Building Safety Update — House of Lords, 2018-03-15
Topic: Housing
Nicholas Bourne (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Shipley, for the points they have raised and for the way in which they raised them. I share their true, undying respect and admiration for all those who, on the night of Grenfell and ever since, have made such a massive contribution in relation to that dreadful disaster. It has been truly awesome and we owe an undying debt to people who have helped in that way. I shall try to deal with some of the points and, in so far as I cannot, I will certainly write to noble Lords and make sure that a copy is placed in the Library First, I am not sure about the number of private tower blocks; I will need to write to the noble Lord about the outstanding position there. On funding for local authorities, which was raised by both noble Lords, I can confirm that the Government’s aim—it will be our number one aim and we will ensure it happens—is that nothing will not be done by reason of lack of finance. Safety is the priority. Discussions are ongoing with a number of authorities about the possibility of meeting some costs. I will provide a more detailed update, if I may Of the 209 families that we are undertaking to rehouse from Grenfell Tower and Grenfell Walk—noble Lords may remember that it is more than the initial number of households because some are splitting— 184 have found accommodation, some temporary and some permanent. I am not sure of the precise numbers of those who have moved in and those who have not. Another important point to make is that some of those who initially opt for temporary accommodation subsequently decide to go permanent. There is an element of flux between the different categories, and that is perhaps the most significant one. Again, I will provide an update there, if I may. On the more specific issue in the Statement about fire safety and fire safety advice, the advice that remains unchanged—I say to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley—is to keep fire doors shut to help prevent the spread of fire and smoke. That is central, as is understanding the fire safety advice for your building and, if in doubt, discussing this with your landlord or building owner; it should be advertised. I very much take his point about ensuring that this local assessment is known by people. That is no doubt something that the Dame Judith Hackitt review will be looking at, and of course we will look at that with a degree of urgency as soon as the review reports—the final stage of which is in the spring—because these matters are urgent. I accept what the two noble Lords have said about the importance of that Regarding this particular exercise on what happened in the block, I should say first that this was discovered as a result of the Metropolitan Police investigation—because of course there is no access to the site at the moment because it is a crime scene. As soon as we became aware of it, we took the appropriate action to consult the relevant committees, fire chiefs and so on. In consequence of that, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has said that we need to move this on apace and look at it more widely in the context of fire doors elsewhere. It is a particular batch that is being looked at. There is no indication at the moment that it is wider than that, but we are now moving forward apace to ensure that, in consequence of what the Secretary of State has said, we look at other fire doors to see if it is any wider than that. I think that that is the appropriate thing to do. In the meantime, it is worth stating that this is somewhat different from the cladding. Whereas there was every prospect, at least in some cases, that the cladding could be an accelerant to a fire, here we are talking about something that impedes the fire. The issue in relation to this single door was that it was about half what it should have been; it did not impede it enough. In consequence of that, we are doing the other testing. As this is something that will now move on apace, I would like to write to noble Lords ahead of Easter with an update on this, and of course there is the undertaking from the Secretary of State that he will report back in the other place before the end of Easter. I would expect to repeat that exercise here.