Grenfell Tower and Building Safety — House of Commons, 2017-09-05
Topic: Housing
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady has raised a number of issues. Let me start with her points about Scotland and the safety of buildings. As she rightly said, building regulations are a devolved matter, but that does not prevent England and Scotland, and other devolved areas, from working together on common issues. In my statement, I mentioned some of the problems identified by the British Board of Agrément in relation to the structural safety of cladding following incidents in Glasgow. We are working together through the Ministerial Working Group on Building and Fire Safety, which meets regularly. Its meetings obviously include discussion of Scotland and other devolved areas, and will continue to do so The hon. Lady asked about social housing and the remit of the public inquiry. As she will know, the inquiry’s terms of reference are set independently by the judge. They were accepted in full, without amendment, by the Prime Minister, and rightly so. That said, the hon. Lady—and the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey)—raised the issue of longer-term social housing; we will report to the House on that in due course The hon. Lady understandably raised the issue of counselling and mental health support. In the wake of the Grenfell tragedy, that support is being led by the local NHS trust. The work is being co-ordinated through GPs, pop-up clinics and a 24-hour hotline. However, there has also been a desire to get out there and make sure that the authorities are not waiting for people to come to them, and that people know what services are available. Thousands of doors have been knocked on, including hotel doors, and facilities have been set up in hotels. That process will continue so that everyone who needs help knows that it is available, and will receive it Lastly, the hon. Lady mentioned at-risk buildings and the need to ensure that any remedial work is done. We are monitoring that in the case of public sector buildings, and the same process will be applied to those in the private sector when problems are identified. The work will, of course, require funds. That allows me to return to a question asked by the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne about the funding of local authorities and others to ensure that they can continue to do the work that is necessary: I apologise for not addressing it earlier. As has been made clear from this Dispatch Box before, all local authorities and housing associations are expected to carry out immediately, without delay, any essential works that are required. We have said from the start that when there are funding issues they should approach us, and we will look at ways of trying to support them The right hon. Gentleman asked me a question earlier about the number of local authorities that have approached us. We have been approached directly or indirectly by 27 local authorities—either by the authority itself, or in some cases by their local Members of Parliament—and so far we are in more detailed discussions with six of those local authorities As for housing associations, we have made it clear that they should approach the social housing regulator. The regulator has written to every housing association and said that that should be the starting point of any financial discussions. As of today, the social housing regulator has told us that no housing association has approached it with financial viability concerns over fire safety.