Grenfell Tower

Debate between Giles Watling and Robert Neill

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

This was an appalling tragedy. I understand the situation as a London MP, but it has had consequences across the country. It concerns me as a former fire services Minister and as a former Minister dealing with planning matters in the Department for Communities and Local Government. I know that the Secretary of State wants to get this right; he starts with great good will. The best thing we can do is to ensure not only that the causes are discovered, but that the lessons are learned. I will not touch on building regulation issues today—I will perhaps save that for tomorrow—but I do want to hark back to my intervention on the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed).

I am pleased that the Government have made increased public funding available to ensure that cladding on council-owned or housing association tower blocks is replaced and rectified. That is the right thing to do. The Secretary of State’s predecessor said that the owners of private blocks should ensure that the costs did not fall upon the leaseholders. Morally that is right, but there is no legal mechanism for enforcing that.

The Northpoint building in my constituency was converted from offices to flats in 1999 by Alfred McAlpine, and the flats are on long leases. The building was certified as compliant in 1999. It was then checked in 2009 after the Lakanal House fire, and was held to be compliant. A subsequent check after the Grenfell Tower fire led to it being classified as category 3, which is the worst level of combustibility.

There is no suggestion of any negligence on the part of the contractors or those who carried out the previous investigations—certainly nothing that will found any cause of action on behalf of the leaseholders. There is nothing in the lease to suggest that any breach of duty by the managing agents, the freeholders or anyone else involved in that building would remove liability from the leaseholders. The findings in recent litigation in the upper tribunals have, in fact, gone against leaseholders and in favour of freeholders. Freeholders are often commercial companies that have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders. I am afraid that moral obligations are not going to be enough.

In this case, Alfred McAlpine, through a series of mergers and takeovers, ended up as part of the Carillion Group, which is now in liquidation. The prospect of there being any redress for the leaseholders of the Northpoint building, even if there were a legal mechanism, is non-existent. The Minister should therefore look into some kind of emergency mechanism; we are not talking about large sums of money in the overall scheme of things.

[Giles Watling]

Is my hon. Friend suggesting that we need a change of law for such cases?

[Robert Neill]

Well, that may be something to look at for the future, but it cannot be done retrospectively and it would not help the position of current leaseholders. We need something that assists them.

It may be that something can be recovered at some point if people are found to be at fault, but we need a bridging arrangement to enable leaseholders to carry out remedial works. They often have very little equity because the flats are virtually unsaleable, and they are either first-time buyers or downsizers so are financially pressed at the best of times. I suggest that some bridging arrangement to help them through that period would be a practical means of ensuring that the Government meet that moral duty, which there is currently neither a legal nor a practical means of achieving. Such an arrangement would give a greater degree of parity between those in the private sector and the Government’s welcome approach to those in the public sector.