Fire Safety Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Lords Hansard
Wednesday 17th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of London]

My Lords, I wish to support the Motions in the name of my friends the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, which provide a more comprehensive solution than is already in this Bill.

As the 133rd Bishop of London, it has been my privilege to serve this city for the last three years. Unfortunately, I have seen how inequality of outcome is built into our city. As I have followed this debate, it has moved me to speak today. It is almost four years since the Grenfell Tower disaster. Hundreds of thousands of citizens in London and other cities across this country still lie awake at night wondering whether their homes are safe and they can weather the financial hardship of the life-changing remediation bills that they face.

This is having a major impact on the health and well-being of our communities, the communities in this city. My work on the ground with the Bishop of Kensington has meant that I engage with people who are bearing the real cost of this: costs not just financially but to their health and mental well-being, with some facing suicidal thoughts. While they may bear the cost today, they will also do so in the future and there is no doubt that the NHS will bear the cost in the years to come.

We have heard from the Government and substantial sums of money have been cited, but I fear that they do not really go far enough. The amendments of my right reverend friend the Bishop of St Albans and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, exist because each month, people edge closer to bankruptcy and struggle to sell their properties with debts attached from the exorbitant remediation and interim fire safety costs. Due to these financial pressures, some will pay almost 60% of their annual salary on those costs.

The Government’s current approach of a levy on developers has some weaknesses. If the scope of the levy was extended to cover other responsible parties, such as major contractors and suppliers of defective products, greater sums could be raised. The amendments attempt to distribute responsibility fairly, because it is a shared responsibility of the developers’ community, testing and regulatory guidance communities and major contractors to ensure that those who bought their homes in good faith and understood them to be safe, be they high or low-rise, do not face the burden of cost to refit their properties and make them safe. It is our responsibility as representatives of your Lordships’ House to make sure that we do right by the people of this country, even if it is complex. That is the role of government.

The Church of England is quite clear. In a recently published Archbishops’ housing commission report, we recommended that the Government should cover remediation costs and recoup their initial outlays from those responsible. We are looking to the Government to develop a simple, fair and comprehensive solution to the current crisis, but this solution must be clear and cost-effective. It also must be quick. Any solution should be based on “polluter pays” principles, with those responsible for unsafe buildings being required to put them right.

I therefore press the Minister, first, for assurances that the Government will implement a comprehensive solution, to ensure that leaseholders living in blocks more than 18 metres high and blocks between 11 and 18 metres do not pay for any remediation or interim fire safety costs through the building safety Bill, and that they will be compensated for their losses so far. Secondly, I press him to improve the Government’s current approach, which consists of a levy on developers, and distribute the responsibility for these costs as far as possible to all those responsible for the current crisis, and so protect leaseholders and taxpayers. Finally, I press him to create a legacy for the future of buildings and houses that are fit for purpose for those in our community and in a UK post Covid.

If these commitments cannot be given today, will the Minister meet me and representatives of the Archbishops’ housing commission to discuss how we can take forward these solutions in the coming building safety Bill? I support the amendments in the names of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the most important work this House does is to legislate and, within that work, to assert its view and opinion against the Government and the other House, because that is where we are acting independently, as opposed to acting simply either as a rubber stamp or a deliberative assembly. It always amazes me how little time and attention we spend on our most important function. Many noble Lords are in Committee until 11 pm or midnight, day after day. We discuss amendments a first time, refine them for Report the second time and may come round to them again at Third Reading.

However, when it comes to the most controversial issues in a Bill, which, by definition, are those which we send to the other place, we are expected to hurry them all through. Very inadequate notice is given of matters coming back to this House. There are no proper structured arrangements for discussion, in the way that there are for the ordinary consideration of legislation. We are faced with reasons on hugely weighty issues from the House of Commons as to why it will not accept our view, which usually consist of one or two lines of the utmost banality: statements like “Because the Government has announced it intends to bring forward its own legislative proposals”, full stop.

That is supposed to be a reason why we should set aside all the hours of deliberation by this House, as well as its votes, and simply accept a government assurance. We are always put under great time pressure, and then the Salisbury convention is brought in telling us why this House, having spent hours—and having had many votes—on these issues, should not even spend the proper time and consideration required, including using our undoubted powers to continue to ask the House of Commons to consider these matters again.

Other legislatures with two Chambers deal with these matters much better. They have arrangements for joint sittings on issues that are contested between the Houses, which I believe that we should have. Our arrangements are due only to historical reasons dating from the Middle Ages. One of the right reverend Prelate’s 133 predecessors probably devised these arrangements in the 13th century, even before “Yes Minister”. They are absolutely not fit for purpose in the 21st century. We inhabit the same building; we have electronic means of communication; we can consider these matters better. By definition, when we come to this stage of a Bill, these are always weighty and substantial matters. We would otherwise not be engaging, for the second or third time, in a conflict with the House of Commons.

These are hugely important issues. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said that we needed to be objective rather than emotional. But the objective thing to be on this issue is emotional because we are dealing with people who face, as the two right reverend Prelates and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, potential bills of £40,000, £50,000 or £60,000 apiece. This will drive them into bankruptcy and cause them huge mental anguish. In some cases—let us be frank; we have all heard of such stories—it can lead to suicide, since these are absolutely catastrophic impacts on individuals. We, as legislators, have a duty to take account of that and reach the best possible arrangement. I stress that we should not be railroaded on issues of this kind into either having to cave in or taking quick decisions before there has been proper consideration.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London referred just now to the Archbishops’ Council. I know that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury has been leading work on this issue, with a number of extremely distinguished experts on housing, and would like to meet the Minister. The very least that the Minister should say in response to her, assuming that this amendment goes back, is that before it comes to this House again he and the Secretary of State will meet the right reverend Prelate, the most reverend Primate and their advisers—who I happen to know include a former Permanent Secretary and other very senior and expert people—to discuss these issues. These are matters of huge anguish and importance.

It is very important that we play fair by people who, as everyone has accepted, are not facing big charges which were expected. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said that in respect of property one has duties, responsibilities and risks, but these are not normal risks. People should be expected to bear normal and reasonably foreseeable risks but these were completely abnormal, of a scale they could not have been expected to foresee or budget for.

Their other consequences have not even been mentioned in the debate so far. This is leading to a substantial seizure of the entire property market at the moment. Large numbers of people with leasehold properties simply cannot sell them at the moment. Until these risks are properly quantified, and the allocation of the burdens is properly determined, people cannot sell. It is a huge problem in the property market, and this will continue until it is done.

When the Minister, for whom we have great respect and who knows these matters at first hand, as the former leader of a local authority with large numbers of leaseholders, said that the Government were seeking to crunch through these matters bit by bit and deal with them, that goes straight back to “Yes Minister”. The Grenfell Tower fire was on 14 June 2017. That is, by my calculation, three years and nine months ago. We are not exactly rushing with indecent haste to deal with these issues. It is perfectly reasonable to expect that the Government should do their job, which is to safeguard the community on matters of huge public importance, including putting schemes in place. It took 20 years to build the great wall of China, and we are saying that after four years, the Government still do not have a proper scheme in place to deal with these issues.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

I have received a single request to speak after the Minister. I called the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

The Minister did not comment on the figures given by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, which struck the House as of great concern. He said that average remediation costs could be in the order of £50,000 to £60,000 per leaseholder. Can the Minister comment on those figures?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I have seen figures in the order of £50,000, but that is an aggregate figure that covers cladding costs and more historic building safety defects. Clearly, as we bring forward the legislation to deal with these issues, which will be in the building safety Bill, we must conduct a further impact assessment, but I am aware of the figures that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans presented.

Fire Safety Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 27th April 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Adonis]

Leave out all the words after “That” and insert “this House declines to consider the Commons reason before a Hansard record of the House of Commons debate on this vital Bill, held only minutes ago, is available and can be properly considered by members”.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House unduly, but I need to draw the attention of the House and, in due course, the Procedure Committee to the really unsatisfactory way that our proceedings are conducted on these important matters relating to Commons reasons.

The Commons debated this matter only a few hours ago, and there is no Hansard account of the debate. We were not at all clear when we were going to debate these hugely important matters affecting millions of our fellow citizens: we were told it might be at 4 pm and then 4.40 pm. Many of us have had to hang around the House for hours, waiting to be told when it might happen; we were only recently told that it would be at 7.10 pm.

Until I came into the House, half an hour ago, I was not aware of the amendments that have been tabled because they are not available, in the haphazard way that we conduct these proceedings. I and many other noble Lords have not yet had a proper opportunity to assess the amendments. They are quite complicated and we are being railroaded into taking decisions on them in the next hour.

This is a totally unsatisfactory way for this House to consider important legislative issues. Although I do not wish to detain the House unduly now, as I have said, I feel duty-bound to draw the attention of the House to the unsatisfactory nature of the proceedings. We should take this matter up with the Procedure Committee. We have proper arrangements for the consideration of Bills at all other stages, including fixed intervals between the different stages of consideration. These are in our Standing Orders and they should apply at this vital last stage of Bills, when we are engaged in interchanges with the House of Commons. I beg to move.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

I start by saying that I disagree with the noble Lord: his amendment is unnecessary because there is a Commons Hansard transcript—it is online and has been since just after 5.30 pm. Nevertheless, the noble Lord’s amendment gives me the opportunity to make it clear to the House that what is proposed for the consideration of the Fire Safety Bill today is entirely in keeping with the normal practice of the House. By “normal”, I mean that this has long been the case and has nothing to do with how we have been working more recently in the hybrid House.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

I have not received any request to speak after the Minister. Does anyone in the Chamber wish to speak? Lord Adonis.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right to say that matters have been considered in this way in the past but that does not make it satisfactory. He said that the Hansard account was available at 5.30 pm. That was one hour and 40 minutes ago and most of us were not even aware of that fact. I did watch the House of Commons proceedings on replay and had to note down by hand all that had been said several times, so that I could get the wording correct. No ordinary member of the public would think that these proceedings are satisfactory, and the Procedure Committee should look at them with a view to improving them. Huge issues are at stake here and they should not be rushed and railroaded through in this way. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the cladding scandal is turning into the next Hillsborough scandal, in terms of not only the terrible and avoidable loss of life but the failure of the public authorities to react in a timely, just and effective manner afterwards. As event after event unfolds and failure succeeds failure in terms of government inaction, I am afraid the scandal grows. Those of us who have seen these events over many years know that there will come a point where the Government will have to concede on these issues.

Anyone who watched the debate in the House of Commons this afternoon and saw impassioned speeches from a string of Conservative MPs—many of whom had encouraged first-time buyers to buy their properties in their political lives, including many of them to buy council properties as leaseholders that are now unsaleable and submerged in negative equity without even a proper schedule of works that can be agreed—will know that this position is becoming unsustainable politically. Not only that, it is becoming a moral quagmire on the part of the public authorities at large: local authorities, regulatory authorities and the Government themselves.

The Minister is in an unenviable position, and we all know why he is in that position. It is because giving the kind of commitment that has been talked about would mean that the £5 billion scheme the Government have announced so far, could, on the basis of estimates I have seen and were being quoted in the House of Commons, be £10 billion or £15 billion. But in this situation we have to work to the just solution, and the just solution is clearly that innocent leaseholders should not be held accountable for costs which had nothing to do with them, were beyond their control and purely in the authority of shoddy developers or inadequate public authorities.

Those developers should be held accountable in due course and the role of the Government is to see that, in the interim—and that interim could be many years; it could be decades before these issues are resolved—innocent leaseholders are not held to ransom. I mean that genuinely; they are held to ransom because they cannot sell their flats and properties until the cladding is sorted out, and in many cases they will be completely unable to meet the costs.

The most powerful speeches in the House of Commons this afternoon were made by Iain Duncan Smith and Liam Fox. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, thinks that she and I are not always on the same wavelength, but I can assure the House that Iain Duncan Smith, Liam Fox and I hardly ever find ourselves in the same company. But everything that they said today was utterly compelling.

They read from accounts given to them by their constituents of estimates for works of £30,000, £40,000 and £50,000, negative equity, inadequate access to the fire safety fund, insurance increases of 1,000%, large charges faced by leaseholders for interim measures and charges not covered by the scheme. The Government said a forced loan scheme would be announced in the Budget, but one MP—I think it was the Conservative MP for Southampton—said “Which Budget is the Chancellor talking about because it hasn’t come in this Budget? Is it going to be the one next year or the one in 2030?”

These are the elected representatives of the people seeking to hold the Government to account. Our role as a revising Chamber in a matter of such huge importance as this is to see that their voices can be properly expressed and heard. The Minister said that there was a decisive majority in the House of Commons, but between today’s vote in the Commons and the previous vote, the Government’s majority fell by half—I repeat, by half—as a result of one further debate where these issues were properly aired. We have a duty to send this issue back and I am absolutely sure that if the Government succeed in railroading this through—they probably have the votes to do so—it is right that we see whether, with a further opportunity for discussion, more progress can be made.

It is only a matter of time before the Government will have to make significant further concessions. I say to the Minister with all due respect that they will drag the reputation of the Government and the state to a much lower level by not conceding in a timely fashion—as they should have done at some point over the last four years, but certainly must in this endgame where the issues have been raised as matters of acute concern.

With respect to the arguments, the Minister says that it is not correct or appropriate to use the Bill to legislate on this issue. My noble friend Lord Kennedy’s Motion does not use the Bill to legislate for a solution; it requires the Government to come forward in due course with their own legislation. All it does in its various provisions is to set down timescales by which the Government must do this. The Government may say that they are not prepared to come forward with legislation but the arguments keep moving. Last time, the Minister said that legislation might not be required, as he might be able to take all these actions to protect leaseholders without it. If he is not prepared to accept my noble friend’s amendment because of the legislative components, it is incumbent on him to give a commitment and say when the Government will come forward with a scheme.

Christopher Pincher, the Minister in the House of Commons, made a lot of spurious suggestions in his reply there just a few hours ago. He said that the proposal by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans was ineffective because it would prevent “very minor” costs, such as replacing smoke alarms, being passed on. That is a ludicrous suggestion; the Government could come forward immediately with a scheme to deal with minor costs if they were so minded, and I see that the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, specifically exempts minor costs. He also said that it would absolve leaseholders from responsibility for works that might be their responsibility. There will be cases where leaseholders have responsibilities, and they should be held accountable for them, but the much bigger issue here, which we as a Parliament have a responsibility to deal with, is where the state has failed in its responsibilities, as well as developers failing in theirs.

We are absolutely right to send this matter back to the House of Commons if there is a majority to do so. Irrespective of whether the Government resolve this matter over the next few days before the end of the Session, they will be forced by public opinion and the weight of natural justice—as with the Hillsborough disaster and the Horizon disaster—to move on this issue. It is simply deplorable that this will happen at the very end of a long period of pressure, which will bring the reputation of the state for fair play to a very low ebb indeed.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we all feel the plight of leaseholders. I spend most of my time as Building Safety Minister and Fire Minister in meetings at the building level, trying to accelerate the pace of remediation. Despite the fact that we have had a global pandemic over the last year, we have also had over 150 starts on site and 95% of buildings have now either had cladding of the very same type that was on Grenfell Tower removed or fully remediated, or have workers on site who are within months are making the buildings safe.

These are hard yards. I have worked with colleagues at all levels of government, with the GLA and the deputy mayor, with the appropriate lead in London Councils and with Mayor Burnham in Greater Manchester. There is a huge effort. Very often it involves difficult, brutal conversations, telling building owners and developers to get a move on. In over half the cases of buildings that had aluminium composite material, we saw the building owners step up and either fund the remediation or carry the works ahead, covering this with warranty schemes without passing the costs on to leaseholders.

These are very difficult times for leaseholders, but that is why, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, the Housing Secretary announced a very comprehensive five-point plan in February. Essentially, we have increased the building safety fund by some £3.5 billion to £5.1 billion. Details of how the revised fund will be spent will be announced very shortly. In addition, we have announced a high-rise levy, which will form part of the building safety Bill, and a tax on developers, because it is important that the polluter pays. There needs to be a financing scheme for medium-rise buildings of between four and six storeys. That is the plan that we have put on the table.

I also point out in answer to the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, that the Bill does not create liability. This is a simple Bill clarifying the fire safety order to let our fire and rescue services do the job they do in keeping us safe. The Bill clarifies an existing regime. I want to be absolutely clear that it does not create a new liability.

I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, that we need to strengthen redress to stop this all falling on the taxpayer. I have been very clear that we will bring forward measures that will do that as part of the building safety Bill. They will make directors as well as companies liable for prosecution in some instances. The reality is that it is absolutely ludicrous that the statute of limitations under the Defective Premises Act is only six years. That is the statutory period of redress. We will bring forward measures to deal with that point. When I buy a pair of tweezers I get a lifetime guarantee, but when a poor leaseholder invests their life savings and makes the most significant payment in their lives to own their own home the period for statutory redress is simply not acceptable.

I come back to Amendments 4L and 4M. I am afraid that they are unworkable, impractical and do not deliver the solutions for leaseholders. As noble Lords have heard before, it is impractical and confusing to amend the fire safety order to try to resolve the issue of who pays. These amendments seek to cover the very complicated relationship under landlord and tenant law, including financial obligations and liabilities between freeholders and leaseholders. Frankly, these matters do not sit naturally with the fire safety order.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans spoke very eloquently to his amendment and to the two amendments that have been proposed. None of these amendments works because, once again, they orphan the liability of works until such time that a statutory scheme is in place that pays for the work directly attributable to the Act. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, both his amendments reference the provisions of the Act in so doing. I have talked about the difficulties of defining which works might be directly attributable to the Fire Safety Bill’s provisions. I have gone over that ground several times. Orphaning liability simply delays essential fire safety works.

In addition, the proposed scope of the works remains too broad, even with the £500 threshold proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. It simply does not resolve the issue. Some of the works that may be required will be very low cost and anyone would reasonably expect the leaseholders to pay. That, frankly, could be more than £500 a year. As no taxpayer scheme for such minor works will be forthcoming, we then reach deadlock.

There is an additional issue which has not been raised by noble Lords: subsidy control. It is a small but important point. Depending on the specific details, it is possible that such a statutory scheme would not be permissible under subsidy control rules. Some leaseholders have undertakings—for instance in buy to let—and subsidy control rules limit how much benefit can be conferred on undertakings. In effect, it may not be possible to relieve leaseholders and tenants from all costs of remedial works attributable to the Bill without breaching subsidy control. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, knows, further detailed consideration is needed.

Fire Safety Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 28th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, in Alice in Wonderland, Humpty Dumpty says:

“ ‘When I use a word, … it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’ ”


That is exactly the position we find ourselves in today. It is an argument about the meaning of words, which the noble Lord, Lord Newby, in an excellent speech, has just pointed up. If one took the Government’s statements and sought to give the usual meaning to the words, then there would not be a problem here this evening.

I noted down what the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, said in his opening remarks: these are just some of the statements he made. My writing is not fast enough to recite his whole speech, but if one took his whole speech, one would think there was no disagreement between us at all. “More needs to be done”, he said. “Industry must play its part and pay its way,” he said. “I agree that leaseholders need more protection,” he said. “Forfeiture,” he said—the fact we are talking about forfeiture is a sign of quite how serious a crisis we are facing—“is a draconian measure”; my writing was not fast enough here, but I think he said, “which is to be discouraged.” He also said, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, just said, that these measures will be further addressed in the building safety Bill.

All those statements that the noble Lord made go to the heart of the protection we have been seeking to provide for all of those categories of people affected, not just those who live in buildings of more than 18 metres and not just those with costs directly attributable to cladding if they fall in the category of remediation costs which are essentially post Grenfell. This is the key point, because assessments that have been made about fire risks which are not just restricted to cladding are in the wider areas, some of which are in the expanded fire safety order which the Minister referred to.

The issue then is whether the scheme that the Government have said they will introduce to implement the principles that the Minister himself has set out to the House this evening is adequate to the task. We take the Minister at his word that it will be adequate to the task. There is some disagreement about how far it needs to be legislative and how far not legislative, though the fact that he constantly refers to the building safety Bill leads us to think that it will be substantially legislative. In so far as it is not legislative, these measures could be put in a legislative form, or he could make a categoric statement about when the Government will come forward with a comprehensive scheme.

So far, so good. What happens is that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and his understudy who is here this evening, if I may so describe him—anyway, he seems to be maintaining the line of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans—and other noble Lords then consistently, on now about 10 occasions during the passage of the Bill, have come forward with proposals to put into legislative form what the Government themselves have told us they want to do. What happens, because we are now back in Alice in Wonderland, is that we pass amendments saying that remediation costs should not be passed on to leaseholders which are attributable to the additional costs which have come post Grenfell, and then the Government come along and say, “Ah, but this does not take account of the following five concerns.”

These are the concerns that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, just mentioned about small costs, concerns about defining costs, concerns about costs which might be attributable to leases which applied and which tenants willingly engaged in before there were any additional costs put forward—we had a whole list of issues that were raised. What then happens is that the ever-receptive Bishop of St Albans, and other noble Lords change the amendments to take account of the Government’s concerns. Indeed, the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, this evening meets most of the concerns that have been raised by Christopher Pincher in the House of Commons and by the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, here.

It is worth dwelling on this, because these are hugely important issues potentially affecting millions of people, so we ought to be clear about it. Under the noble Baroness’s amendment, proposed new subsection (1) states:

“The owner of a building may not pass the costs of any remedial work attributable to the provisions of this Act”—


so defining clearly what should and should not apply. Proposed new subsection (2) states that the prohibition on remediation costs being passed on to tenants will have effect

“only until a statutory scheme is in operation which ensures that leaseholders and tenants of dwellings are not required to pay more than £50 per month during the course of the lease”,

but it does not apply to a cost that

“is permitted under a lease or tenancy agreement that was made before this Act is passed, and … does not exceed £500, whether as a one-off cost, or in total across a 12-month period.”

This meets the concerns that the Minister has raised, unless he does not propose to bring forward a scheme that meets his commitments in due course, which is the reason why we go round in circles again.

We then come out of Alice in Wonderland and into the real world. In the real world, we all know what is happening. It is not a secret to those of us who are politicians what arguments have now been happening for two months. Two things are happening. First, a battle royal is going on between the Minister’s department and the Treasury about what costs the Treasury will meet and how narrowly defined they need to be. The Treasury is already concerned about the size of the fire safety fund, the £5.1 billion fund which the Minister referred to, and whether the costs even under that scheme will end up being significantly higher. It certainly does not want more costs to be recognised. The second thing going on of which we are all well aware is that, although the Government say—because huge numbers of people are affected by this, many of them first-time buyers, many of them who have, under Conservative schemes, bought council properties and are leaseholders —that they want to see them fully protected, they do not at the moment either have a plan to fully protect them nor, to be blunt, do they want to protect them any more than they think is politically necessary to get this and subsequent legislation passed, presumably in the run-up to the next election, in a judgment they make on the salience of the issue.

We then come to the role of this House, which is unusual in this case. We had a lecture from the Chief Whip earlier about the supremacy of the House of Commons, which we all recognise, but the supremacy of the House of Commons is in this instance qualified in two respects. The Salisbury convention is clear that the supremacy of the House of Commons applies to all matters which the Government have placed in their manifesto. This House does not seek to cut across clear manifesto commitments which the Government have made when they want to realise them. The Government’s commitment at the election was to sort out this issue; it was not not to sort out this issue. If we take that reading of the role of this House, we will actually be implementing the Salisbury convention this evening if we pass the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. We are seeking to hold the Government to their manifesto commitments to the people, not going against them.

The other reason why we are back in Alice in Wonderland in respect of the role of this House is that, when the Minister and the Chief Whip said this evening that the Bill will fail, it will fail only if, in response to the amendment being carried, the Government choose to let it fail rather than accept an amendment that puts into law the very commitments that they have said that they propose to meet.

We are in a conundrum as to what to do. If we vote for the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, we be voting for something that will indeed send the measure back to the House of Commons and could, if the Government refused to give way, lead to the fall of the Bill. That is entirely in the hands of the Government. However, it is manifestly not the case that we are breaking the Salisbury convention, it is manifestly not the case that we are going against the commitments that the Government themselves have given, and it is manifestly not the case that we would be the cause of the Bill falling. The Government would be the cause of the Bill falling, because they were not prepared to accept the amendment.

We all have judgments to take as to how to vote, and I respect people who take different views on this issue, but it is very clear to me that this is not about the supremacy of the House of Commons. As the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said, in what I have to say is the most impassioned speech I have heard him deliver to the House, this is a matter of the good faith of the Government and whether, when they say something, they mean it. If this House has any role to play, it is to see that high standards of conduct in public life are maintained, that Governments are held to commitments that they give and that the ordinary meaning of words should be taken to apply when they are uttered by Ministers.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I will not trade Alice in Wonderland anecdotes with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, but I take issue with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, that this Government and Prime Minister have done nothing or sat on their hands.

The reality is that I was appointed a Minister, a little over a year ago, into this role. The previous Government had first committed £400 million and then, very reluctantly, an additional £200 million towards the costs of remediating the same cladding that was on Grenfell Tower—aluminium composite material. In the month I was made a Minister, the Chancellor committed a further £1 billion. Now this Chancellor and Prime Minister have committed a further £3.5 billion, taking the total funding to an unprecedented £5.1 billion. It is simply not correct to say that we are doing nothing; that is a considerable sum of money and a massive commitment to recognising that we need to dampen the impact of the costs of remediating the unsafe cladding—the major fire accelerant on these buildings—so that a tragedy like the Grenfell Tower fire never happens again.

I also take issue with the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, whose contributions I really enjoy; he is a property professional who speaks with great passion. The reality is that I spent the last year at the coalface, dealing with the tail of building owners who do not want to get on with the remediation—even when the funding is in place. There are two enforcement routes to get them to move even when they do not want to: one is the Housing Act 2004 and the other is the current fire safety order of 2005. It is recognised as an enforcement route, even for external cladding systems; it is just that some fire and rescue authorities feel that it is too ambiguous. That ambiguity, lack of clarification and operational disagreement between different fire and rescue services—I say this as Fire Minister—is a significant problem. However, one reason that remediation is happening today is that enforcement options are in place and this modest three-clause Bill is a very sensible clarification of the fire safety order of 2005.

We are at an impasse. I hope that we may get this vital Bill through, because it is important to get that legal clarity I have referred to. The safety of leaseholders and residents is paramount, and it will be compromised if we do not ensure that this Bill is placed on the statute book by the end of this Session. Tonight is the moment to decide that very fact. The Bill falling will not help leaseholders or make homes safer.

I turn to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. It lacks clarity in prohibiting all kinds of remediation costs being passed on to leaseholders. It means that, where costs are minor, as a result of wear and tear, or even where leaseholders are responsible for damage, they would still not be expected to pay, which is not a proportionate response. I think all Members would agree that the taxpayer should not pay for all and every cost associated with remediation. The scope is far too broad to be a sensible solution.

In several ways, this amendment has the potential to make things worse for leaseholders; for example, it is unclear who should take responsibility for remediation works until a statutory funding scheme is in place to pay for the costs. This would result in all types of remediation being delayed, which is an unsatisfactory outcome for leaseholders. Practically speaking, on the amendment’s requirement to deliver particular requirements to Parliament within 90 and 120 days, we must be mindful that drafting legislation is a complex matter, which cannot be dealt with in the timeframe proposed. I note that the noble Lord is unlikely to press for a Division this evening, so I will not go any further, but to impose an arbitrary deadline, as stated, is neither helpful nor practical.