Building Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2022-04-20
Topic: Housing
Robert John Blackman (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with my right hon. Friend, but let us make it clear that it should not be housing associations paying for the costs of remediation—it should be the developers who did the work in the first place, under instruction. If the developers are no longer in business or have retired, will housing associations have access to the building safety fund? That will be important, because—as Opposition Members have said—the cost will fall on those paying rent in housing association properties, and that is unfair Will the Minister make sure that proper protection is given to the affordable homes programme? Otherwise we will not get the new properties developed that we all want to see to enable more social rented accommodation in this country One change in the Bill is that from 18 metres in height to 11 metres. In reality, the lower height properties do not have the compartmentalisation that high-rise flats have. As a result, there is a greater inherent fire risk in lower level designs. If a fire breaks out in one of those units, it is likely to spread rapidly across a broader range of properties. That is a serious fire risk and it needs to be remediated. I welcome the move from 18 metres to 11 metres, but it does not design out the original problem. We need to make it clear in the future that designing out such risks has to be paramount Another issue is disabled access. One concern is that when disabled people have to leave a property to flee a fire, disabled access is not always available. That has to be taken into consideration. From my reading of the Bill, that does not appear to have been given proper consideration and we need to look at it in the secondary legislation Since Grenfell and the publication of the original draft Bill, a raft of new high-density, multi-storey blocks of flats have been erected. Most of them now need fire remediation. I find it bizarre that developers would ignore all the suggestions of what needed to be done, but they have. We had an example earlier this year of a developer putting in a planning application for a 44-storey tower block in east London with only one stairway. It was outrageous, but it was only the intervention of the fire brigade and local residents that prevented that planning application from being approved Another issue is the commonhold versus leasehold model. I believe that more people should exercise common- hold, because I want to see more people enfranchised. The Bill appears to suggest that they would be penalised for doing so, but that cannot be right and the Minister needs to correct that I shall mention two other issues briefly. What happens to overseas ownership of buildings? Will we pursue those people to the nth degree or will they get away scot-free? My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) referred to the insurance companies. To me, they have not so far put their minds to the problem The Bill is vastly improved compared with when it left this place. I will support it wholeheartedly today on the basis that we will not draw a line under it and that will be the end of it; secondary legislation will be required to amend it further. The evidence that was presented to the Select Committee suggested that we still do not know exactly how many buildings need fire remediation, how many need cladding remediation, and what the cost of that work will be. Until we have that data, we will not be in a position to say what the total cost will be to the Treasury and the Department, and how it will be funded.