Tower Block Cladding

Karen Buck Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes on leaseholders. Obviously there are legal relationships, but that is why I have underlined the need for us to take further action and to have the initial meetings that I have set out. I have been pretty clear in my view.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

The “stay put” policy has been a recognised element of fire safety for a long time, and those of us who have thousands of residents in high-rise towers in our constituencies now want clarity from the Government. My understanding is that the London fire brigade has changed its policy for blocks with particular types of cladding, but are residents expected to know what kind of environment they are living in before deciding whether to stay put or to leave? What will the Government do about that to ensure that there is total clarity, from tonight, to guide people?

[James Brokenshire]

I understand the concern that the hon. Lady raises. Obviously that advice would normally come from the National Fire Chiefs Council. The London fire brigade has made that specific alteration. I will take further advice from the National Fire Chiefs Council and ensure that we report back to the House as a matter of urgency.

Building Regulations and Fire Safety

Karen Buck Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. I am in no doubt about the strength of feeling that he expresses. Such strength of feeling exists not just in the House but outside, which is why I judge it right that we consult on this issue and take it forward in the way I have outlined. I look forward to advancing the consultation and to hearing the responses.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Not only is it nearly a year since the Grenfell disaster, but it is nine years since the Lakanal fire, which should have set alarm bells ringing about the weakness of building regulation. The Hackitt review is strong in its critique of regulatory failure, but it is profoundly disappointing in the strength of the recommendations it makes. I do not understand—perhaps the Secretary of State will help us to understand—how Dame Judith can this morning be reported as saying that she would support a Government ban on the use of combustible materials, but the report does not actually include such a direct recommendation. Will he take this opportunity to mark the anniversary of Grenfell by making it clear, early enough, that there will be an unambiguous ban? Will he cut through the confusion, and make that a proper memorial to those who died?

[James Brokenshire]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point. Dame Judith is independent, but her recommendations set out the end-to-end cultural and systemic change that it is important to take forward. I have already pointed to her recommendations about looking for greater clarity on specification, and by consulting in the way I have set out, we are taking that forward and reflecting her concerns. I hope that the hon. Lady will acknowledge what I said about the need to clarify building regulations for fire safety guidance, and as I have said, we will be publishing revised and clarified versions of that guidance for consultation in July.

Grenfell Tower

Karen Buck Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

I will shortly be leaving to sit on a Committee, so I apologise that I might not be in the Chamber for the wind-ups.

Like others, I praise the dignity of the survivors and families of Grenfell on what might be our last opportunity to discuss Grenfell before the one-year anniversary. I praise the ongoing fight for justice. Civic society—not just in Kensington, but much more widely—has come together to support these families and raise money, with people helping each other. That includes the firefighters who risked their lives on the night of the fire and who, only a few weeks ago, ran the London marathon, some in full kit, to raise money for Grenfell.

It is worth acknowledging the fact that residents, many of whom were in tower blocks in Kensington, Westminster and Hammersmith, watched the tragedy unfold from their windows. They watched the horror and have, for the whole of the past year, looked out at an 18-storey tomb. What that does to people—some are worried about their own safety—is unimaginable. Much as the services, including mental health services, have tried to rise to the occasion, we know that those services have not been wholly adequate.

I have two quick points. The first, of course, is the issue of rehousing. At the meeting here in Parliament two days after the fire, I stressed the importance of getting people rehoused—and permanently rehoused—quickly. Many of those families had already been through the homelessness system and had been placed out of borough. They know what it is like to be in temporary accommodation, and they know what it is like to be insecure and to be moved around for years. No wonder they do not trust either the Government or the local authority to secure their housing.

Understandably, it will take time to place individual families, and their needs and circumstances have to be taken into account, but the wider picture, as has been mentioned, is the chronic shortage of social housing. Only today, the Chartered Institute of Housing reminded us that in 2016, out of 270,000 homes started across the whole country, just 5,000, or 2%, were social housing. There is a very long way to go.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Lady share my concern that the “Who owns England?” blog found, through a freedom of information request, that nearly 2,000 properties were lying empty in Kensington and Chelsea, and that some of those had been empty for between 11 and 15 years, with many owned by offshore trusts? Obviously some of that was taken into consideration during the passage of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Buck]

I am grateful for that intervention, and I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad) will refer to that issue.

I have a particular question I want to put to the Minister. I am concerned about the fact that even after the fire, housing associations in inner London, including in Westminster, and on the border, including in Hammersmith, were selling vacant properties on the open market, including family-sized properties. I am not saying that those properties would have been suitable for Grenfell families, as they may not have been, but they would have relieved the general pressure on housing and homelessness in inner London, and perhaps created other opportunities. I am also aware that, even as we speak, Kensington and Chelsea Council is considering planning permission for developments in the borough where there is a net loss of social housing. Again, those social housing places may not have been appropriate for Grenfell survivors, but they would have reduced the pressure. The Minister needs to stop this and deal with it.

I, like others, welcome the slightly overdue but genuinely welcome investment in fire safety and the removal of the cladding. I would like to know from the Minister whether this will be retrospective. The six 20-storey towers of the Warwick and Brindley Estates have had their cladding removed, at considerable expense, and we would like to know whether we will be able to draw upon that money.

Finally, on the issue of the Hackitt review, there are concerns about desktop studies and the ability to use combustible materials. We will see tomorrow, as there will be a statement, whether the review confirms some of our concerns. I am clear that it does not look as though the Hackitt review or the Government fully understand the nature of mixed tenure in some of our blocks. We know there are issues to address on social housing and on leaseholders, which I am sure others will address, but many social housing blocks contain leasehold properties, and the fact that we cannot access them or ensure that they are available for fire safety works, including the retrofitting of sprinklers, is a real worry. It does not look as though the Hackitt review has fully taken that on board and it needs to do so.

The Grenfell tragedy must never be repeated, and neither must the disastrous aftermath of that tragedy, which let people down so badly. Some progress has been made, particularly with this announcement of additional money, but at the moment neither the issue of housing nor the issue of fire safety have been fully dealt with, even a full year after that appalling tragedy.

Windrush

Karen Buck Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I refer my hon. Friend to the comment I made earlier, when I said that I will do whatever is necessary to help, which means considering all legislative options, if necessary.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

May I press the Secretary of State further on legal aid? Is it not the case that at the very moment at which people who had a perfectly legitimate right to be in this country were facing a hostile state, the means by which they could secure advice, advocacy and representation was removed from them? Will he ensure that nobody who now faces a similar situation will be denied the opportunity to get such advice and help?

[Sajid Javid]

I listened carefully to what the hon. Lady said, and she makes an important point about legal aid more generally and when it can and cannot be provided. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice is currently conducting a review of legal aid. A consultation is open and the hon. Lady should contribute to it.

Grenfell Update

Karen Buck Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my hon. Friend for the interest he has taken in this issue ever since the tragedy, as well as for his work on the Select Committee. He makes a good point about some of the types of changes that could be made. It would be wrong of me to pre-empt the outcome of Dame Judith Hackitt’s inquiry, but I have listened very carefully to what my hon. Friend has said.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Today we learned that there has been a 64% rise in the number of families in temporary accommodation since 2010. We know that emergency and temporary accommodation is expensive, insecure and often of bad quality. Local authorities simply cannot cope alone. If this is bad for families generally, it is of course catastrophic for families who have been through the trauma of Grenfell, so why did the Secretary of State allow his Department to hand back £800 million to the Treasury?

[Sajid Javid]

I say gently to the hon. Lady that today we learned there has actually been a sharp fall in statutory homelessness, when we compare the last quarter with the same quarter in the previous year. I would have thought that she would welcome that. She talks about handing money back. Perhaps she would like to ask the Mayor of London why the Greater London Authority, under his control, handed back more than £60 million.

Building Safety

Karen Buck Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Nine months after Grenfell and with new concerns emerging, it is no surprise that residents in high-rise buildings remain extremely concerned. A matter of possible reassurance for them was the retrofitting of sprinklers. My local authority of Westminster has advised that it is concerned about proceeding with retrofitting because it has no right of access to the one in three properties in private ownership in social housing blocks. This is a matter not of regulation, but of ensuring access. Will the Secretary of State advise how he can take this forward as a matter of urgency so that councils that wish to proceed with retrofitting are clearly able to do so?

[Sajid Javid]

I agree with the hon. Lady that, in the light of all the information that has come to light since the terrible tragedy, local authorities should quite rightly take whatever action is needed to keep residents safe in high-rise buildings. That is exactly what is expected of them and they have our full support. We have said that it is for the local authorities to make their own decisions on sprinklers, based on expert advice. If they decide to proceed, they will get the financial flexibility to support them. If other issues are getting in the way of doing that job, we will be happy to look at them. A number of local authorities have approached us, and we are working with them all and will help them all in every way.

Integrated Communities

Karen Buck Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend asks a good question. Once he gets a chance to read the Green Paper more closely, he will see that we have set out a programme of how we want to make sure that more people, including imams in mosques, make people aware of their rights. If we have to take direct action to prohibit something—I gave the example of a change in marriage law, and in that case we would need to make sure that women in particular were not being abused and taken advantage of—we will not hesitate to do so.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

There is much in the direction of the proposals to support. The Secretary of State is right to refer to the central importance of women to the development of the strategy. I have seen some superb examples of best practice locally, including work with supplementary schools and with parents through Sure Start centres, as well as other forms of outreach, including the kind of peer-to-peer approach to which the Secretary of State referred. He is, however, completely wrong to say that all this is about more than money. Local authorities need the capacity to sort out such outreach work and to ensure that, whether it is done through community groups or the local councils themselves, it is able to happen. When will he make sure that councils have the resources that they need to turn what is a consensual vision on integration into practical reality?

[Sajid Javid]

To be clear to the hon. Lady, I am not saying that money is unimportant. Proper funding is of course essential but, equally, using that funding appropriately and in the most efficient way is just as important. She refers to examples from throughout the country. Where councils and community groups have done good work already, they should continue to do that work and we should all learn from that.

National Planning Policy Framework

Karen Buck Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. He is absolutely right to raise this issue. The private sector plays a huge role in infrastructure and provision of affordable homes, especially when it carries out the so-called viability assessments. We are not happy with the way that that process has worked, and that is why we started the consultation on it. At the end of that consultation, I believe, will be an outcome where we are much more easily able to hold the developers to account and make sure that they will actually deliver what they said right at the start.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree with the Conservative leader of the Local Government Association, Gary Porter, who said this weekend:

“If we want more houses, we have to build them, not plan them”,

and that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government needs to “push back against” the Treasury,

“or the nonsense will go on and nothing will change”?

If he does agree, why has he allowed affordable housing funding from his Ministry to be handed back to the Treasury, rather than spent on critically needed affordable homes?

[Sajid Javid]

I agree that to build the homes we need, we need to plan them properly, and that is what these reforms are about. The hon. Lady suggested that the Ministry handed money back. Among the underspend that she and her hon. Friends have mentioned was £65 million that was returned by the Greater London Authority because it did not spend it. That money was returned by the Mayor of London, so perhaps she wants to ask him why he returned funding.

Homelessness

Karen Buck Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to introduce this estimates day debate on the spending of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government as it relates to homelessness. I would like to start by thanking the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) for co-sponsoring the debate. I also thank colleagues on the Public Accounts Committee and the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, all of whom supported our bid to the Backbench Business Committee. I am delighted that so many Members wish to speak.

I draw Members’ attention to the reports of the Public Accounts Committee and the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee that are listed on the Order Paper. It was a real eye-opener to work on the Public Accounts Committee as a lead member on that inquiry, alongside the hon. Member for Chichester and the Committee’s Chair, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier). I will focus my remarks today on that report, which is well worth a read.

The Public Accounts Committee heard and read evidence from a wide range of witnesses. I would especially like to thank St Mungo’s for hosting us and showing us its exemplary work, which led in large part to the questioning we went on to do. The report, which received widespread media coverage, made a number of recommendations on how the Government could more effectively co-ordinate and prioritise spending on tackling rough sleeping and helping all homeless households. These issues are of huge concern across the House and across the country, but they are of equal concern to very many members of our communities, especially on such a freezing day, in a week that is unusually cold.

In my constituency of Oxford West and Abingdon, residents regularly raise concerns about rough sleeping and provision for homeless people—it is the No. 1 issue at the moment. I pay tribute to the incredible work being done in my constituency, especially by Homeless Oxfordshire, formerly known as Oxford Homeless Pathways. It has told me that in Oxford alone it is reaching out to, on average, two new people a day who are seeking its help.

Recent news reports have highlighted a heavy-handed approach by Oxford City Council, with notices issued threatening homeless people with fines of up to £2,500 if they did not move their belongings. The treatment of homeless people in our city has sparked outrage from the public. There is now real determination, and not just in Oxfordshire but across the country, to ensure that we treat those who are sleeping rough with the dignity and respect they deserve.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that we should also be concerned about some of the campaigns that have arisen aimed at the “fake homeless,” including one campaign in Devon that has led the police and Torbay Council to intervene because of the risk of vigilantism? Does she agree that, in the face of rising rough sleeping and homelessness, we should be taking a generous approach to those who are most vulnerable, not seeking to label them as fakes?

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I completely agree that a compassionate approach is absolutely what is needed.

Following a campaign by Oxford University students, I was pleased to be able to introduce a private Member’s Bill earlier this month aimed at repealing the archaic Vagrancy Act 1824, a Dickensian law that is no longer fit for purpose.

Oxford is not alone in seeing an increase in the problem of homelessness. Anyone who has visited a town or city centre recently will know that rough sleeping is now at crisis levels. Indeed, the Public Accounts Committee concluded that homelessness is a national crisis, with the number of rough sleepers rising year on year since 2010, doubling to over 4,100 in 2016. Crisis estimates that the figure is now as high as 9,000, and possibly more. Last summer in England there were over 78,000 households in temporary accommodation—this is not just about rough sleeping—which is up by 65% since 2010. Then there are the hidden homeless: the sofa surfers or people staying temporarily with friends and family who escape national statistics on rough sleepers.

Social Housing and Regeneration: Earl’s Court and West Kensington

Karen Buck Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered social housing and regeneration in Earl’s Court and West Kensington.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. Last Thursday, Property Week carried the story that Capital & Counties Properties plc, the promoter of the Earl’s Court development, is about to sell the Empress State building to the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime for around £240 million. Capco confirmed the leak. Indeed, using the “cui bono?” test, Capco was responsible for the leak, which gave a glimmer of good news to its shareholders, who have only had bad news in recent years, ahead of its full-year figures for 2017 being published later this week.

At over 30 storeys, Empress State was the tallest commercial building in London when it was built in the early 1960s. When it was vacated and sold by the Ministry of Defence, the Metropolitan police rented it from its new commercial owners. When Capco acquired the freehold in 2014, it gave notice to the Met and got consent from a complicit Conservative administration—with only weeks to spare before they lost control of Hammersmith and Fulham Council—to approve Empress State’s redevelopment as 440 mainly luxury flats.

Why give up now on luxury residential development, which was previously seen as not just another licence to print money, but a way of integrating the key Empress State site into Capco’s master plan for Earl’s Court and West Kensington? The answer is that throwing in the towel on Empress State is the clearest sign yet that not just the master plan, but Capco itself is in serious trouble and is seeking to cut and run to save its own skin.

This is a story about arrogance and greed; about politicians who thought they could treat people as commodities, units of production and pieces on an electoral chessboard; about developers who could not believe their luck and then fell prey to changing political and market forces; about a vibrant part of London full of industry, commerce and entertainment that was ordered to be razed and replaced with monotonous high-rise blocks as safe deposit flats for the investment market; and about a proud community of 2,000 people who have stood firm for 10 years against the threat of their homes and community being demolished and dispersed.

Ten years ago, Capco conceived a master plan for 77 acres of land straddling the borders of Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea. It was dubbed Earl’s Court, although the majority of the land lay in the marginal North End ward of Hammersmith and Fulham. It was billed as the biggest urban development outside China, with an estimated built-out value of £12 billion.

The plan was audacious, because although designated as an opportunity area, this was no derelict, brownfield land. One third of the site comprised the Earl’s Court exhibition centre, including its iconic 1930s entrance, which is now sadly demolished despite the UK having only a third of France’s exhibition space and a quarter of Germany’s. One third comprised the maintenance, manufacture and stabling of a significant part of London Underground in the Lillie Bridge depot, which was a major employer of skilled labour. One third comprised two estates of predominantly council housing: Gibbs Green and West Kensington. Around 2,000 of my constituents live there in 760 good quality, spacious, affordable 1950s, 1970s and 1990s low or medium-rise homes.

In place of all that, Capco promised 7,500 high-rise flats, of which only 11% would be additional affordable homes that stretched that definition to its limits by, for the most part, offering nugatory discounts on extortionate market prices. Interestingly, now Capco is aching for a deal—any deal—to get out of the scheme, it does not say, as most developers do, “Look at our viability assessment. It is all that we could afford.” It says, “We did what Conservative politicians asked, and they wanted precious little affordable housing and not one new social rented home.”

At the start of the process in 2008, Capco told me with similar candour that it did not want to include the estates in the master plan. Developing the exhibition centre and depot meant negotiating with a single partner, Transport for London. Bringing in the estates meant not only a political minefield, but buying up the land interests of the hundreds of freeholders and leaseholders who had bought the desirable homes, flats and maisonettes on Gibbs Green and West Ken.

Why did Capco succumb? Because the ideologically driven council in Hammersmith and Fulham decided to attract the attention of its political masters in the Department for Communities and Local Government by showing that whole areas of social housing could be wiped and reconceived as luxury developments—they called it “sweating the asset”. For Capco, demolishing the estates was the price of the Tories’ co-operation with the scheme.

Capco drove a hard bargain. The inequality of arms between developers and local authorities is not unique to Hammersmith. The deal done with TfL on the exhibition sites was hugely preferential to Capco, despite TfL owning the freehold—perhaps the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) was also not trying too hard—but that looks like a master stroke compared with the deal that the Hammersmith Tories did for the estate land.

In 2013, Hammersmith and Fulham Council made a deal to receive £90 million for the estates, plus space in the new development to replace the homes lost. Uniquely in the experience of most planners and developers, however, that sum was not index-linked—as if property prices never rise in central London.

Moreover, the council needed to deliver vacant possession of the land. That meant buying out 171 leasehold and freehold homes, which is normally the developer’s task. The maximum needed to acquire the homes was budgeted as £60 million, although valuation experts assessed the true figure as between £150 million and £174 million. The council has already purchased 26 homes at an average price of £552,000, excluding compensation, which is well in excess of the estimated £350,000.

The true value of the land is not recorded, but reading across from the valuation of the exhibition centre site, which is, suggests that a more accurate figure is around £1 billion. By accepting no more than 10% of the land’s value and by underestimating the costs of acquiring vacant possession, the council could now be left with a zero receipt and a maximum of 672 replacement homes for residents of the estates, having sold 88 homes to cover its shortfall. That will also not guarantee a home for all residents in the new scheme.

For reasons of time, I must return another day to what I regard as one of local government’s great financial scandals: how not just prime land, but whole communities were sold for a song to serve an extreme political agenda of gerrymandering and social engineering. Most of the guilty men of the previous Conservative administration—and they were all men—have taken their poisonous philosophy elsewhere, but Capco still squats on Earl’s Court and West Ken like a toad.

Capco is represented by its chairman, Ian Hawksworth, who is now most famous for being on the guest list for the President’s Club dinner, and Gary Yardley, its managing director, who is quick to pick up lavish bonuses for the granting of planning consents with negligible community benefit and huge community loss. Its development partners are even less savoury. They include Hong Kong-based mega-developers Kwok Family Interests. One of the family, Thomas Kwok, is currently serving a five-year sentence for bribery.

Although I have referred, and will continue to refer, to Capco as the developer, in fact the estates were purchased through an obscure entity called EC Properties LP. The sole partner capital contributed to EC Properties LP is £2 paid in cash by Jersey-registered EC Properties LP Ltd. These and further labyrinthine arrangements appear designed to put Capco in control while shielding it from liability and allowing it to take advantage of offshore tax arrangements.

Before being tempted by the prospect of rich pickings in Earl’s Court, Capco’s business was commercial and retail estate management, specifically through its ownership of Covent Garden. It has no experience as a major land developer, and it shows. It does not have control of the master plan site; it has no option on Lillie Bridge depot, which is owned by TfL; the estate residents, through their lawyers, dispute that the conditional land sale agreement for the estates is enforceable; and now the deliverability of its scheme has been further undermined by the sale of the Empress State building.

Capco’s scheme, the value of which fell by 20% in 2016, includes £1.8 billion of enabling infrastructure costs. At £148 per square foot, that is more than three times the cost of larger development schemes in London. Other residential developers have commented on Capco’s extreme construction costs, which are thought to be 30% to 45% above the market rate.

Capco’s assumptions for residential value, which are significantly higher than the local market and schemes elsewhere in London, have not been realised. Sales are slower than expected: flats have been selling at a rate of less than one a week. At one point it was selling one flat a fortnight, at which rate it would take more than 150 years to sell the entire scheme, yet the business plan relies on a high sales rate of 480 private homes a year. Unsurprisingly, Capco has tried in recent months to sell some or all of the site to overseas investors in America, South Africa, Japan, China and Saudi Arabia, but it has had no takers. Frankly, any developer, however much of a gambler, would be beyond reckless to take any of the Earl’s Court site off Capco’s hands.

With no money in the scheme and none from outside, Capco’s only other option is to return to planning and come up with a new master plan with increased heights and density. Sadly for Capco, that option also looks like a dead end. With Eric Pickles at the Department for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip as Mayor in City Hall, and Stephen Greenhalgh in Hammersmith Town Hall, anything was possible, but the political weather has changed. Now Sadiq Khan is Mayor and has very different ideas about what constitutes affordable and sustainable development. He has also made a strong commitment to tenants’ ballots and said that he wants

“to make sure people living on social housing estates…are at the heart of any decisions”

involving demolition. Stephen Cowan, the Labour leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, has described the Earl’s Court scheme as “unviable” and “undeliverable” and called on Capco to return the estates to the council. He has the full support of the North End ward Labour candidates, Councillor Larry Culhane, Councillor Daryl Brown and Zarar Qayyum. It appears that he also has the support of the deputy leader of Kensington and Chelsea, Councillor Kim Taylor-Smith, who spoke about the scheme at a meeting of the full council on 24 January.

On Monday, I wrote to the chief executive of EC Properties, whose parent company is Capco, to seek a meeting to consider the site’s future. I told him that on 14 June the facts on the ground in Kensington had changed. I wrote:

“I want to make it very clear that I do not believe the continuation of this development under the current terms is right. And, as a minimum, if this is to continue I want to see more social and more truly affordable housing included in this scheme.”

I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad) present, because part of the site is in her constituency. As she knows, my reference to 14 June was to the Grenfell Tower fire.

So what happens now? It is too late for the exhibition centres that were demolished in an act of vandalism, but it is not too late to build an acceptable replacement on the site. It is far from too late for the Lillie Bridge depot, which is still owned by TfL, to undergo sympathetic redevelopment to preserve necessary infrastructure for the tube and new affordable homes. If hon. Members will forgive me, however, I will turn my focus to the estates, or rather to the people who live there.

I first got to know West Ken and Gibbs Green in 1985 as the newly selected council candidate for Gibbs Green ward. The first campaign that I had to fight was to stop the then Tory council putting a relief road through the West Ken estate. It has been a pleasure to represent the area as a councillor and MP for 28 of the past 32 years. Although on aggregate it is a low-income community, it includes people from every walk of life, ethnicity, nationality and profession.

Residents reacted with horror to the prospect of demolition of their homes. At first, there was no guarantee of rehousing in the area—only the statutory requirement to rehouse secure tenants in suitable alternative accommodation. Even when residents were told that homes would be available on the site, there were strings attached. Homeowners, private tenants and households who moved into the estates after the land sale agreement was signed in 2013 have no guarantee of finding a replacement home in the area on eviction. Secure council tenants who move into the first phase of replacement homes could see their service charges triple to between £2,500 and £3,500 a year on top of rent. Having been initially promised like-for-like replacement homes, residents who currently have spacious flats and houses built in the 1960s and 1970s, some of which have gardens and off-street parking, have now been told simply that replacement homes will meet the legal minimum size standard. Even if the developer had the finances and political support to begin evicting residents tomorrow, redevelopment of the estates would still take at least 20 years to complete.

Residents have done everything they can to make it very clear what they do not want: demolition. In December 2009, a year after learning of the possible demolition of their homes, residents from 83% of households on the West Kensington and Gibbs Green estates signed a petition to oppose it. In March 2012, 80% of residents who responded to the council’s consultation on the scheme said no to demolition.

Residents have also been very clear about what they want instead: community ownership. In March 2011, they formed West Ken Gibbs Green Community Homes, a community-controlled not-for-profit organisation with membership from more than two thirds of households on the estates. It was set up with the intention of exercising council tenants’ right to transfer.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his powerful speech. Does he agree that residents could do a lot worse than learn from the community ownership experience in a neighbouring estate? Walterton and Elgin Community Homes was set up in the face of a threat from Westminster City Council in the late 1980s. It has proved to be one of the most successful and popular models for social housing in the country. Does he agree that that experience shows exactly the approach we should take when estates are threatened?

[Andy Slaughter]

It is a pleasure to see my hon. Friend in the Chamber. I am not surprised to hear her champion one of the most successful community-held developments in the country. I will say a little more about that development before I conclude my speech.

The right to transfer allows council tenants to choose a different landlord for their area. The objective of West Ken Gibbs Green Community Homes is to become the community-controlled landlord for its members’ homes. For four years, it lobbied the Government to implement the necessary legislation to enable it to use the right to transfer under the Housing Act 1985, as amended by the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008. The necessary regulations came into force in December 2013, and in March 2015 members voted 100:1 to serve a right-to-transfer proposal notice. That is a comfort to those whose priority is simply to remain in their homes. Some residents have lived on the estates with friends and neighbours for 30, 40 or even 50 years and dread the disruption of redevelopment and forced transfer.

Estates are home to people who are the lifeblood of our towns and cities. Many residents are people on minimum wage or zero-hours contracts, who feel the rising costs of living the most. Demolishing and marginalising social housing will not work; more importantly, it dehumanises an entire category of people. Certain councils and developers generalise about social housing tenants. They assume they know better than the tenants what is good for them, and they tell them to be grateful when their homes are under threat. That is what the Conservatives did before agreeing the sale to Capco, describing estates as “not decent neighbourhoods”, “barracks for the poor” and “ghettoes of multiple deprivation”. Is it any wonder that communities such as West Kensington and Gibbs Green are bidding to take control and ownership for themselves?

So residents came up with the people’s plan, which shows the professionals how new development ought to be done. At the outset, Community Homes brought more than 100 residents into workshops and site visits with architects. Residents and architects together identified space for up to 327 new homes and devised plans for improvements to their homes, streets and community spaces. The plans were costed and valued, and residents were able to show that they could help to pay for improvements and subsidise the building of new homes at social rent levels through sales. Residents from 65% of households provided written feedback on these proposals, and 90% of respondents said that the plans were “excellent” or “good”, and “better” or “far better” than the Capco scheme. Here is some of their feedback:

“Everybody is trying to save our homes from these rich people. What do you want to destroy people’s lives for? For money?”

“I like that there is a plan to build new homes but I can keep my home. I don’t understand why they are going to demolish decent homes.”

“The most important thing is that we get to stay. I love it here. We know each other and look out for each other.”

I have two final things to say. First, I thank everybody in the community at West Kensington and Gibbs Green, and their supporters and advisers, for the struggle of the last 10 years. It has been gruelling, and 2,000 people have had their lives on hold, unable to move on with everything from modernising their home to planning their family’s future. However, it has created a fantastic community spirit and inspired people to create their own vision for the future.

Even before the political climate began to thaw, I knew that we would win, because I have known people such as Sally Taylor and Diana Belshaw, the chairs of the West Ken and Gibbs Green residents’ associations, and Keith Drew, the chair of West Ken Gibbs Green Community Homes Limited, for 20 years and more. They are strong Fulham people who are standing up for their communities, and they are not daunted by the dirty tricks of the developer and its political cipher.

I am delighted that so many residents have been able to attend this debate. I apologise if I cannot name them all, but they stand for the hundreds and thousands of people on the estates who have fought for their homes and their livelihoods over many, many years. That battle is not over, but there is at least some light at the end of the tunnel.

As I say, there are too many people for me to name, but I cannot leave out Jonathan Rosenberg, the community organiser for these 10 years, who brought not only his absolute focus and determination to an often exhausting David and Goliath battle, but 30 years of experience of community housing. As my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) knows, Jonathan is the chair of Walterton and Elgin Community Homes, which is in her constituency. He is a slayer of Shirley Porter and a champion of tenants’ rights. Jonathan has been ably assisted by a number of professional advisers—accountants, architects and planners—and by community activists across both boroughs, and indeed by residents who have turned up, often when everything looked hopeless and bleak, time and again to assert the identity of their community.

I must also mention Dave Hill, the former Guardian journalist who now runs—I will give it a blatant plug—the “On London” website, which he is crowdfunding for. Dave has written dozens and dozens of articles to expose what has gone on in West Ken and Gibbs Green over the last 10 years. I do not always agree with everything that he says—he is a good, independent journalist—but he has chronicled what I am afraid to say lazier and more partisan journalists would have otherwise missed. It is good that we have it all on the record.

In conclusion, I have only a couple of simple requests to put to the Minister. I know that, new as he is to his post, he will have listened attentively. From my time holding the justice brief, I know that he is serious and has intellectual weight, and I hope that he will give me good news today. First, will he please determine the Community Homes application for the right to transfer, which his Department has been waiting to determine for more than two years? When he does so, can he please heed the residents’ call for him to uphold their legal right to take back control—a phrase I am sure he is keen to hear in this Chamber—of their community, so that they can deliver the homes that we need?

Secondly and more broadly, I ask the Minister to get the Government, including his Department, to work with the residents, the boroughs and the Greater London Authority—they are all now of one mind, a very different mind from the one of 10 years ago—to provide decent, genuinely affordable homes across the Earl’s Court site for families? That perhaps includes families from Grenfell, and thousands of others who are in overcrowded, unfit and unaffordable accommodation in two of London’s most expensive boroughs.

This situation should not be seen as a tragedy but as an opportunity. If there is going to be redevelopment, it should be sympathetic and sustainable, and in the interests of the people who need it most. They are the people who need social and affordable housing in Hammersmith and Fulham, and in Kensington and Chelsea.