Fire Safety and Cladding
Debate between Steve Reed and Emma Dent Coad(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Reed
I am grateful for that question; I intend to cover exactly that in my speech. I am going to argue that it is the Government’s responsibility to remove the cladding because their flawed regulatory system is what allowed it to go up in the first place.
When I challenge the Secretary of State on this, he justifies doing nothing by pointing the finger at freeholders, whom he claims have a moral responsibility to replace the cladding. The problem is that a moral responsibility is not the same as a legal responsibility. Freeholders, like leaseholders, developers, managing agents and insurers, all deny legal liability, and so do the Government. It could take years for the courts to resolve this and all that time people would be left living in fear. On average, there is one fire every month linked to this kind of cladding. Eventually, one will not be put out in time. Is the Minister really going to do nothing and risk a second Grenfell Tower fire?
Emma Dent Coad (Kensington) (Lab)
Decades of inaction led to the fire at Grenfell Tower and the loss of, now, 72 lives. All the fine words and sympathy in the world will not save lives. We need regulation now and a commitment of Government finance. What are we waiting for?
Mr Reed
I completely agree. I hope colleagues will forgive me if I restrict the number of interventions I take. There are so many people trying to get in on the debate that I would like to leave room for them if I can.
The Housing Minister told the House of Commons last month that he recognises no systemic problem with the fire safety regime. Let us look briefly at what he thinks is good enough. The Building Research Establishment’s fire testing system is so weak that manufacturers can design the testing rigs that test their own materials, and can then keep quiet about how many tests their materials fail before they eventually get a result they want. Developers, builders and buyers are never told, because the test results are treated as commercially confidential. Conflicts of interest are everywhere in this system. The BRE makes money by running tests on flammable materials—