Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Housing
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): When I think of Grenfell, which I often do, I think first of the people who died; not just that they died—72 people, including 18 children—but how they died. I forced myself to read the accounts of what happened—the phone calls made that night, the people waiting for rescue that never came. It is harrowing. They are well documented, partly through the inquiry and partly through what the families themselves have done. I cannot look at the pictures of the building in flames, but nevertheless I cannot get them out of my head because they were everywhere when the fire happened Next, I think of all the thousands of people whose lives were changed by the fire: the survivors and their families, and the wider community. It was a very mixed community in Grenfell, with many people of middle eastern and north African descent, often second and third generation, who had settled in the area and had wider families not only across Kensington but in my constituency of Hammersmith and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), who spoke so well earlier. These are big, close communities and this has had an effect on the whole area, and indeed the whole of London and beyond I also think of the scandal of the negligence that has been revealed, in its infinite complexity, leading up to this one event. The breadth and depth of the mistakes that were made and the things that went wrong are affecting hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people across this country. Too many people have insulted all these groups of people by the way in which they have responded over the last five years. That includes the Government, the building industry and other industries involved, local authorities and other social landlords, and private landlords. Everybody has failed on a catastrophic level by causing the problems that now have to be dealt with, but the Government bear a particular responsibility, not only because they created the climate that enabled much of this negligence to happen but because they have not stepped up to the plate in tackling it When I say that people have been insulted, I mean, for example, why did we not have a full-day debate in Government time on the anniversary? I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) for securing this debate, but it is a Backbench Business debate on a Thursday afternoon, and I think that a full-day debate on the anniversary is the very least that could have been done. People have also been insulted by the response in terms of rehousing—or failure to rehouse—people from Grenfell and the surrounding damaged properties. People have been waiting for years in temporary accommodation or hotels. Other examples include the lack of a proper memorial and the pace at which the inquiry has gone. None of this shows respect, in my view, and at the end of it, people have not been held to account Also, we have not what I would call a permissive response from the Government, and that is what I want to spend most of my speech talking about. The Government have been asking experts to tell them the full extent of the problems, and then responding. Every step of the way, everything has had to be dragged out, whether it is money, concessions or legislation, in order to get only a very little distance down the road to where we need to be. Let me just run through some of those issues on which we are failing We know a lot about cladding and insulation, but determining the types of cladding that have been banned—whether they have been banned in the sense of being removed from existing buildings or not being allowed to be put on to new buildings—and what types of buildings are affected has been done in a very slow and erratic manner, and the most recent changes are pretty de minimis, frankly. The Government have now decided that hotels, hostels and boarding houses over 18 metres should be included in the ban, but what about residential and other buildings that are under 18 metres—and indeed, under 11 metres? What about other buildings that might be at risk, possibly because of their function or because of the people who live in them or go to school in them, such as hospitals or hotels? There is no comprehensive response.