Building Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2022-04-20
Topic: Housing
Peter James Bottomley (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for the way he introduced the amendments, and I thank the Labour spokesman, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), who spoke in a non-party way about the matter. I pay tribute to those on both sides of the House who have been working on the Bill, often without proper recognition. Among them I include the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee. Its first report on the leasehold disaster was critical to getting Government and some people outside to pay attention If anyone from a major media organisation is listening, I urge them to make sure that they have a housing editor who can pay attention to this issue and provide continuity. During the four or five years since Grenfell, several people have taken up the issue of the fire itself, but no one has provided the necessary continuity when it comes to television and radio programmes. Institutional memory is required if we are to understand how we got to where we are, and where we need to get to. For residential leaseholders, fair, detailed, expert housing coverage matters as much as coverage of health, economics, defence and other things. I commend to media organisations the idea of having a housing editor and a team who can help us to do our work better, because without media reflection of our efforts, we will not go as far or as fast as we ought to Bluntly, the thinking in the Treasury has been the cause of much of the delay. The tragic deaths at Grenfell, where over 70 people died unnecessarily, were a spur to action. For too long, however, people said, "Look at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; this is all its fault." Most of the blocks affected are not in Chelsea or in Conservative-controlled areas, so we all have a responsibility to accept that we got things wrong What was needed to get this right? It was best put by Ted Baillieu in Victoria, Australia, who said that it was necessary to find the problems, fix the problems and fund the problems, and then get after the people who are responsible. If we had done that, for the last four years many more innocent residential leaseholders would have been able to live in homes that they knew to be safe and saleable, and we would be many steps further forward I hope that my hon. and right hon. Friends in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities want to make sure that no block is left unremediated—in plain English, to make sure that every block is made safe—and then go after the money, but the Treasury is blocking that. I put this question to my hon. Friend the Minister. Who will take claims against those other than the developers—the architects, the surveyors, the component manufacturers, the people who set the building standards and the people who did building control, whether in the public or private sector—who were involved? I am not saying that they are all responsible, but some are. In any other field, lawyers would be coming forward with a class action to put them all in the dock and claim from them the costs that would otherwise fall on innocent residential leaseholders For those who are new to this, I repeat that the only people who are totally innocent—the only people who do not own a single brick in the building—are the residential leaseholders, and yet they are being left with some of the costs. If it comes to Divisions, I will vote in a non-party way to try to keep the intentions of the House of Lords going on most of the issues I do welcome and accept what the Minister said about extending to three years the responsibilities of the Building Safety Regulator. That makes sense, given the timescale, but what is controversial is leaving residential leaseholders with some of the costs. I draw the House’s attention to the fire at Gibson Court in Woking in 2011. Six years later, those responsible were fined more than £300,000 because their fire protection work had been clearly inadequate. In that case, part of reason for the spread of the fire was the fact that lofts went right across the buildings I also draw the House’s attention to the point that the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich made about the fire in 2019 at Worcester Park, where 23 other blocks had to be made safe because one block went up in smoke in 11 minutes. If a fire can spread so far in that many minutes, the idea that it could be contained within one flat is not realistic; those who are vulnerable would have no chance of getting out safely I hope that this Bill has the power, under secondary legislation, to extend provisions on remediation costs to buildings below 11 metres, especially for the vulnerable, although I would prefer it to go as far as the House of Lords wanted, so that leaseholders do not have to pay Remember that a few years back, Government appeared to be thinking that costs of £15 billion could fall on these residential leaseholders, who did not have the money. I am not talking about people who live in big, expensive, multi-million-pound apartments looking out over the Thames. I ought, by the way, to declare an interest, as I have a small flat in Worthing, which does not even look out over the sea. Six of us bought the freehold and we have had no problems with this, or even with managing agents or insurance companies. I will be buying a leasehold on another property in London in time, and I hope it will not be affected either. I put that on the record, just in case someone says that I am talking from self-interest I am speaking in the interest of people who are poorer than I am, who live in homes that are less valuable than mine, and who have been lumbered with all the disadvantages of being a residential leaseholder—and now with this fire safety defect issue as well I reinforce what other hon. Members have said about insurance. Premiums are unreasonably high; I hope that the Competition and Markets Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority will quickly produce a report, and that publicity will make insurance companies bring rates down to market rates—that is to say, rates that are justified by the risk, not by what the market can be made to pay in a crisis. I also hope that all commissions, rebates and douceurs—sweeteners—paid by brokers or insurance companies and received by managing agents or landlords are disclosed. That ought to be out in the open For too long, too many people have got rich on the back of residential leaseholders. There are many more things that I would like to say, but I suspect that, given the amount of interest in the subject, I ought to stop now. As well as thanking those from both sides of the House who have worked on this, I thank the National Leasehold Campaign. Without it, we would not have had Victoria Derbyshire’s interest, which has been important. I thank the cladding groups, in all their manifestations. At great expense to themselves, and having given up some of their other responsibilities, they have brought these issues to the attention of Parliament I also thank officials in the Department, because after a very slow start, a group of people has been brought together to support Ministers in their legitimate aim of making sure that those who are responsible pay, and those who are not responsible do not have to.