argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Other
Royston Matthew Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the hon. Lady recall that in the Opposition day debate called by the Labour party just a few weeks ago, I asked the Minister, if our amendment is defective, why do the Government not take it, fix it, and make it work? They had the opportunity then. Does the hon. Lady think they should have done that?
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Lady for concluding bang on time. As the House knows, this debate is limited to three hours, and one of those hours has now passed. I did say at the beginning of the debate that there would be a time limit of four minutes on Back-Bench speeches. I make no criticism of the Minister or the shadow Minister—if I were going to criticise, I would have stopped them long before now—and I appreciate that both hon. Members have taken a lot of interventions and dealt with a great many different matters, so it was necessary to spend the first hour in this way. But that does mean that, although there will be a limit of four minutes for the hon. Members for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), after that, the limit will be reduced to three minutes.
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Housing
Royston Matthew Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have no axe to grind with the Government. They are my friends and colleagues. I like them and I get on with them, but I am not going to blindly follow them when I can see that the treatment of leaseholders is wrong First, in tabling our amendment, we have never said that we would ask for taxpayers’ money. We made that fundamentally clear right at the beginning, and it is worth repeating that. I know that many of my colleagues would have supported our amendment, but they were told that it would be an open cheque book and therefore they chose not to. Secondly, our amendment will not wreck the Bill. It will make it fair for the innocent lease- holders caught up in this crisis There are three parts to this, in my opinion. There is the moral issue. Who, in good conscience, could leave these people to pay huge insurance premiums, sometimes increased by over 1,000%, huge waking watch charges and crippling costs of remediation if we could do something to help? Who would do that? Then there is the economic issue. When someone owns just 10% of their home, but they are responsible for 100% of the remediation cost, what do we think people are going to do? They will be saddled with tens of thousands of pounds-worth of debt while their home is valued at nothing. This part of the housing market is heading for collapse and thousands of leaseholders are heading for bankruptcy. The Government could and should prevent this from happening Finally, there is a political dimension. Successive Governments have put home ownership at the centre of Government policy. They have encouraged people to get on the property ladder. We have incentivised them through schemes such as Help to Buy and shared ownership. Imagine the howls of derision when the first Government Minister stands up and claims that we are the party of home ownership The recent Government announcement is very welcome, and I know that many people are grateful, but what sort of solution says, "We concede that it is not your fault, but we are only going to help half of you?" For those buildings over 18 metres, cladding will be removed for free, but not in buildings below that height. Worse than that, those people living in buildings below 18 metres will be saddled with unaffordable debt to pay for cladding remediation. Even worse, they will know that their taxes will be paying for their neighbours’ remediation.
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Housing
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): I absolutely understand the spirit behind my hon. Friend’s amendment. Will he answer the point that I made earlier? How would his amendment operate if the building owner walks away? Also, does he accept that his amendment would put somebody else on the hook for the costs of remediation, not just for historical defects, but for any defects in future?
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Housing
Royston Matthew Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): What I will do is refer my hon. Friend to two things that he has said. First, he said, "We will carry the can", and he has now said, "Who is going to be on the hook?" It sounds to me like he is very happy for leaseholders to carry the can and be on the hook, but not to find a solution. The Government’s problem is to find the solution. Our problem is to say that leaseholders should never have to pay. That is not an unreasonable position for us to take In trying to help, the Government have satisfied no one and they have upset just about everyone. The leaseholders are not responsible for this. They know they are not. We know they are not. The Government know they are not and, therefore, the Government’s position is now untenable In conclusion, I appeal to the Government and to all my colleagues to think very carefully before they abandon thousands of their constituents, because I know this: they will not forget and they will not forgive.
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Housing
Felicity Christiana Buchan (Conservative, Centre-right): This Bill is very important to me and my constituents, and I want to pay tribute to the Grenfell community—the bereaved and the survivors. I want the Bill to be implemented as quickly and as robustly as possible so that it is not subject to any future uncertainty or challenge We need to get on with this. We need to stop all the ping-ponging between this place and the other place. It is very clear that there is a systematic scheme here. There is this Bill, which is very simple. We have had the consultation on the fire safety orders and the regulation. We need to get on with that. We need to implement that work and then get on with it. We then need the Building Safety Bill. That needs to come to this House and, again, we need to get on with it. We owe that to my constituents. The first phase of the Grenfell inquiry report came out in October 2019, 16 months ago. We, collectively—both in this place and the other place—need to get this legislation implemented and make sure that these dangerous buildings are remediated. The more we talk, the more we argue, nothing gets done—and there are dangerous buildings out there We have a simple piece of legislation that we can get enacted. We have a big pot of money. The totality of the pot could be as high as £10 billion. Let us implement this legislation, let us start assessing and prioritising the buildings, and let us start spending this Government money. We have time to review the details of the financing scheme. I just want to make the point that, yes, the Government are taking responsibility for buildings over 18 metres, but there is a reason for that: buildings over 18 metres, according to all the independent risk assessors, are way more dangerous. They are four times more likely to have fatalities I empathise hugely with leaseholders, but there is still a subsidy in there for leaseholders of buildings between 11 metres and 18 metres. So let us just get on with this today. After that, we can review the details of the financing package and amend the Building Safety Bill, but this Bill is the first step and we need to get on with it.
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Housing
Robert John Blackman (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). This is a horrendously complicated issue involving cladding—ACM, high-pressure laminate and other forms of inflammable cladding—fire safety measures and the height of buildings. I warmly welcome the fact that the Government have come up with the money to remedy the most unsafe buildings—tall buildings—and the cladding that was put on them, which fails to provide safe accommodation to residents The reality is that the £5.1 billion will remediate only the unsafe cladding and will not do the comprehensive work. The issue then becomes one of the fire safety work that has to be carried out as well. There is no funding to provide for that, so it has to be paid for by someone I have a series of suggested tests that could apply. The first is that, emerging from the Grenfell inquiry, it is quite clear that the ACM cladding was illegal, so those responsible for developing the cladding and putting it on the building must pay for the remediation in all other buildings where that is the case. Similarly, for other forms of unsafe cladding, if those people fail to accord with the building regulations that exist at the time, they should pay the cost of removing and correcting it Leaseholders could not reasonably have been expected to foresee the fire safety issues when they bought the leases on their flats, so the fundamental issue is that they should not have to pay the cost of remediation, either of cladding or of fire safety defects. My hon. Friend the Minister said that he finds the amendments defective. My challenge to him, when he responds to this debate, is to make it clear from the Dispatch Box that the Government will bring forward proposals in the Lords to amend the Bill to make sure leaseholders do not pay The defence seems to be that the Building Safety Bill will eventually come through and be implemented. The problem is that we have sat through the pre-legislative scrutiny of that Bill and recommended at least 40 changes to it. It will take probably 18 months for it to reach the statute book, and then we have the secondary legislation. Leaseholders do not have the time: this work needs to be carried out now. The industry estimates that it will take some four years to implement all the safety works required. It must be made clear that the leaseholders are not the ones to pay Currently, leaseholders cannot insure or sell their properties and no one wants to buy them. We are in danger of freezing the housing market because of this problem. I urge the Minister, when he responds, to—
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Housing
Christopher James Green (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the Government’s commitment to correct the historic wrongs, and I especially welcome my hon. Friend the Minister’s commitment to fundamentally change the culture in the building sector and to take a more robust, risk-based approach. Leaseholders are the innocent parties in this matter and rightly expect that the developers, builders and current landlords—some of whom were developers—along with the local building controllers, national regulators and component manufacturers, should be the ones to bear the costs My constituents have raised a range of their outstanding concerns that they feel still need to be addressed. They are concerned, first, that those responsible should take far more of the financial burden; secondly, that they have the unfair burden of massively increased insurance costs and waking watches; and thirdly, about the distinction between buildings above and below 18 metres and why they should be treated so differently. To many people, a monthly cost of £50 may not be a great deal, but for many others who are already at their financial limit, the equivalent of a 13th month of mortgage payments is a huge burden that they can barely afford—if they can afford it. They want to be able to move on with their life—they may want to have a family, or move for work or for a whole range of other reasons—but they cannot. They feel trapped.
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Housing
Joy Inboden Morrissey (Conservative, Centre-right): I, too, thank the Government for the £5 billion that they have committed to targeting and helping to make safe these high-risk buildings. May we remember the lives lost in the Grenfell Tower tragedy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) for all she has done to fight for justice for the Grenfell Tower survivors. I volunteered to help; I first went there two days after the fire. The tales of the fires that consumed the outward escape mechanisms because of the cladding, and of the way the building was encased with flames, are not something I have wanted to speak about, but I feel that it is appropriate to do so today, because I see that the Government are trying to bring some justice to the victims and to future-proof the safety of social tenants in tower blocks, and I thank them for that My concern is the long-term unintended consequences of the high levels of fire safety regulations for private leaseholders. They are often young men and women who have saved their whole life to buy their first home. Oftentimes the flat is in London, and as leaseholders, they are now unable to leave that flat. Many of my constituents have written to me about their children in London who have purchased a flat and are now trapped. They can no longer afford the soaring costs of their debts, and some have even moved home to their parents in Beaconsfield because they cannot afford the financial burdens they are now under as leaseholders. I hope that we can continue to address this issue long term, but I want to see this legislation passed and this first stage accomplished. I appreciate and sympathise with many of the amendments, but I would ask that we just move forward and support the Government to ensure that this first level of safety is on offer for residents across the UK.
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Housing
Natalie Cecilia Elphicke (Conservative, Centre-right): It is with deep sadness, but also with optimism, that I speak today—sadness because I recall only too clearly the shock of hearing about Grenfell Tower. That shock turned to horror when I went to pay my respects in person. I stood by those charred remains, the dense and acrid smoke heavy in the air, with an inescapable horror at the awareness of what was mingled in the smoke and the dust, at the horrendous loss of life, and at the harm to so many who still carry the terror and fear of that night Housing has been my lifelong passion and was my career before I came into Parliament. My interest in and deep commitment to it continues, as shown in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I chair the New Homes Quality Board, which is bringing in a new code of practice and a new homes ombudsman. It complements the serious and vital work of Dame Judith Hackitt on the building safety regulator, as well as the essential remit of the Fire Safety Bill This Bill is not the whole solution to the Grenfell tragedy, but it is an essential and important technical Bill that needs to be brought in as a matter of urgency. That is why today we must not confuse the purpose of this Bill and the immediate necessity of bringing in laws to protect every person in every constituency, whether they live in a terraced home, a bungalow, or a low, medium or high-rise building. Back in 2017, I called for leaseholders to be protected against remediation costs in high-rise buildings where cladding such as Grenfell’s had to be removed. I therefore welcome the Government making that happen through a £5 billion investment for that activity and for building safety; it is the right thing to do I called for changes in obligations, and for the ability of fire services, councils and Government to intervene in fire safety matters, so that where there were known problems—for example, with doors or common areas—they could be corrected. The Bill will put that right, and it will give authorities the power to intervene and protect lives. That is what the Bill is all about. I commend the actions of the Housing Secretary and the Government in recent months, and encourage them to look at a broader review of the rights of leaseholders and renters alike, but I welcome the Bill. It is the right thing to do, and it needs to be urgently concluded.
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Housing
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): The cladding issue is of great importance to many of my constituents, particularly in Portishead. They understand that a balance must be struck between the problems of leaseholders caught in the cladding trap and the interests of taxpayers at a difficult time for the public finances. We know that the Government will publish more details of the financing scheme when further discussions with the Treasury are completed, so we still have time to make changes. Although it would be completely improper to ask the taxpayer to, in effect, sign a blank cheque, it has to be a basic principle that those who have to undertake changes purely as a result of change in government regulation should have any remediation underwritten. As these changes will affect dwellings irrespective of their height, such support should be available to all. Where changes are required not as a result of change in government regulation but because of faulty workmanship or frank dishonesty in the declaration of materials used, all costs should fall directly on developers, builders and insurers—indeed, there may be occasions when criminal sanctions are required. Although it is generally unacceptable for taxpayers to pay in these circumstances, there will have to be exceptions, particularly when the developers in question have gone out of business and leaseholders have no other options from which to seek redress We must also see a number of practical issues resolved, including through urgent Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors guidance on EWS1 certification and the speeding up of the training of qualified staff able to conduct EWS1 assessments. We need building societies and banks to take a realistic and constructive attitude to the buying and selling of these properties, especially when a taxpayer safety net is being deployed to provide greater certainty. We also need the Association of British Insurers to provide realistic guidance to its members, so that on top of the financial worries they already have leaseholders are not subjected to the added anxiety about the failure to insure their properties. As I have said in the House before, we have to ensure that surveys are factually accurate, as we have seen too many examples of shoddy practice that adds both financial cost and unnecessary worry for w the leaseholders concerned We all understand the problems facing the public finances and we all welcome the £5 billion of taxpayers’ money that the Government have already put forward. What we need to see as soon as possible are fair and equitable solutions for all those caught in a trap not of their own making.
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Housing
Maria Frances Lewis Miller (Conservative, Centre-right): I start by sending my very best wishes to my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire). We want to see him back soon, but it is good to see this Minister, my Hampshire neighbour, leading the debate today Owning your own home is a very British dream, but it has turned into a nightmare for thousands in the aftermath of Grenfell. That is why there is such strength of feeling across the House today. Our thoughts will always be with those lost in the Grenfell tragedy, with those who are grieving and with those who survived, but there are now thousands more who are dealing with the building safety consequences of those events In the UK it should not be high risk to buy a home in a block of flats built and marketed by a reputable house builder under strict building control regimes, only to find that the professional and regulatory checks have been a fiction. That is a situation in which hundreds of my constituents find themselves It is clear from today’s debate that no one wants residents to pay for this disgraceful behaviour, that there cannot be a blank cheque from Government, and that those who caused the problem have to pay for the works that are needed. The only question is how we achieve all that, so I warmly welcome the Government’s announcement of an additional £3.5 billion to fund remedial work, a grant scheme for low-rise buildings, a builders levy and a property developer tax. This will be of some reassurance to leaseholders, and a start to making sure that those responsible for the failings are made to pay for what they did wrong I accept the argument of my hon. Friend the Minister that this may not be the right place for further assurances on remediation costs and, given his undertaking to look at this further in the Building Safety Bill, I will pause my support for the amendments today. He has been constructive and helpful in his contribution In the meantime, the Government have to show how funding promises will work in practice. I thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for working with me to identify how funds will flow for the waking watch relief fund and remedial works. Making this work in practice has to be a ministerial priority in the coming weeks There also needs to be complete transparency from Homes England on which buildings have been accepted into the scheme, and that if eligible costs legitimately increase from the initial assessment, applicants can claim from the fund for a cost variation. Above all, these plans need to be in place as quickly as possible, and the Government need to tackle the insurance problems that many leaseholders now face Remediation works will not happen overnight, but it is in no one’s interest to delay this Bill, which includes provisions from my 2018 fire safety ten-minute rule Bill. If there is not clear progress, more action will be needed in the Building Safety Bill when it is considered later this year.