Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
Chris Green
Main Page: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)Department Debates - View all Chris Green's debates with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders
Chris Green Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
Happy Birthday, Madam Deputy Speaker. I welcome my hon. Friend the Housing Minister to his place. He is right to point out that the current problem has built up over many decades, and he is also right to decide to resolve the problem once and for all.
Bolton at Home, which serves many of my constituents, has raised concerns with me, ranging from the status of fire doors to fire risk assessments. That indicates how much more work needs to be done on this issue. My hon. Friend the Father of the House comprehensively set out the parties that must be led or forced by the Government to act. He was right to say that it would be better not to divide the House on this motion, but instead use this debate to have the Government take note and take action.
I support the amendment to the Fire Safety Bill in the names of my hon. Friends the Members for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) and for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland). I urge the Government to build upon it if they do not think it is suitable, in order to deliver certainty and safety for my constituents and many others around the country. People ought not to think that this applies just to huge tower blocks; it applies to a huge range of other buildings too.
The Grenfell Tower events were horrific, but they were nearly repeated on 15 November 2019, when The Cube burned down in Bolton. The student accommodation caught fire and became an inferno within minutes. If it were 4 o’clock in the morning, rather than 8.30 in the evening, we do not know how many deaths there would have been. Would it have been Grenfell mark 2? We have to act, be decisive and comprehensive in our actions, and sort this out incredibly quickly, because this is about people’s safety and physical and mental wellbeing. Many people have put their lives on hold and are waiting to move on—they may want to start a family or get a job—so we have to resolve this issue incredibly quickly.