Grenfell Tower Update

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

We are putting our attention very much on the social housing sector, which, in the light of what has happened, noble Lords will understand.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful Statement on this agonising subject, and I endorse his thanks for all that people are trying to do to improve the situation. As someone who has for many years been either a regulator within government or in business being regulated, I have concluded that in areas such as safety and standards, including fire safety, we need regulations that are balanced, well thought out and cost effective; simply expressed and well communicated to everybody who needs to know what those regulations are; and—this is the important point for today—properly enforced. So often we find that good rules are not enforced and disasters of the tragic sort that we have seen on this occasion ensue. Therefore, I ask my noble friend, and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, will probably be interested in the answer to this question as well: how can we quickly prioritise and improve enforcement of the regulations in this area—that is, fire safety—and indeed of other regulations, such as product safety, which may be important, and how can we do that at speed? That obviously includes the public sector, where there has been a problem in this area, and business, although in my experience business people are very well aware of the serious health and safety responsibilities they have and the liabilities that they can incur. I would like to feel that the Government were thinking about the wider lessons here and about how we might prevent such tragedies happening in this and other areas.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend very much for her general encapsulation of the principles that should be carried forward in relation to regulations in this field and indeed in many others, as she indicated. I say once again that the judge will no doubt want to look very seriously at the debate on this issue. My noble friend referred to the importance of carrying forward lessons in a timely and urgent way, and that is the purpose of having the expert panel. It will look at these issues urgently, even ahead of the inquiry and the interim report. This is just the sort of issue that the expert panel will want to look at, along with the point about insulation, as I indicated to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley.