for key areas of activity, including service charges. In October 2019, the then Minister for Housing, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey), confirmed in a written statement the Government’s intention to take forward those measures. In 2020, the Law Commission published its report and recommendations.

It is not good enough to say that the Government have been busy with other priorities. Since 2017, we have had seven Secretaries of State and nine Housing Ministers, yet leaseholders are still being ripped off.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) for securing it.

We have spoken about leaseholders in this House for a number of years now, and one of the things that I always try to get across is that leaseholders are mentally, physically and financially broken. We talk about stuff in these debates, but they have lived it. I remember that during covid, when everybody was being told to stay at home, these leaseholders were being told to stay at home—and to keep their children at home—in buildings, flats and apartments that they had been told were unsafe and could burn down at any moment. When everybody else was being told to stay home in order to stay safe, they were being told that the safest thing for them to do was to get out. These people have been completely through the mill.

We have secured huge concessions from the Government, with over £10 billion in the Building Safety Act 2022. We have been back and forth, and I am delighted that the campaign led by many people in the Chamber, and by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith), was successful in persuading the current Secretary of State to work with us to help to support these leaseholders. But what frustrates me is that, some years on, there are tenants still trapped in buildings such as Vista Tower in Stevenage, where the freeholder is Railpen. We know what is wrong with the building, and the Government have the money there to help to fix it. Why has it not been fixed? What is the delay? The building is there, and we know that—allegedly—it needs these works for it to be safe. The freeholder and the management agents need to work with the tenants to get the work done, but there are just delays. Leaseholders up and down the country are still trapped.

There is this weird combination of management agents, freeholders and leaseholders. We are talking about leasehold reform. My understanding was that, under the Building Safety Act, the freeholder was the backstop if nobody else was going to be responsible. If we are going to abolish freehold, we cannot be in a position whereby freeholders and management agents can just wait out all the current leaseholders, so that they then become responsible for all these bills in the future. We need to ensure, when we talk about leasehold reform, that leaseholders are at the heart of it. Leasehold reform should be for leaseholders, not to try to tidy up some property laws, or for freeholders, management agents or vested interests.

I would love to meet the Minister and officials to talk about how we can get the buildings that are out there at the moment made safe, so that leaseholders can all feel as though the jobs are being done.

Building Safety Bill

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 20th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

My right hon. Friend raises an important point. I shall address that specific point later in my speech.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

The Minister has been a breath of fresh air since he has come to the Department, and the discussions have been very productive. Will he clarify from the Dispatch Box that for leaseholders in buildings under 11 metres, who currently have no protections, the Department would be willing to look at those buildings on a case-by-case basis if support was needed?

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend has invested a considerable amount of time in his campaign and I have enjoyed the opportunity to have those discussions with him. I will come to that point shortly, but yes, as a Department we will deal with those buildings on a case-by-case basis. I shall give more details as to why we have come to that conclusion.

We are protecting qualifying leaseholders from costs associated with non-cladding defects, including interim measures such as waking watches. Building owners and landlords will be prevented from passing on the costs to fix non-cladding defects if they are linked to, or are, the developer.

While the Bill was in the other place, the Government made a number of amendments to it that will restore fairness to the system and help those who have been unfairly impacted by building safety issues. I know that many Members wish to speak, so I do not propose to go through each of the amendments made in the other place. The Bill now not only provides for a new regulatory regime but provides an extensive set of tools, in law, to ensure that those who bear the responsibility for defects are made to pay and to protect leaseholders from crippling bills for historic defects. In response to concerns expressed by Members in both Houses and by stakeholders, we have changed how the building safety charge works and removed the legal duty to appoint a building safety manager.

--- Later in debate ---

I have to say that after five years since Grenfell and two pieces of legislation, this is a really shabby Bill. It is a very shameful state of affairs that so many issues have not been addressed. I know the Department is under new management and I know they have taken a new approach to the Bill, but the way it has been forced through the House with so little time for scrutiny is really shameful. I hope the Government listen to my points, which have been made on all sides of the House, and ensure that after the next Queen’s Speech this kind of performance is not repeated.

[Stephen McPartland]

It is a great pleasure to be able to speak in this debate. I am very grateful to the Minister and the Secretary of State for the great work they have done since they have taken up their roles in working with us to get to a position where the Government accept that leaseholders are the innocent victims who are not responsible and should not have to pay.

I will come on to the waterfall in a few moments, but I want to pay tribute to a number of cladding groups: UK Cladding Action Group; End our Cladding Scandal, Leasehold Knowledge Partnership; Cladiator groups up and down the country; the millions of leaseholders who have put their lives on hold; and a lot of my colleagues on both sides of the House, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) who helped me coin the McPartland-Smith amendment all that time ago, which we both found very humbling. We were very pleased that we were able to help to move this process forward and give leaseholders hope.

We have gone from being offered £400 million to £9.2 billion. The Government are still negotiating, and were talking to me and other Conservative colleagues this morning. The Minister himself said from the Dispatch Box during the debate that for leaseholders in properties under 11 metres, issues in those buildings will be looked at on a case-by-case basis. It is clear that the Government have listened. It is clear that the Government are trying to work with us and are trying to find solutions. I accept —we all accept—that we did not want to be in this place. The Government themselves want to fix the problems.

We need to reintroduce some proportionality into the debate. We need to ensure that leaseholders feel that the buildings they are in are safe and are not fire risks. One thing that has disappointed me throughout is that although it has been very cross-party, we have to ensure we keep it cross-party and that we reassure people. A lot of leaseholders out there feel that they and their children lay their heads down to sleep in unsafe buildings. They have just come out of the covid pandemic where they were told to stay at home because going out was unsafe, but staying at home was unsafe. These people have severe mental health issues and financial insecurity. It is our job and our responsibility to reassure those leaseholders that we are trying to resolve this problem, that we are going to try to find a way through and that we will ensure their buildings are made safe.

That is what I want to do as the Member of Parliament for Stevenage. I want to represent the leaseholders in Monument Court in my constituency who at the moment—I will speak to the Minister about this—are being sent bills by Higgins Homes for 50% of costs. How is that even possible when we have been clear that leaseholders are not going to pay? We have Vista Tower—the iconic Sophie Bichener, my constituent, got me involved in the campaign originally, all that time ago—and even with all the measures going through, because the tower is effectively owned by trustees they may be exempt and the waterfall may pass directly on to the leaseholders. They are already getting £10 million from the building safety fund, and they need to find £5 million from leaseholders. It is going to be very, very difficult.

We have to finish the primary legislation and get the Bill through to Royal Assent so that leaseholders have some reassurance. Once the Bill has achieved Royal Assent, we need to work together to get the secondary legislation, vast quantities of which are needed to make the Bill work, right. We then need to start, over five years on from the terrible and tragic events at Grenfell, to make these buildings safe. How will we make people feel the buildings are safe? Finishing this debate in the Chamber today does not make any building safer than it was yesterday or five years ago. We need to focus on identifying those buildings and making sure they are safe. That is my priority. I will be supporting the Government today, because they have shown a massive willingness over the past few months to sit down and negotiate with us, and to do everything they can to try to ensure that leaseholders are not held responsible.

On the waterfall and the cap, we need to ensure that the waterfall works in practice so that developers are held on the hook, then freeholders and then other organisations, with leaseholders being the last resort. In my constituency, leaseholders who are affected would not pay a single penny, because the Secretary of State gave a commitment from the Dispatch Box in a previous debate that waking watch costs that had already been paid over the past five years—extended to 10 years, which we are very pleased about and did not even ask for—would contribute towards the £10,000. The reality is that the leaseholders in my constituency would not be paying a single penny towards the cost of remediating the building. We need to find a way of ensuring that the building still gets remediated. We have gone from the issue being just cladding to the Government’s accepting both external building safety defects and internal building safety defects. We have won the campaign. Leaseholders have won. Up and down the country millions of leaseholders have won, but we must turn that victory into reality. We must ensure that those leaseholders live in protected buildings.

Obviously we would all like the cap to be at zero. However, one of the issues, which I asked the Secretary of State about only yesterday, is that there are leaseholders who cannot move, take a new job or move on with their life because they cannot sell their flat; the flats have no market value and are worthless. In response to a letter that we sent, the Secretary of State has asked the lenders whether they will provide consent to let for affected leaseholders so that they can rent out their property and move on with their life somewhere else. As we know, at the moment millions of them are trapped.

The Government are working with us all the time. Because we know that the most that any leaseholder will ever pay—technically, in theory—is £10,000, we have created value again in every single one of those properties. We have got the market moving again, because everybody knows that they will not have to face what in the case of Vista Tower is a remediation bill of £180,000 or £200,000 on a £180,000 flat. That is how far we have moved—that is the size of the victory that we have won. Leaseholders up and down the country have won, and we need to ensure that we take that victory to the next level and help them to get their buildings made safe. I am grateful to the Minister and will support him in the Lobby today.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

In June, it will have been five years since the devastating Grenfell fire. I did voluntary work in the community when I was in my late 20s, so I know the area well. The fire destroyed lives and tore families and communities apart; again, I offer the survivors my condolences in memory of those they lost. Since then, thousands of leaseholders have been forced to live with the anxiety of being in unsafe buildings through no fault of their own. It has to be said that although we are where we are today, the Government have acted far too slowly to put right the most serious situation. Residential leaseholders are panicking about costs that they never envisaged and are worried about who will pay for the work to remedy the situation.

The Bill has the opportunity to right those wrongs. I put on record my appreciation for all the building safety campaigners and for their work and their efforts. At the beginning of this year, the Secretary of State announced that

“leaseholders…are blameless, and it is morally wrong that they should be the ones asked to pay the price.”—[Official Report, 10 January 2022; Vol. 706, c. 283.]

I absolutely agree. Nevertheless, I am in contact with my constituents and they are concerned that the Government’s proposals will still leave most leaseholders facing unaffordable costs. I therefore support Lords amendment 155, which reduces to zero the maximum amount that leaseholders could be liable to pay for fire remediation works, as we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook). That is important, because people who have done nothing wrong should not have to pay a penny for remediation work, for other fire safety work or for additional work that may arise.

The residents of Parkside in my constituency have endured years of uncertainty about who will pay for the work to put right the unsafe cladding on their building. My constituents, residential leaseholders, have been given a tentative commitment by Peabody, the housing provider, that the full cost for their remediation works will be met by Peabody, Ardmore and Rydon, the developers. However, the developers have not given my constituents the outright reassurance that they need; instead, they are keeping them dangling on the end of a string. My constituents desperately need to know that no additional cost will be passed on to them. It is deeply disappointing that they have not been given that reassurance.

Leaseholders who have shared ownership and socially rented residents have been left in limbo in unsafe buildings for far too long. Promises are being broken, works have yet to begin—they have been delayed and delayed—and commitments are not being met. If the families or friends of Peabody, Rydon and Ardmore were in that situation, they would want it put right. It is not fair that leaseholders and socially rented residents continue in these situations. Leaseholders cannot sell, cannot re-mortgage and cannot increase their share of ownership. They cannot decide to extend their family, because they will end up in an overcrowded situation. For Parkside, there is still no policy for sub-renting. Furthermore, the building is vulnerable to the risk of fire.

My constituents need to know the timeframe for when remediation work will begin and end. They need reassurances that they will not be paying for anything. They need to be treated with the utmost respect and consideration. I ask the Government what they will do to follow through, ensure that there is a time cap on when remediation work begins and ends, and ensure that leaseholders and socially rented residents are treated with the utmost respect when remediation work takes place. Every decision needs them at the forefront. After all, as we have already heard, it is they who are vulnerable. They are the victims and they need to be protected.

I urge the Government to accept the Opposition amendments and always to put the residential leaseholders and socially rented residents in this situation first.

High-rise Buildings: Remediation

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I am grateful to be following the wonderful speech by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), who gave an emotional account of the GP who has had to put his whole career on hold. That is something we have seen up and down the country. Lots of people have had to become experts on building safety.

There is a grave misunderstanding of how many people are affected. There is still no register of how many buildings and people are affected. The estimates vary, but they suggest that up to 5 million people are affected, and that hundreds of thousands of buildings are currently deemed to be unsafe in one way or another.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) for securing this important debate. Since the emergence of this issue, he has led the way on a range of points. Once again we are celebrating the Government’s wonderful intervention, and my hon. Friend is moving us on to the next stage of the debate and the next stage of the campaign by leading the way, as he always does—standing up for his constituents and making sure that they get the best possible service they can from their Member of Parliament and the Government.

I welcome the Minister for Housing, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), to his place. This is our first opportunity to debate this issue and I am grateful that he is here. I feel this will be a positive relationship. It is quite well known that we did not always see eye to eye with the previous Ministers and Secretary of State, but we feel we are now in a much better place, and that everybody is listening and working together. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), is also working with us incredibly well, as did his predecessors. This is all about working cross-party and making sure that we represent our constituents up and down the country.

In terms of remediation, my constituency has a building called Vista Tower, which has been iconic during this campaign. Leaseholders paid about £200,000 for their properties and the remediation bills they received were £220,000, so the remediation costs are more than the value of the properties. That is why my constituent Sophie Bichener reached out to me. At the beginning of the campaign I found it difficult to understand what the issues were, because I am not a building safety expert; neither was Sophie. We worked on the issue, and that was when we got the ball rolling some 18 months ago, but it remains incredibly difficult.

I thank the Minister because the Government’s intervention means that those leaseholders will not face costs of £220,000. At most, they would be capped at £10,000. As the Minister knows, I am keen that the £10,000 cap is a waterfall, so the developers were first, then the freeholders, and in the last possible scenario it would be the leaseholders, but with a cap of £10,000. The cap should take into consideration costs, such as a waking watch, as the hon. Member for Sheffield Central mentioned, where my constituents were paying more in waking watch costs every month than they were paying on their mortgages—and that was just one fire safety cost.

On mental health, as the hon. Member for Ipswich said, residents were told to work from home because the global pandemic made it not safe to go outside, but they were in a building that was not safe to live in, so they had nowhere to go. They had to lay their child’s head down to sleep every night in a building that was unsafe. The fire department and everybody else were talking about how unsafe the building was and how anything could happen. People are having to walk up and down the building 24 hours a day, seven days a week to ensure that it does not catch fire and that if it did, everyone would be able to get out in time.

The impact on leaseholders’ mental health, during a global pandemic, was intolerable. As the hon. Member said, animals would not be treated like that in this country. It is incredibly important to understand how those leaseholders feel. I welcome the Government’s commitment of over £9 billion. They have done the waterfall that we suggested. We are trying to get a commitment from Government that any costs incurred to leaseholders over the previous five years would be taken off that £10,000 cap. If that was the case, my constituent would not be facing a bill of £220,000; it would be zero. That is the level of the Government’s intervention on the issue. I welcome that and thank the Government, who have tried to work with us.

Now we need to move towards remediation. We are winning the debates and the arguments, but the reality is that none of the buildings up and down the country are being made safer. A dialogue is still taking place. People are still living in those buildings. One building that I visited during my campaign that is also iconic is New Providence Wharf, where a fire took place. It had a waking watch, but they could go up only so many flights before they had to leave themselves because it was so difficult.

Again, it was very hard meeting people who lived there. I met NHS consultants and a lady who had a number of children. During the fire, she was sitting on the floor because she did not know which child she had to leave behind, and the neighbours came and picked the other children up and got them out of the smoke. It was the people in the building who rescued each other. Everything failed—the smoke alarms and fire doors. They had all the kit, but none of it worked.

At the moment the building is shrink-wrapped in Monarflex. It has to be Monarflex because it is weatherproof. Those people have been living in this shrink-wrapped, weatherproof place, which currently looks like shredded toilet paper because the storms have shown that it is not remotely weatherproof and it has been ripped apart. They have been living in darkness for 12 months, and working from home during that time. As the hon. Member said, animals would not be allowed to be kept in darkness for 12 months.

Residents have reached out and given me a few examples. They came up with a wonderful idea, which we would like the Minister to take away and think about. It is something that the hon. Member for Ipswich and I have talked about, which is to develop a code of practice for remediating buildings. If a building is going to be shrink-wrapped in Monarflex, what needs to be done to prove that is the right material? How long can it stay up for, and what measures can be put in place instead? Cladding rightly had to be removed quickly, so the scaffolding went up, the cladding was removed and the building was shrink-wrapped. Then there is a 26-week delay as everybody works out what to do, but people live in that building during that 26-week delay.

People gave me examples of security. Obviously, the buildings are accessible if people climb on scaffolding. One lady had somebody peering into her flat in the early hours of the morning—they had climbed up the scaffolding. I was given examples of noise. People often do not understand how intrusive the remediation works are. We are talking about knocking walls down and the noise is intolerable, especially when having to work from home. There is probably a health and safety issue. If we put a noise monitor in a flat, would we find that the noise exceeded acceptable levels?

Another issue is the scheduling. We have talked about the huge delays. That does not sound like much of an issue, but it is. I have been told about tiles that had to be removed and then they were going to go back up, but five months later the tiles are still being removed because of the need to fix the firebreaks. The tiles insulated the properties, so people now have no insulation and their heating bills have gone through the roof. They are in a concrete box shrink-wrapped in darkness. Those are the conditions that people currently live in.

I am incredibly excited that we have more than £9 billion from the Government. They have accepted that leaseholders are the innocent parties. We have to remediate the buildings now, but no one has been prepared. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich has seen it at first hand in his constituency, but none of us is prepared for what will actually happen. That is something else that I would like the Minister to take away and think about, and it might help him. Some of the buildings are probably so bad that leaseholders do not consider them to be homes any more; they consider them to be millstones. So will the Minister consider compulsorily purchasing some of these buildings from the leaseholders, or give them the opportunity to sell them to the Government? We could knock the buildings down, hand them over to housing associations and allow them to be rebuilt properly as new affordable homes. We would be replacing stock. Instead of remediation, we would be starting afresh and creating huge affordable housing stock up and down the country, and people would not have to live in buildings that had been remediated because they were so bad.

Oddly, the more remediation work the building needs, the more intrusive and difficult it is for the leaseholders living in the building. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich mentioned, we need to find a balance around mental health and living in those buildings. Perhaps we could offer leaseholders the opportunity to sell and allow the housing associations to go in and provide affordable homes. Many leaseholders want to have a child—or another child—and move on with their lives away from those buildings. Will the Minister consider that?

Another thing I want the Minister to consider is a building safety-type register. The Building Safety Bill creates a new regulator. According to the insurance industry, one reason why premiums are so high is that they do not know what the buildings are made of, so they assume the worst-case scenario, and as a result the premiums have to stay high and could go up at any time. Although a lot of the buildings are safe, insurers do not know what materials have been used. If the Building Safety Bill stated that there had to be a register of all new buildings and what exactly they were made of, as in Scandinavia, in the case of any new buildings built from, say, January 2024, we would know exactly what they were made of and we would not be in this position, going forward.

In the case of applications to the building safety fund for support or remediation works, we could say that the buildings had to be analysed to identify what they were made of. We would then have a database of buildings in the country and could identify which were the worst affected. We would know that buildings are made of x, y and z. That could help with insurance costs and would allow the Department to prioritise which buildings need to be fixed quickly, because we would know which were the most dangerous. I urge the Minister to talk to the insurance companies. It is in their interests because they do not want to pay out, and they know which of their insurance products are the most effective for insurance purposes.

We need to work with each other to try to resolve these issues on a cross-party basis, as we have done throughout the campaign, and we need to continue to listen and try to move forward. I am grateful that we have £9 billion to end our cladding scandal, and I thank the UK Cladding Action Group and the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership for all the work that they have done to get us to where we are today. As we move into the remediation of buildings, however, it will be very much as my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich has described: it will be a living hell for a number of people who are already close to breaking point because their mental health has suffered. I urge the Minister to consider those points, and I look forward to meeting him a number of times to discuss them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Andrew]

I will happily commit to go away and look into that issue for the hon. Gentleman, and I will get in touch with him afterwards to update him on that. It is important to say that we have also improved the information available to leaseholders and residents about the building safety fund, with the new online services that provide real-time updates, but I take the point that he has just made.

Clearly, the mental health aspect is a very important issue. I have outlined the steps that the Government are taking to meet a lot of the financial costs of removing the cladding and how we are doing everything within our power physically to speed up remediation. However, in response to the points that hon. Members have made today, I will also say that we also recognise that the building safety crisis has taken a very heavy toll on people’s mental health. Of course, my Department regularly engages with leaseholder groups who have shared with us terrible examples of people being sick to the stomach with stress over the last few years because they are trapped in homes that they are unable to sell or that they cannot afford to fix. We believe that bringing these matters to a swift conclusion through the measures that I have spoken about today is the best way to alleviate the stress and concerns of so many leaseholders.

We know that many residents living in these buildings, including many who have had to endure 24/7 waking watches or who have faced acute financial difficulties, understandably need access to proper mental health support. That is one reason we are working across Government to ensure that all people, regardless of their residential situation, get that help and support they need. Where residents in buildings fitted with flammable cladding need specific mental health support, we are encouraging them to contact their GP to discuss these issues and ensure they are referred to appropriate mental health services. I recognise that we have to look at that in greater detail.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage asked about the contribution of costs to waking watch being offset under the £10,000 cap, and I confirm that is the case. I am sure his constituent will be happy with that.

[Stephen McPartland]

On behalf of my constituents, especially those in Vista Tower, I would like to say thank you to the Minister.

[Stuart Andrew]

That is very kind. I want to conclude by saying that I know there is a united desire across the House to ensure that people are safe and that, more importantly, feel safe in their own homes. Debates such as this are incredibly important, as we work together to achieve that goal, protecting leaseholders while pursuing ambitious reforms, to create one of the strongest building safety regimes in the world. In doing so, we will ensure public confidence in the sector and bring about lasting change, to ensure that the industry always puts residents’ welfare first.

I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich and everybody who has taken part in the debate that the Government will not take their foot off the gas in making buildings safe. We are determined to ensure that residents’ concerns are properly allayed, by driving meaningful change in the building industry, and ensuring that residents know that they are being properly supported and, more importantly, listened to. We can help drive the biggest improvements to building safety for decades, which will restore public confidence in our housing sector and create a robust, strengthened building safety system that places the welfare of residents at its heart. I conclude by praising again my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich. I know he will not rest until his residents feel that they are being properly listened to, and have those remediation works done as quickly as possible. I look forward to working in this role with him in future.

Building Safety Bill

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

We will consider all proposals that are put to us to see whether they work and to ensure that leaseholders are protected. As the Secretary of State said in his statement, we will conduct a series of summits with the sector to put people on notice that they must pay for the problems they have caused. If they will not do it voluntarily, we will find a means of requiring them to do so.

The hon. Gentleman was wrong to say that I am being generous with my time. In fact, I am being generous with the House’s time. I propose to be less generous in future, but not before I have allowed my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage to intervene.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

I would like to thank the Minister on behalf of a number of leaseholders around the country, because our amendments asked for only 25 years and the Government have gone further with 30 years. I put on the record my thanks to the Government for that.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I assure him that the 30-year retrospection is what we decided on; it is not a typo and it should not read 25 years.

The prospective limitation period will remain at 15 years, as is currently proposed, which still represents a substantial extension beyond the existing six years. In a small number of cases, the retrospectively extended limitation period will expire very soon following the commencement of the provision. We believe that it is important that the extended limitation period is of practical benefit in the case of all buildings that fall within scope. That is why we have proposed adding section 4B(4) to the Limitation Act 1980 through clause 128, which will ensure that there is always a minimum amount of time to lodge a claim under section 1 of the Defective Premises Act for buildings whose limitation periods will be revived for a very short period of time.

As introduced, the Bill provided for an initial period of 90 days in which action relating to defective premises could be taken when the extension was about to run out. I agree with several of my hon. Friends that 90 days is an insufficient amount of time to take the necessary advice and lodge a claim, which is why we are bringing forward amendments 42 and 43 to extend the initial period to one year. That means that those in any buildings completed between mid-1992 and mid-1993 will always have one full year in which to lodge their claim, once this Bill and its provisions apply. These amendments will ensure that the retrospectively extended limitation period can be of practical benefit in the case of all buildings in scope, and I trust that the House will support them.

Clause 127 expands the scope of the Defective Premises Act to include refurbishment works, and a technical amendment in the next group will ensure that this commences two months after Royal Assent, ensuring that this important new safeguard against shoddy workmanship is taken up as soon as possible. This was a debate that we had, and agreed about, in Committee. I am grateful to my right hon. and hon. Friends, and indeed to colleagues across the House, for debating these matters and for tabling amendments in this area, but I hope that in the light of what I have said from the Dispatch Box they will feel able to withdraw their amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I remind the House that today’s proceedings are divided into three. This is the first group of amendments, new clauses and new schedules that relates to part 5 of the Bill. There will then be another stage on Report that will allow Members to speak to amendments on the other parts of the Bill. After that, there will be Third Reading. Members should not make general speeches about how they feel about the Bill at this point; this part of the proceedings very specifically relates to part 5.

As all the Back-Bench amendments to part 5 have been tabled by Mr Stephen McPartland, I will call him to speak first. At this point, I am not putting on a time limit, because I hope that we will manage without one, but we have less than an hour left for this part of the Bill, so I hope that Members will bear that in mind.

[Stephen McPartland]

In the interest of helping with time, I assure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that after what the Minister said and the conversations that we have had in the past few days and overnight, we will not be pressing any of our amendments, which are probing amendments, to a vote at the end of the debate. That will hopefully help the next debate.

Like you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I saw many hon. Members on both sides of the House stand to signal that they wish to speak. I will try to keep my remarks as brief as possible so that some of them get more than their normal three minutes on this issue. They are all watching eagerly, so I will do my best.

I start by recording my thanks to the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister’s intervention has been key in getting us to where we are on leaseholders. He has personally got involved and tried to ensure that we can support them. It is a subject that is close to his heart. To be frank, without his personal intervention and support, we would not have got to where we are, which is a good place for leaseholders.

Millions of leaseholders up and down the country are watching this debate and they are terrified about what is happening to them. They have had the fear of bankruptcy hanging over them for several years. We have been running this campaign for the past 18 months. In fairness to the Government and the Minister, we now have over £9 billion of Government support put forward with other funds on top, so it would be churlish of us, with the very technical amendments I am going to speak to shortly, to try to hold the Government to these specific issues. The Minister, the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister himself have made it clear that they are very keen to work with us and cross-party to improve the Bill in the Lords and when it comes back to this House, and for that I put on record my thanks.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I congratulate the hon. Member on his amendments and his work on this issue. Does he agree that there is a requirement to move with haste? A constituent of mine who has contacted me is facing a bill of £25,000, with a demand for £5,000 by the end of this month, so the Government really need to move very quickly.

[Stephen McPartland]

I completely accept that point, and the hon. Member will know that we are all in the same position. Every single community is affected up and down the country; there are millions of leaseholders.

The new approach that the Government are taking mirrors a lot of what we want in our amendments on these issues. For example, a number of the amendments I am going to speak to refer to redress. We asked for a period of 25 years, and the Government have come forward with 30 years. We asked for the time in which someone can make a claim to be extended from 90 days to two years, and the Government have come forward with one year. That demonstrates the communication going on behind the scenes and what we are trying to do to deliver success for leaseholders. In some ways, it does not really matter what our opinions are in this place; what matters is what we deliver for those millions of leaseholders up and down the country, so that they do not face bankrupting bills and huge mental health issues.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

Without the calm persistence of my hon. Friend and our hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) in this parliamentary year and the one before, we would not have got this far and, on behalf of 1 million leaseholders in all parts of England and Wales, may I say that we are grateful for their efforts? Will they please keep going?

[Stephen McPartland]

I am very grateful to the Father of the House, and I would like to thank the cladding groups up and down the country, such as End Our Cladding Scandal UK, the UK Cladding Action Group and the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership. I record my thanks to the Father of the House and all my colleagues on both sides of the House who have done everything they can to get us to a position where we are working together to secure something that is in the best interests of leaseholders. The way in which the tone has changed, as all of us who have been working on this Bill have seen, and the way in which we now feel we can give the Government room to try to improve the Bill, give us great hope.

A number of the amendments—new clauses 4 to 13 —are specific technical amendments to give the Government examples of how we could fix the problem. The Government have tabled 70 amendments, but of course they still have to come forward with the amendments that we want in the Lords, otherwise the Bill will come back to this House and we will be in the same position, so I think it is important that we continue our efforts.

One of the issues facing leaseholders was the real frustration that VAT is levied on some of the costs. We are asking for the VAT to be scrapped, because when the Treasury puts forward £5 billion, £1 billion of it will be going back to the Treasury automatically; the frustration is understandable. Another example we give is how a previous defects Act—the Defective Premises Act 1972—could be used, as it was for properties with prefabricated concrete. The legislation exists, and these leasehold properties could be incorporated in it. There are a variety of other amendments on technical points, and they are the means of giving the Government examples of how we can support leaseholders.

There is a huge opportunity with new clauses 4 to 13 for the Government to think a little further outside the box. For example, I have a property in my constituency, Vista Tower—one of the famous properties—where the remediation costs are £15 million for 73 flats. The leaseholders paid £200,000 for their flats, and their remediation costs are £212,000, so hon. Members can understand what we are doing and why we originally got involved in this debate. Those people are beyond bankrupt. The mortgage companies are losing money, and that was before the leaseholders got into paying over £300,000 for waking watch and all the other interim costs that have added to the bills.

The Government have come with us and are working in a place where we can try to fix the problem, but there is still a lot more to do. Collectively across the House, we have to find a way forward. For that particular property, with the announcement that the Secretary of State made, leaseholders’ costs went from £200,000 down to £60,000. If we can get commitments from Ministers to include internal developer-responsible fire safety defects such as missing firebreaks, where the developers illegally constructed the building, leaseholders’ costs will collapse again.

I keep asking the Minister every time he looks at me, speaks to me or walks past me whether he will commit to protecting leaseholders in law with his amendments in the Lords. Obviously we all want that, and it is what leaseholders want, because we want to be in a position legally where we can say to a management company or freeholder, “You can’t charge them for this, and you can’t tell them”—as the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) has referred to—“that they’ve got 28 days to make this payment.” That is ridiculous, and it is not fair. The Government are working with us and listening to us, but there is a lot more work to do. I would like to continue working with the Government to ensure that we get out there and protect leaseholders.

Madam Deputy Speaker is now staring at me, so I shall bring my remarks to a swift conclusion. I would like to thank everybody who supported us throughout the campaign. We are not there yet, but we are very close to getting there and supporting millions of constituents up and down the country. I will not be pressing my amendments.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The principle that leaseholders should not have to pay for issues that are not their responsibility, as they bought properties in good faith, was first established in the Select Committee report in July 2018. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) on the excellent work he has done in pursuing this issue from the Conservative Benches. The Select Committee, on a cross-party basis, has pursued it as well. I checked today, and we have done five separate reports, all of which have said that leaseholders should not have to pay. The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who is in his place, has been party to all those discussions and reports. We have worked on an absolutely cross-party basis, as is correct. It is welcome that the Secretary of State made his statement the other day and effectively confirmed that as well. We have made it clear that this problem does not just apply to cladding; it applies to other defects as well. That has been an important issue, which the Government did not accept to begin with but have now got to the point of accepting.

The Government have responded with the initial money to deal with the aluminium composite material cladding that was on Grenfell, and then with the £1 billion—extended to £5 billion—building safety fund. That has been a step forward, but it will not cover the totality of the cost. We on the Select Committee have said right from the beginning that those who are responsible for defects on individual buildings should have to pay, but we recognise the impossibility of leaseholders taking on legal actions and being successful with them. Certainly, the Government are stepping in and adding some weight to try to involve the developers of buildings—the building firms that did the construction work—and the product suppliers. Of course, an awful lot of responsibility lies with them; Dame Judith Hackett’s report identified how many of the suppliers of products and materials were hawking their wares from one testing station to another until they found one that approved them. That is completely unacceptable, and they should be held to account as well. In the end, there will be many buildings for which even the owners, and certainly the initial developers, cannot be properly traced, and there may have to be a responsibility placed on the whole industry.

I come back to the point that I just raised with my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook): what happens if the industry does not volunteer the money that is necessary? Let us make it clear that social housing providers are already having to pay some of the costs. On the initial scheme for ACM cladding, social housing providers were treated equally with private owners. That has not been the case since with the building safety fund. A social housing provider has to show almost extreme distress to get any money.

What is happening now? An interesting article in Inside Housing says that social housing providers, particularly housing associations, are passing on 500% increases in service costs—not just to leaseholders, but to tenants. It is absolutely wrong that among people living side by side in a flat, the leaseholder should eventually be protected through the legislation that we hope eventually to see from the Government, which is to be welcomed, while the tenant next door has to pay extra costs—not merely for their own flat, but possibly to take up the costs on the flat next door, which is now owned by a leaseholder. That cannot be right, that cannot be fair, and that cannot be just. The challenge is to treat social housing tenants the same. We are hearing evidence all the time—from housing associations, the National Housing Federation, the Local Government Association and councils—that the costs that are being incurred by social housing providers are not merely adding to the costs of their tenants but mean that they are cutting back on future house building programmes. That is what is happening and it has to be addressed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen McPartland]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on Third Reading. I am hopeful this evening and, like many Members from all parties, I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith), to the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), and to colleagues across the House who have worked so hard to get us where we are today.

This is a huge Bill that tries to deal with some of the after-effects of the tragic events at Grenfell Tower. I have been to meet residents at New Providence Wharf, who have also had a very difficult time. Some of the issues they have had are heartbreaking and it is incredibly difficult to speak to them and hear what they have been through. We talk about fire safety in this place, but meeting people who were involved in fires and who were trapped in properties really brings it home.

I understand why the Government want to bring the Bill forward as quickly as they can. They have tabled 70 amendments and I understand their desire to work with Members across party lines to get to a much better place in respect of the bits we want. Although it is a very large Bill, a lot of us in the Chamber are focused on a small part of it: the provisions on leaseholders and leaseholder protections. That is the bit on which my colleagues and I mainly focus. It is important for me and for leaseholders up and down the country that they are not held responsible for historic fire safety defects and construction defects.

Let me remind the House where we have come from. When we started our campaign about 18 months ago, the Government’s original offer was around £20 million to deal with these issues. After the statement from the Secretary of State last week, we are now on course to have more than £9 billion of Government support, with probably another £100 million for waking watch, alarms and a variety of other issues. The Government have moved forward massively.

I do not always support the Government but, in fairness to them, on this issue we have asked and they have negotiated. There is a new tone and a new willingness to work both across party lines and within the governing party to resolve this issue for leaseholders, so we have hope. Tonight, millions of leaseholders up and down the country, many with huge mental health issues and facing massive financial ruin, have hope. That hope encourages us to believe that we may finally come to a position where we can resolve things for those millions of leaseholders.

We are in the position we are in because, although a lot of people will not realise this, the Prime Minister has intervened directly on a number of occasions to get us to a state in which we can support each other, negotiate and get more than £9 billion-worth of support for leaseholders, which is an amazing achievement. I am delighted with the work we have done behind the scenes to get us to where we are. Because of that hope and the constructive way in which the Government have worked with us behind the scenes, we want to give them the room to work with us a bit further and to table amendments in the House of Lords to protect leaseholders in law. That is what we want—that is our first request.

The second request that I continue to make is that amendments are made to protect leaseholders in respect of internal fire safety defects and not just external ones. At Vista Tower in my constituency, which has more than £15 million-worth of remediation costs, the fire breaks are missing. They would have been in the plans and signed off by the developers and the building regulatory regime, but they are missing. We have to think about how we can support constituents like that.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

Will my hon. Friend allow me to add to what he is saying? The insurance companies are claiming premiums that are 10 or 20 times higher than before because there are additional fire risks. All this work should lead to reduced fire risks. Will he support me in asking the Government to get together with the technical sides of the insurance companies and the Competition and Markets Authority to get those insurance premiums back down to what they were before so that leaseholders may pay £300 a year to insure a building they do not own rather than £3,000 a year?

[Stephen McPartland]

I completely support the Father of the House, as he knows, in all matters.

It is important that the Government have accepted the principles of everything that we have asked for throughout this 18-month campaign. I am very grateful for that. With all the technical details, that campaign has demonstrated how complicated this issue is and the many millions of people and tens of thousands of buildings it affects in many different ways. In fairness to the Minister and the Government, it is very difficult to put all that into a Bill, so they do need time. As long as they are prepared to work with us, we are prepared to give them that time so as to support leaseholders and ensure that they do not have to pay for these historical fire safety defects.

I have one final request for the Minister on behalf of those constituents of mine in Vista Tower who have been affected by the building being no doubt shoddily built and not to the plans of the time. Will the Government be prepared to provide support so that those leaseholders can take action against the original developers, or will the Government take the action on their behalf, because a lot of these leaseholders have been going through this for a number of years and no longer have the mental resilience or ability to take these fights on and take legal actions for the next five or 10 years in the courts? Will the Minister provide further support to those leaseholders? Will he agree to continue to meet and work with me so that we can ensure that leaseholders are not held responsible and they are the innocent parties throughout this crisis?

Building Safety

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes two important points. First, the freeholders, as the ultimate owners of these buildings, will be held responsible for all the work that is required, and we will make sure that leaseholders are not on the hook. Secondly, she is right that those who listened to some of the testimony at the Grenfell inquiry, and those who have seen some of the excellent campaigning journalism associated with it, will know that Ed Daffarn and others explicitly warned of some of the consequences of the approach taken at the time. Tenants’ voices were not heard, and people died as a result. That is why the social housing White Paper, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) did so much to advance, and the social housing Bill, which will come forward in due course, are so important.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

I welcome this brilliant statement, and I am grateful to the Secretary of State for working constructively with us, across parties, and with the cladding groups to get us to where we are today. Today’s announcement is another huge step forward for leaseholders. This is a victory for leaseholders, who will get up to £9 billion of support. We will make those responsible pay and start on the journey.

I seek clarification on two areas. First, cladding is an external fire safety defect, but are developers responsible for internal fire safety defects such as missing fire breaks, which stop fire spreading from one flat to another? Secondly, will there be Government amendments to the Building Safety Bill to make it clear in law that leaseholders are innocent parties and will not have to pay?

[Michael Gove]

I thank my hon. Friend for his fantastic campaigning on this issue. On the first point, which is linked to his second point, the owners, the freeholders and the responsible figures in charge of these buildings will be held responsible and made responsible for making sure that all the work is done to make these buildings safe. We will table amendments to ensure that, on a statutory basis, we protect leaseholders from having costs passed on unfairly by the owners of the freeholds of these buildings.

Building Safety Bill

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con) [V]]

Once again, I am here to ask the Secretary of State to provide support to protect leaseholders from the devastating mental and financial costs of historical fire safety defects. Leaseholders are drowning under mountains of debt in properties they cannot sell or remortgage, and they are going bankrupt right now, with devastating interim costs mounting up, insurance premiums up thousands of per cent., and waking watches that are not even regulated by the local fire service—and we are four years on from the tragic events of Grenfell.

Leaseholders have done nothing wrong, but in January 2020 the Secretary of State created a market failure, and we have a responsibility to clean it up. His written ministerial statement today could reverse some of the damage he did, but, as speakers have already suggested, it will need to be put into legislation to provide real, practical support to leaseholders and not just rhetoric. Today’s statement could be a huge victory for leaseholders in buildings under 18 metres, but only if it means that the Secretary of State is withdrawing the January 2020 consolidated advice note for building owners of multi-storey, multi-occupied residential buildings; otherwise, it is just weasel words.

I want to believe the Secretary of State, and I hope that the written statement has just reactivated the value of hundreds of thousands of properties that had no value earlier today. However, leaseholders need to know today whether it means that buildings under 18 metres are no longer required to undergo extensive remediation costs. What about buildings that have already had EWS1 inspections and are currently facing huge bills?

The Bill runs to over 200 pages, but only clause 124, totalling two pages, deals with remediation costs for lease- holders. That single clause is so weak that it is pretty much pointless—it could be considered to have been complied with by an email having been sent. We cannot continue to abandon leaseholders. We must support them, but the Bill does not do that, so I will seek to amend it with colleagues.

I repeat once again my desire for the Government to work with me and colleagues to help get this right. I would like nothing more than to see Government amendments to protect leaseholders on Report that I can support and bang the drum for. I do not want taxpayers to pick up the bill, nor do leaseholders or responsible freeholders want taxpayers to pay. We all want those who are responsible to pay. To help leaseholders, I will table amendments to apply the Housing Defects Act 1984 to cladding and fire safety defects. That would empower the Government and local authorities to help leaseholders and provide the funds.

Clause 57 sets out a mechanism for collecting levies. We could try to amend that so that the Government could set a separate levy on new house building, with that money redirected to fire safety defect remediation for existing buildings. I will table amendments that would provide for recovery of VAT on remedial works so that they are VAT-free and ensure that the Government create an indemnity scheme like Flood Re or the Motor Insurers’ Bureau.

Fire Safety Bill

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab) [V]]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith). Here we are again debating a Lords amendment to protect leaseholders from having to pay to fix construction defects and unsafe cladding that never were and never should be their responsibility, and yet Ministers continue to resist, even though they have repeatedly said that leaseholders should not have to bear the cost. The trouble with this endless debate is that the clock is ticking and innocent leaseholders continue to face unreasonable costs as bills now start to arrive demanding sums of money that they simply do not possess. One constituent wrote to me last week enclosing a photograph of the bill he has just been sent, for £27,000. Another thinks that their bill will be £40,000. They obviously cannot remortgage their flats. So I ask the Minister: what are people in this situation meant to do? Sadly, we know that the Government do not have an answer to this, or indeed to the mental and emotional torment that these people are being put through. That is why this amendment is needed, and needed now.

Even taking account of the Government funding already announced, the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership estimates that about two thirds of the total cost will still fall on leaseholders: the very people whom the Government say should not pay. The Association of Residential Managing Agents estimates that the average remediation bill will be about £50,000 a flat and that insurance costs have risen by 400%. The Government estimate that the average cost of a waking watch outside London is over £2,100 a year for each flat. Leaseholders in shared ownership properties are in a particular bind. The building safety fund is moving too slowly. There is a shortage of companies who can, or will, do the work. There is total uncertainty as to what is meant to happen when we know that there are other works that have to be done to make buildings safe but for which the Government are not prepared, so far, to offer funding. I find it very hard to believe that Ministers do not understand that the remedy they have come forward with so far is patently insufficient, or that, without a comprehensive plan, leaseholders will, month by month and year by year, inevitably face financial collapse because of the huge burden of costs being put on their shoulders.

In conclusion, can I assure the Minister that the growing number of MPs who support the Lords amendment are not going anywhere, and that is because our constituents have nowhere else to go?

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to be able to speak in this debate.

It is unfortunate that this is the third time the House of Lords has felt it necessary to return this Bill to the House of Commons. That is because their lordships, like many MPs across the House, feel that the Bill cannot progress without some form of protection for leaseholders. It completely astonishes me that people in government cannot hear the screams of pain of leaseholders begging for help—people who are going bankrupt and people who are being hit with high insurance premiums. We were told only last week of an insurance premium for a building that was £11,963 last year but £242,400 this year. People are being hit with bills of £6,000 each with seven days to pay them and no recourse to help. With waking watches, there are interim bills that are going through the roof. Leaseholders cannot pay this; they cannot afford this. The reality is that these buildings will not be made safe by transferring the financial and legal liability on to leaseholders. Leaseholders do not have the funds to fix it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) said, we, leaseholders and leaseholders’ groups do not want the taxpayer to pay; we want the taxpayer to provide a safety net to help. We believe that those responsible should pay—nobody else.

Nobody wants this Bill to fail. We are nearly four years on from Grenfell. The Minister mentioned Grenfell in his opening remarks. I would like to read him a statement that has been issued by Grenfell United:

“The fire safety bill is back in the commons. Government is using the excuse that the amendment will delay Grenfell recommendations. The amendment is to protect leaseholders from charges. The FSB is separate & it is wrong to claim support of it damages recommendations. Using Grenfell Recommendations to justify government’s indifference is deeply upsetting for us and shows they’d rather protect the corporates responsible from paying for the mess they created. Our request is simple: implement Grenfell recommendations make homes safe & protect lease holders from financial ruin. Nearly 4 years since Grenfell and yet not a single piece of legislation has been passed. Homes have to be made safe this is a basic human right. We ask all MPs that committed to ensuring Grenfell 2 could not happen to do the right thing today by us and the thousands of leaseholders effected.”

Grenfell United and the people affected there have spoken. Leaseholders up and down the country are speaking. Our constituents are speaking and Members of Parliament are hearing them. The Bishop of St Albans has tabled an amendment to try to provide the Government with the opportunity of the time and space to come forward with a compromise. I urge the Government to compromise and bring forward an amendment in the House of Lords later today to help support leaseholders.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to speak so early in this important debate. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland). I thank their lordships for the tenacity and perseverance they have shown over many months in standing up for all the blameless leaseholders affected by the cladding crisis, including the many thousands who live in one of the more than 70 affected buildings in my constituency.

In seeking last week to persuade their lordships to cease insisting on amendments designed to protect all leaseholders from remediation costs, the Minister for Building Safety argued once again that such provision is unnecessary and that to continue to seek to amend the Bill in such a way would risk its passage in this Session, could increase fire safety risks and might “ultimately cost lives”. Yet it is the very fact that this crisis is already ruining countless lives that led their lordships to insist once again that this place reconsider, and they were entirely right to do so.

Fire Safety Bill

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con) [V]]

I thank the Lord Bishop of St Albans and the Lord Bishop of London for ensuring that we have the opportunity to vote on the amendments today. It gives us the chance to divide the House on whether leaseholders should be responsible for paying for historical fire safety costs. I urge the Minister and the Government to accept the amendments or, if there is something wrong with them, to table their own. They should work with us and with leaseholders to try to resolve this issue.

It is unacceptable that people feel that we want taxpayers to pay. Leaseholders do not want taxpayers to pay and Members across the House do not want taxpayers to pay; we want those who are responsible to pay—the developers, the insurance companies and the building regulators who said that these properties were safe over the past 20 to 30 years, when many of the leaseholders who will be forced to pay these bills were in primary school or not even born. It is not acceptable, it is not fair and it is not right. What we are doing today is shameful.

The amendments would maintain the status quo with regard to the costs of remediation. I understand the Minister’s point that this is a small Bill and not the right place to deal with the costs of remediation. I agree with him, but it is he who is transferring the liability to leaseholders in this Bill. The status quo is that leaseholders are not responsible for the costs of anything to do with external walls or doors. It is this Bill that amends the legislation. It is this Bill that will make leaseholders responsible for paying for historical fire safety defects. Again, that is not fair.

I was at a building today and it became clear very quickly that the estimated costs of remediation are greater than the value of the properties within it. Can the Minister give me an answer? What will happen in cases where the costs of remediation are greater than the value of the building and the properties within it? Will the building be written off, like an insurance company would write off a car? Will those people be made homeless? We know that if the Bill goes through, even more leaseholders will face bankruptcy and huge issues of homelessness.

At the moment, the interim costs are bankrupting leaseholders up and down the country. Leaseholders are screaming for help; they are screaming in pain. And what are we doing? Today, we are saying to them, “Thanks for paying the interim costs. Once you’ve finished that, we’re going to load you up with the remediation costs on top.” That is tens of thousands of pounds that people just do not have.

We are nearly four years on from Grenfell, and it appears to me that the Government have given up on those who should be responsible for paying and are pushing the costs on to leaseholders. It is morally unacceptable.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab) [V]]

I will be supporting the amendment moved by the Bishop of St Albans, because in circumstances where leaseholders are beset by worry, fear and uncertainty, it will provide them with the reassurance that they will not have to pay to fix a problem for which they are not responsible. It will also make the Government realise that they have to come forward with a different solution.

There are two problems here: the first is dangerous cladding and the second is other fire safety defects, which have been discovered in building after building. The Government appear to be in the position where the funding they have announced will pay for the remediation of missing fire cavity barriers where they are integral to the replacement of dangerous cladding, but not where they are not—in other words, where they are elsewhere in the building. I do not really understand that. Can the Minister say whether, if the works the Government are prepared to fund through the scheme are completed, the buildings in question will be declared safe so that the waking watch and insurance costs disappear even if the other fire safety defects have not been fixed?

Time, however, is not on our side, because we know how long making all of these homes safe is going to take, even if all the necessary funding had already been identified.

There are detailed inspections to be done, tenders have to be put together, firms found who are willing to do the work, and scaffolding and building materials have to be ordered before the work can even begin. So, given the scale of this, it is going to take a long time. But that is the one thing that leaseholders do not have, because, as we have heard, they are paying bills that they cannot afford.

Even worse, the bills are now starting to arrive on their doormats demanding payment to fix the cladding. One recent example was a demand for £71,000. It might as well be for £1 million, because there is no prospect of leaseholders being able to find that kind of money.

So the longer this goes on, the more likely we are to see leaseholders becoming bankrupt. What are the local authorities going to do when they turn up at their door and say, “I’m homeless; I need somewhere to stay”? And make no mistake: the anger that leaseholders are feeling at the moment will be something else again when they find themselves being made homeless through no fault of their own.

So, let us do the right thing today to protect leaseholders, and then the Government can turn their attention to finding an answer that will actually work. At a time when people are getting bills to the tune, as I have just said, of £71,000 through the letterbox, to stand up and say, “I’m really sorry, but this isn’t the right legislation” demonstrates a failure to understand the nightmare that so many of the people we represent are living through.

Residential Leaseholders and Interim Fire Safety Costs

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[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.

Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con) [V]]

I would like to pay tribute to UK Cladding Action Group and End our Cladding Scandal for the massive work they have done, along with the Select Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith), to raise the profile of this issue and help millions of leaseholders.

I am sorry that the Labour party, the official Opposition, has played a little bit of politics today. We are very close to having the support in the House of Commons to force our amendment into law. Sadly, the vote today makes no difference whatever to any leaseholders. However, what we can do is focus on the amendments to the Fire Safety Bill, as those votes do make a difference. I say to the Minister that we are very close to having the support in the House of Commons, and we have the support in the House of Lords to keep sending the amendments back. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen and I therefore urge the Minister to work with us to ensure that leaseholders do not have to pay.

I believe that the Department has been incompetent throughout this saga. It has created a whole host of problems, especially with the consolidated advice note published in January 2020. Buildings over six storeys or 18 metres were already involved in this crisis, but the note then involved any building of any height, taking the number from around 1,700 buildings to well over 100,000. On top of that, buildings under 18 metres can still be built with combustible cladding.

We must also focus on fire safety defects. I hear the Minister when he says that the Fire Safety Bill is not the right place for this, but I remind him that the Bill builds on the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which tried to clear up two ambiguities around cladding and front doors. The Fire Safety Bill also ensures that costs can be recovered from leaseholders, which puts that cost on leaseholders in law. The Building Safety Bill is not in front of us, but it will also ensure that leaseholders are liable. That is not acceptable to me, and it is not acceptable to leaseholders. We have been very clear that leaseholders do not have to pay.

The Government must provide a safety net. They must step in and help leaseholders. I will not accept loans for leaseholders. If the Government announce that, I will vote against it. We cannot have leaseholders pay 90% mortgages of £150,000 and then maybe have to repay a loan of £75,000. Building societies and banks will say that they can offer mortgages only if they are affordable, and having such a debt on a property is not affordable. I urge the Minister to work with us to deliver for leaseholders and to ensure that they do not have to pay.