Grenfell Tower Inquiry

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I had not intended to speak in this debate, but I have lived in London all my life. I am 42 years old and of a west African background. My mother, who still practises as a barrister at the age of 74, had one or two relatives in Trellick Tower, which is near Grenfell Tower, so I spent time there as a boy.

One of the things that is missed about this whole debate is that that location, Notting Hill, with the race riots and the carnival, is very important to the Afro-Caribbean community. It is an area that I have known on and off all my life, although I do not know it intimately, and many here know it much better. I assure the House and those who hear the debate that I have not really engaged as much with this issue as I might have, given my responsibility in the Treasury as a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chancellor—I was appointed just when this tragedy happened—but what I have to say, as a Londoner, is that I found it extraordinary that 72 people died in the tragedy.

I have lived in and around London all my life, but I have never heard of anything similar before. The Grenfell fire was a huge tragedy and a national scandal. People on both sides of the House, but on the governing side in particular, have to be generous and open enough to recognise it for what it was. Frankly, it is a disgrace that that sort of thing can happen—that a tragedy and loss of life on that scale can happen in London. As a governing party, we cannot walk away from it. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea cannot walk away from it either—although I am not saying that it has done. We have to understand the history of London—of that part of London—to understand the resonance for many people in such an appalling tragedy.

What happened over the decades in Notting Hill? Initially, it was the hub of the Afro-Caribbean community, and many people came to Britain from the Caribbean and Africa to make a home there, but over the past 10, 20 or 30 years what people call gentrification has happened. The area originally had a vast connection with people of diverse communities and faiths, but over 20 or 30 years property prices increased and there was a new influx of much wealthier inhabitants. The area changed and— I am not saying that this happened, but there is a suspicion that it did—the priorities, values and interests of the people running the borough changed. As more people with more money came in, there is a suspicion that the people who were left behind commanded less of the attention of the local councillors or even perhaps of the Government.

We have to talk about that context—about North Kensington and Notting Hill, and remembering the Notting Hill race riots—when we look at how scarring the tragedy was. Nothing like that has happened in London before, certainly in my recollection.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I am a London MP, and some of the shocking statistics that we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) about the housing situation of the Grenfell families sound eerily and uncomfortably familiar to my casework, given our housing load and the struggle that my local authority has to rehouse people. All of our constituents are entitled to a decent place to live, but the situation of the Grenfell families is particularly egregious, and this goes directly to the point about trust made by my right hon. Friend: if, now, the state locally and nationally cannot mobilise effectively to ensure that every Grenfell family has a decent home to call their own, what does that say to the entire country about the ability of government locally and nationally to deliver the priorities of the people? Housing is such a basic need—I urge the hon. Gentleman as a Treasury PPS to take this message back to the Chancellor—and we need action on housing across London, but for goodness’ sake we should have moved heaven and earth to ensure that those people had a decent home.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I cannot talk about the circumstances in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, but clearly housing is a need. Specifically, however, I want to talk about this tragedy and its location, and about how resonant it was. I do not have much time, so my final remarks are addressed to colleagues on the Government Benches. This is an incredibly emotive and resonant issue. In many of the speeches—not perhaps today—and the things that I have read, there is massive compassion but not enough empathy about how important the issue is, and how seriously people of different faiths and communities treat it. There is a danger that people reciting statistics or even facts simply lose sight of the human element.

A national scandal happened in June last year. From my point of view, Grenfell is the biggest challenge that the Government face—forget Brexit and all the rest of it. Grenfell asks us questions about who we are as Conservatives, what our values are, and our ability to connect with people from the wider community and with new immigrants. I shall not mention Windrush—we have talked a lot about that—but I say to the Government and to other Conservative Members: we have to be very sensitive. We have to not just give the impression but feel that we are batting on the side of the people who have been affected. We can make lots of speeches—although I do not question our motives or emotional response—but I warn my fellow Conservative MPs that this is a big question about our own motivations and values. The eyes of the world and certainly of people in London are watching us carefully.