Fire Safety Bill

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 29th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab) [V]]

I want to begin by welcoming this long-overdue Bill. We all know what the consequences can be—[Inaudible.] Nobody here will ever forget the tragedy of Grenfell Tower, but only last autumn a block of student accommodation called The Cube, just over the border from my constituency in Bolton, caught fire. There were no casualties that time, but—[Inaudible.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I have to interrupt the hon. Lady because the sound quality is not very good. Let us try again for a few seconds, and if it does not improve, we will leave the hon. Lady and come back to her later.

[Barbara Keeley]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Although this Bill is overdue, it does not guarantee action immediately. I understand that the current crisis makes it difficult—[Inaudible.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I am very sorry, but I have to interrupt the hon. Lady again. Those in the Chamber, and presumably those listening in other ways, cannot make out what she is saying, so we will interrupt her speech for the moment and hopefully come back to her shortly.

I am glad to see that in the Chamber we have, without any sound difficulties, Meg Hillier.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call Christine Jardine—the hon. Lady cannot hear us. Do we have a connection? We can see her, but we cannot hear her. We will come back to her. Meanwhile we will go to Vauxhall.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We will now attempt again to go to Christine Jardine.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD) [V]]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Good, we can hear you.

[Christine Jardine]

I am delighted to be able to join this debate. Each time the House debates or acknowledges in any way the horror that was Grenfell and the 72 lives lost that night, I find, like so many others, my mind going back to that evening. As a new MP, excited by the opportunity to effect change, I was horrified to turn to my TV in my hotel room and see the tragedy that was unfolding across the city. As so many right hon. and hon. Members have said, that memory remains with me. More than that, it is what drives my and so many others’ commitment to preventing it from happening again.

In this Parliament and the previous one, we have become accustomed to using words like “unprecedented”, “historic” and “crisis”. I hope that when we reflect fully on this period, we will be able to be confident that we gave this issue the attention, energy and commitment that it deserved. We need a commitment to ensuring that Grenfell is fully investigated and the victims and survivors honoured, and we have to make sure we have done everything possible to ensure that it cannot happen again. For that reason, I, with my Liberal Democrat colleagues, welcome this legislation today, but with a caveat. Several aspects of the Bill perhaps miss an invaluable opportunity to introduce other vital fire and safety mentions. There is no mention of evacuation plans for high-rise blocks or three-monthly fire door inspections, as recommended by the inquiry chaired by Sir Martin Moore-Bick. When will the House see those measures introduced in legislation?

A building safety Bill is urgently required. As more people spend time at home isolating, the risk of injuries and harm increases. When will that legislation be laid and what impact will the pandemic have on instigating necessary change and improvement? Those questions need to be answered.

While this Bill may be designed for England and Wales only—Scotland has its own fire safety regulations—it is far-reaching and has potentially serious implications for Scotland, where many homeowners now find themselves faced with a significant problem. Nine out of 10 mortgages in Scotland are provided by London-based lenders. The terms of those mortgages are based on English law and regulations. The effect of that is that many in apartment blocks are finding that their flats are now worthless. The mortgage lenders have placed a zero value on their property, because, according to those regulations, accommodation over six storeys must have an official external wall fire review, ensuring that the cladding is safe.

In England, one person would normally own the block and lease out the apartments to the owners. In Scotland, all the apartments are owned outright; there is no leasehold. The difficulty is down to that different ownership model. In England, it is relatively simple for one person to organise the checks and work on the apartment block and then bill the leaseholders. In Scotland, that is impossible. In a block of 250 owners, there would have to be 250 EWS1 forms verifying cladding. Each one costs thousands to complete. That anomaly is blocking any checks and many sales in Scotland. People cannot sell their apartments in such blocks without an ESW1 form, and in many cases no apartments are valued at more than zero. That is not to say that the regulations should be compromised—far from it. We need acknowledgement of the issue and arrangements made for properties where there is no leasehold.

I do not believe that any one of us is not committed to doing everything we possibly can to ensure that no family and no person ever has to endure the horror that the residents of Grenfell and their loved ones have endured over the past three years. To do that, we have to not just pass this Bill—[Inaudible.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We have lost contact with the hon. Lady, just as she was coming to her peroration. I think that everyone present, and in particular the Minister, can imagine what she was about to say, so we will assume that her peroration is complete.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]]

I hope everyone can hear me. I welcome the Bill—all three clauses of it—but it is not sufficient to deal with the problems that have been happening in relation to buildings across the country. The Grenfell fire occurred three years ago, and although the taskforce reported last year on the things that needed to be done, none of them has yet been implemented, despite the Government promising that all the recommendations would be encompassed, lock, stock and barrel. I hope that the Government will soon introduce a Bill that does all those things.

The Bill is very welcome, but it requires proper resources. The Fire Brigades Union has estimated that it will result in hundreds of thousands more buildings needing to be inspected, which is obviously the right thing to do. However, since the Government have, for years now, been cutting fire brigade services, we have fewer fire officers and less equipment. The response can therefore often be slower than it should be. Since 2013, £141.5 million of cuts have been made to the fire budget. Clearly, if the Bill is to have an impact, money must be provided to the fire brigade so that it can carry out its work.

There has rightly been talk about the Grenfell fire, but in my constituency of Bolton South East, The Cube, which was student accommodation, also erupted into fire, leaving 200 students homeless. Fortunately, no one was injured. The university has been great at looking after the students, even though the building did not belong to it, and the local community has been fantastic. I thank the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service for dealing with the situation so speedily and effectively. However, it leads to the question about the height of buildings. High buildings are considered those of 18 metres; The Cube was just 16 cm short of that.

The Cube’s cladding was what is called high-pressure laminate, unlike Grenfell, which had ACM cladding. People rightly talk about ACM cladding, but there is unsafe cladding across buildings in this country, some of which is high-pressure laminate and some of which is not. It is imperative that the Government test every single building in our country to ensure that they are safe for the people in them. Although such things cost money, at the end of the day, people’s lives are destroyed. The Grenfell Tower showed the tragedy of how many people died and how many lives were destroyed.

Although I welcome the Bill, I urge the Government to introduce a Bill that deals comprehensively with fire safety across all buildings—not just high buildings, but smaller buildings, such as hospitals and shopping centres. We need to have proper regulation, and proper inspections should be carried out for new buildings. I ask the Government to please sort this out. People’s lives must not be played with.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We will now go back to Barbara Keeley. The connection is not good enough to give us a video connection, but we will have an audio connection.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab) [V]]

It is a privilege to speak in the debate. I should like to begin by paying tribute to the Grenfell families and survivors, and to the fire service. I should add that it is a pleasure to follow hon. Members across the House, although it is somewhat strange to take part in the debate from my sofa.

I am pleased with the quality of today’s debate and the many thoughtful contributions from across the House. I, like other Opposition Members, welcome the Bill; it is a step forward, although a modest step, and I urge the Government to go much further.

I would like first to reflect on the situation affecting many residents in my constituency, particularly in central Reading where there is both a huge number of larger blocks and many much smaller ones, which—like the block referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley)—are below the height threshold but where there are serious concerns about their safety nevertheless.

I want to reflect on an email from a constituent that I found extremely moving. It was from a young woman who had been living, for several months at this point, in great stress in a flat in the town centre that had dangerous cladding. She and her fellow residents in the block have now been living in this condition for almost three years, and it is simply appalling that people are still having to put up with such enormous stress and worry, which is shared by residents across the country. As has been said, many of them are simply trapped in their properties; they are unable to sell, and are living in properties with dangerous cladding, either ACM or one of the many other types of dangerous cladding. We heard about the high-pressure laminate earlier. and it is also worth considering the danger from wooden cladding; there was the dreadful case of a fire in Barking a few months ago.

In the Reading area, we have ACM, wooden cladding that has been found to be dangerous, and laminate types. In my constituency, four or five large blocks have been inspected by Royal Berks Fire and Rescue Service and found to be not up to the required standards. The work is under way in one of those blocks, but in many other cases has been delayed. To make matters worse, there is the related issue, mentioned earlier, of smaller blocks that fall below the threshold yet have many dangerous fire safety issues— either dangerous cladding or a host of other problems, such as substandard fire doors, which have been discovered recently.

This is a very substantial problem affecting towns and cities across the whole country. We are only just beginning to discover the full extent of it. It started with the awful fire at Grenfell and similar fires which predated it and which should have been a warning to the Government. There have been subsequent fires, such as the Barking one or The Cube fire in Bolton, but there are many other dangers out there and I would like to draw the House’s attention to some of them, particularly those to do with HMOs.

There are huge numbers of HMOs in my constituency and many other towns and cities, and the numbers are growing. HMOs are not well regulated, and local authorities do not have the power to institute the sort of fire safety measures residents would often ideally want. There is also a growing market in unregulated and illegal HMOs, often tucked away and out of sight, which are not being inspected.

I want to make two points calling for more action from the Government; one of them relates to this issue of inspection and the other is a more general point about liability. On inspection, I hope the Minister will acknowledge what I have been saying about the scale of this issue in towns such as Reading, a typical medium-sized urban area in Britain. Our local fire and rescue service estimates that 30 additional officers would be required to inspect the county of Berkshire, which has a population of about 800,000, with towns including Reading, Slough and Bracknell. Given the number of smaller but still possibly dangerous buildings, substantial investment is required from Government. I hope the Minister reflects on this and comes up with a realistic plan for funding the emergency services so that they can properly inspect the vast multitude of potentially dangerous buildings. They include, as mentioned earlier, educational buildings, and there is a whole series of other types of building that people use, as well as flats and HMOs. All these need to be inspected and the resources are currently very limited.

I should add that it can take up to two years—possibly in some cases longer, depending on the grade of the person—for fire safety officers to be fully trained. They need to be trained firefighters who specialise in this field.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I trust the hon. Gentleman is bringing his remarks to a close.

[Matt Rodda]

I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I apologise if I have somewhat overrun.

My other point is briefly to reiterate the wise comments made by colleagues about the need for the owners of blocks—not just leaseholders, but freeholders—to contribute towards these schemes.

In summary, this is a step forward, but much more needs to be done and I urge the Government to look at the resources needed, particularly for inspection.

Fire Safety Bill

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate.

Over three years after the Grenfell Tower fire, any improvements to fire safety legislation are of course welcome; however, the Bill in its current form is only a modest improvement on the current fire safety regime. I do not have the experiences of so many hon. Members speaking in this debate today, but as the daughter of an ex-firefighter I certainly understand the importance of these issues, and I share the concerns highlighted by the Fire Brigades Union that the views and concerns of the people who live and work in high-risk buildings should be at the heart of the new system of fire safety across the UK.

That means that the voices of tenants must be heard in this process. Residents have raised concerns about the removal of flammable cladding and the role of waking watches. It is disturbing that three years on from Grenfell, there are still issues around the removal of flammable ACM cladding from both social and private-sector tower blocks. Coronavirus has caused many contractors to stop work on cladding sites, while others have not even begun due to complex legal disputes. These delays mean that residents of buildings continue to face extortionate fees for interim safety measures, most commonly waking watch. The National Fire Chiefs Council’s advice on waking watch has become outdated. Its guidance suggests that waking watch should be a temporary measure, yet some residents have been forced to pay for waking watches for a number of years. This is not a sustainable solution. New clause 5 would require both this Government and the Welsh Government to specify when a waking watch must be in place for buildings with fire safety failures.

The voice of firefighters also needs to be heard with regard to the Bill. The FBU believes that this legislation requires investment in professional firefighters and an expansion in the number of fire inspectors. Therefore, I have great concern that the Bill gives little consideration to the additional costs to the fire and rescue services in implementing these additional inspections. That comes on top of Government cuts to central funding to fire and rescue services by 28% in real terms between 2010 and 2016, followed by a further cut of 15% by 2020. These cuts have led to 11,000 fewer fire service personnel—that is 20% of the service. On Boris Johnson’s watch as Mayor of London, in eight years the London Fire Brigade was required to make—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Lady must refer to the Prime Minister as “the Prime Minister” here in the Chamber, please.

[Kate Osborne]

On the Prime Minister’s watch as Mayor of London, in eight years the London Fire Brigade was required to make gross savings of over £100 million, leading to the cutting of 27 fire appliances, 552 firefighters, 324 support staff, two fire rescue units and three training appliances, the closure of 10 fire stations and a reduction in fire rescue unit crewing levels. Ministers must commit to funding fire and rescue services sufficiently to ensure that fire authorities are able to inspect and enforce these new measures.

In conclusion, last October the Government promised to implement the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower review in full and without delay. Nearly a year later, this Bill does not contain a single measure recommended by the inquiry. Therefore, I will be supporting new clause 1 as it places robust requirements on building owners or managers to implement the recommendations from phase one of the Grenfell Tower inquiry. I will also be supporting new clauses 2 to 5. I urge the Government to make true on their promises: back the amendments and put everyone’s safety first.

--- Later in debate ---

Finally, on electrical safety, many experts—my hon. Friends the Members for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher), for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) and for Southend West (Sir David Amess)—spoke very passionately, with knowledge and based on research, about the issues that that highlights. Certainly in my own conversations with those with an interest in fire, one of the points they have highlighted is that, in their view, white goods in particular are becoming safer and safer as time goes by. But there are new fire risks emerging, particularly with small appliances, chargers and things like that, which are causing significant risks and are the cause of a large number of thus far, thankfully, quite small fires that, if they got out of control, would create additional risk. Those things would not necessarily be subject to or caught within the safety regime that has been debated. Given that those are new and emerging risks, I have concerns about relying upon assumptions at this stage that may not capture the full extent of the risks that our residents are facing. I know the Minister has been giving some thought to this, and I look forward to him explaining how we might address those wider risks in legislation that will come before the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Before I call the next hon. Member, might I remind everyone in the Chamber, but especially new Members who have possibly not quite got into their stride on the matter as we have not had normal times—I took the matter up with the hon. Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne)—that it is obligatory to refer to hon. Members not by name, but by their constituency? I call Matt Rodda—I can call Members by their names.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate tonight.

Thank you for reminding me of that very important point as well. I would like to speak in support of new clauses 1 and 2 and the other new clauses tabled by the Opposition on the duties of building owners and accreditation of fire risk assessors. However, before I address those important points, I would first like to reflect on the scale of the challenge facing our country following the Grenfell disaster and, indeed, the issues in my own constituency of Reading East. I would like to briefly pay tribute to the Grenfell families, and I am sure we can all agree that our thoughts are with them continually after what happened in the disaster. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) earlier, I wish to show my support for our firefighters, both for their bravery and their professionalism.

Three years after Grenfell, the issue of dangerous cladding is still a daily reality for thousands of residents, including many in my constituency, and for many more, there are a whole series of other issues, such as fire safety concerns about their own properties or concerns on behalf of friends or relatives living in accommodation that is subject to those risks. One resident put it to me so poignantly when she contacted me, when she said:

“Imagine coming home every night to a flat which you fear is unsafe to live in, and yet you are unable to sell the flat or to move out of it.”

That is the reality that thousands of people in our country continue to face. That story is repeated time and again in towns the size of Reading or much smaller, and in great cities around the country. Indeed, it extends way beyond the issue of ACM cladding, although that in itself is a huge issue for the country.

To give an example, in Reading and Woodley there are several blocks containing Grenfell-style cladding, and others with other forms of composite materials on them, as well as wooden cladding, all of which have been found to be highly dangerous and flammable. Indeed, since Grenfell there have been fires in Bolton and in Barking with the materials that I have mentioned, similar to those found in my constituency.

In addition to tall buildings and the issues that we have talked about tonight, there are also fire safety concerns about lower-rise buildings. In my constituency, there are huge numbers—possibly into the thousands—of lower-rise flats below the 9-metre limit, many of which have what I believe may be serious fire safety issues. That affects tens of thousands of people around the country.

Fire Safety Bill

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

Consideration of Lords amendments

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I must draw the House’s attention to the fact that financial privilege is engaged by Lords amendment 3. If Lords amendment 3 is agreed to, I will cause the customary entry waiving Commons financial privilege to be entered in the Journal.

It may be helpful for Members who wish to take part in today’s debate to know that there will be an initial four-minute time limit on Back-Bench speeches. That gives people the opportunity to tailor their remarks accordingly.

After Clause 2

Risk based guidance about the discharge of duties under the Fire Safety Order

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendment 2, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 3, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 4, amendment (e) thereto, Government motion to disagree, and amendments (a) to (c) in lieu, amendments (f) and (g) in lieu, amendment (d) in lieu and amendment (i) in lieu.

Lords amendment 5, and Government motion to agree.

[Kit Malthouse]

It seems a long time since I spoke on this Bill in Committee in June last year. I am playing a small part in the Bill’s passage through both Houses, and I stand in today for the Minister for Security, my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), who led on the Bill at Second Reading and on Report last year. I am sure everyone in this House wishes him a full recovery.

Lords amendments 1 and 5 were moved by the Government on Report following advice that the Home Office received from fire safety operational experts on how to commence the Fire Safety Bill. In Committee, I announced that the Home Office had established an independent task and finish group whose role was to provide a recommendation on the optimal way to commence this Bill. The group was chaired jointly by the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Fire Sector Federation, and it brought together experts from across the fire and housing sectors.

On 28 September, the task and finish group submitted its advice to the Home Office that the Bill should be commenced at once for all buildings in scope. The Government accepted this recommendation.

The group also recommended that responsible persons under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 should use a risk-based approach to carry out or review fire risk assessments, upon commencement, using a building prioritisation tool, and that the Government should issue statutory guidance to support this approach. The Government accepted this recommendation, which will support responsible persons. The Home Office, with support from the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Fire Sector Federation, will host the model once it has been finalised.

Lords amendment 1 will allow us to take forward the provision of statutory guidance to support that approach. The amendment ensures that the risk-based guidance, which will be issued by the Secretary of State to support commencement of the Bill for all relevant buildings, will have the appropriate status to incentivise compliance. It does this by stating explicitly that a court can consider whether a responsible person has complied with their duties under the fire safety order by complying with the risk-based guidance. Equally, if a responsible person fails to provide evidence that they have complied, it may be relied upon by a court as tending to support non-compliance with their duties under the order.

The amendment also creates a provision to allow the Secretary of State to withdraw the risk-based guidance, but this can be done only after consultation with relevant stakeholders. Our rationale for inserting this provision is that we believe a point will eventually be reached where, having followed a risk-based approach to prioritisation, responsible persons will have assessed all the fire safety risks for the external walls of their buildings. At that stage, there may no longer be a need for the guidance to remain in place.

I assure Members that the Government will commence the Bill at the same time as issuing the guidance, and Lords amendment 5 ensures that will happen. This amendment gained the support of the Opposition in the other place when put to a vote on Report. I also recall the comments of the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) in Committee, when she said this Bill should be commenced at once for all buildings in scope and that a risk-based approach, like the one modelled in her home town of Croydon, should be adopted.

One of the recurring themes during the passage of this Bill has been concern over the number of fire risk assessors with the skills to undertake work on external wall systems. The task and finish group considered this issue as it looked at how responsible persons will be able to update their fire risk assessments, given there is limited capacity in the fire risk assessment sector—primarily of fire engineers working on complex buildings.

The group’s recommendation for a risk-based approach to an all-at-once commencement, on which we are acting, is the most practical way to deal with what is a complex issue. Our approach sends a signal to the fire risk assessor sector—mainly fire engineers—that their expertise should be directed where it is needed most, to the highest-risk buildings.

I thank all members of the task and finish group for their work in developing advice to the Home Office. The group has provided an optimal solution for commencing the Fire Safety Bill, allowing the Government to introduce the provisions at the earliest opportunity. It is important that we continue the good work undertaken with those relevant stakeholders on the task and finish group to regularly monitor the effectiveness of the risk-based guidance and the building prioritisation tool. These provisions will allow us to take forward the recommendations from operational experts in the field of fire safety. I hope that hon. Members will support Lords amendments 1 and 5, as agreed in the other place.

Lords amendment 3 seeks to introduce a power that the Secretary of State must use to make regulations to establish and keep up to date a public register of fire risk assessments. As you have confirmed, Madam Deputy Speaker, this amendment engages financial privilege and will not be debated. The amendment invokes significant financial concerns. To provide a sense of the scale of costs, we can point to two things. First, based on the number of buildings requiring a fire risk assessment, our initial estimate is that the cost to the public purse of a public register of fire risk assessment is above £2 million per annum.

Secondly, these costs would likely be broadly commensurate with the expenditure of maintaining a database of energy performance certificates. That system was mentioned by Opposition colleagues in the other place, who stated that something similar should be introduced for fire risk assessments. The current database of energy performance certificates is housed centrally in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The current costs for this are around £2 million per year, but under private contractual arrangements used previously, they were approximately £4 million a year. Notwithstanding the issue of financial privilege, I sympathise with the intent behind the amendment, and we will not rule out doing this in the future. However, there is a need for detailed policy consideration prior to implementation of such a database, which makes this the wrong time to impose this measure in primary legislation.

I raise just a couple of points to underline our view that the amendment is not appropriate. The amendment would, in effect, create a legal duty on responsible persons to make publicly available the full fire risk assessment for all buildings falling within the scope of regulation owing to the fire safety order. In its current form, the amendment would potentially mean that anyone would be able to access the fire risk assessments for a wide range of premises, including schools, hospitals, care homes and Government buildings. We would have concerns over the risk that posed to security, particularly if the information was accessed by somebody with malicious intent.

Linked to the security issue is the level of information that could and should be made available if a system of recording fire risk assessments is created. For example, a fire risk assessment can often be technical and is very different from an energy performance certificate. It may, for example, prove more effective and transparent to publish a summary of a fire risk assessment, rather than the full document. However, the Government agree with the principle of residents being able to access vital fire safety information for the building in which they live, and we propose introducing legislative provision to allow them to do so in our fire safety consultation. It is important to take a proportionate and appropriate approach to sharing information with residents. However, I hope that hon. Members will understand my concerns and the reason why the Government will resist the amendment.

Lords amendment 2 would place in primary legislation several specific requirements on the owner or manager of a building that contained two or more domestic premises. I recognise that many in this House and the other place wish to see legislative change on this as soon as possible. The Government share that objective, which is why we committed to implementing and legislating for the Grenfell inquiry’s recommendations in our manifesto. The Fire Safety Bill is the first step towards this. It was always intended to be a short, technical piece of legislation designed to clarify that structure, external walls and flat entrance doors should be included within the fire safety order. We need to deliver on that as soon as possible, to ensure that fire risk assessments are updated to take account of the risks in those areas. We intend to implement the areas specified in Lords amendment 2 through regulations, and as such the amendment is unnecessary.

It is not helpful, I have to say, for the House to keep returning to this issue. It risks causing confusion, as we saw through misleading media coverage of Commons Report stage. It also raises doubts in relation to the Government’s commitment to implementation, when all along we have been crystal clear about our intentions. I reassure the Grenfell community, who I know were distressed by the publicity at Committee stage, and those in the House and the wider public that the Government remain absolutely steadfast in our commitment to implement the inquiry’s recommendations.

I am sure everyone across the House accepts the importance of consulting when proposing significant changes to legislation. The importance of that was underlined by the Grenfell inquiry chair, who said that it was important that his recommendations

“command the support of those who have experience of the matters to which they relate.”

Furthermore, the National Fire Chiefs Council’s published response to our fire safety consultation states:

“NFCC supports the Government’s approach to publicly consulting on how to implement the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 recommendations. This consultation provides an opportunity to gather wider views on how to practically deliver the recommendations in a way that brings the maximum benefits to public safety.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

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.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to be able to speak in this debate. I would also like to send my best wishes to my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire).

It is a great pleasure to see the Minister in his place and responding to this debate. I listened to him very carefully and I detect a hint that there could be a compromise, for which I and my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) have been calling for many months now. We are very keen to work with the Government. We are very keen for the Government to table an amendment in lieu, to accept our amendment today or, if the Minister feels so inclined, even to move our amendment to a vote to test the will of the House, but I imagine that, sadly, we will not have the opportunity to vote on what is called the McPartland-Smith amendment today.

I would like to pick the Minister up on the point he made about this Bill not being the correct place for the amendment. I believe it is, which I will come on to in a moment. I would also like to put on record that I, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen, those who have supported our amendment and the leaseholders themselves are all very clear that we have never asked the Government to pay for the full costs of remediation, or the taxpayer to bail people out. We just want the taxpayer to provide a safety net for leaseholders to ensure the fire safety works are actually undertaken; it has been nearly four years.

We want to be in a position whereby the Government provide the cash flow up front, and then they can levy those who have been responsible within the industry to recoup those funds over the next 10 years. That is our plan and objective. We would love to work with the Minister and the Government to get this resolved in the Lords. I say to the Minister today that their lordships have already agreed to re-table the amendment if it is not accepted. It will be tabled in the Lords on Friday. I am sure we will be back to discuss this later on—in a few months. So I hope that we can work in the in-between time to come to some solution together.

I am very proud to be the Chairman of the Regulatory Reform Committee. The Fire Safety Bill does amend the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. The reason why the Bill is so important is that it creates a financial obligation on leaseholders to pay freeholders for the costs of remedying any fire safety defects on external walls and doors, such as cladding, but not limited to cladding, so it can include fire safety breaks and a whole variety of other issues. I assume that this is an unintended consequence. The Government do not want leaseholders to pay—that is very clear from what the Minister said earlier—but they are not sure how they can resolve the problem and get the works fixed without leaseholders actually paying.

From my point of view, we are very keen to ensure that leaseholders are not responsible. In terms of dealing with that order, we have to amend the Fire Safety Bill, because we cannot wait for the Building Safety Bill. The Fire Safety Bill creates this legal obligation. It creates the position whereby a fire authority, which is a competent authority, can order a freeholder to do the works. They have 21 days to agree to do the works and provide a timescale, or that is a criminal offence. Once they have had this direction from a competent authority, the leaseholders are then required to refund the freeholder for the works that are done. Up and down the country we already have thousands of leaseholders who are on the verge of bankruptcy—some have already gone bankrupt—just waiting and, before they actually get to the costs of remediation, paying £15,000 a week for waking watch in blocks of flats and excessive insurance premiums. The costs are huge.

I urge the Government to accept our amendment, to let us vote on it, or to work with us to ensure that we resolve this issue in the Lords and that leaseholders do not have to pay.