Fire Safety Bill

Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I support holding the Lords amendment. I think it is the right thing to do at the moment, although not because it is perfect—it is far from perfect and not without its flaws. My problem is that I do not see the Government responding to the overwhelming concern about what is happening to leaseholders, many of whom, as has been said before, were first-time buyers.

We face, today, an issue of concern both personal and public. The public concern is that the devaluation of these homes is now so dramatic that it will cause an economic shock. I remember the old negative equity problem that erupted as a result of a collapse, and I do not want to see us back there again. I accept that, as has been said, the Government have already put £5.1 billion into the process, but it is worth at least another £10 billion in settlement, and that is going to fall on the shoulders of leaseholders.

Let me relate what is going on in my constituency. Like everybody else, I have a set of estates, including Queen Mary’s Gate and Blackberry Court, among other blocks in my constituency. Many of them are under 18 metres and have cladding—this is the point that has been raised—that was not compliant at the time of their building. The leaseholders did not know that—they bought their homes with a sense that they were buying something that was right and reasonable—and are now not eligible for the safety fund.

What has happened because of all this? We have tried to get hold of the developer, Telford Homes, but it has not engaged for more than a year now. Telford Homes does not answer anything or engage about what it might do; it has gone to ground. That is the problem that lies at the heart of all this right now: there is no way that the leaseholders can get redress because they cannot go to those who did this wrongly at the time and the Government have not brought forward any mechanism to allow leaseholders to get after these individuals, who will sit there and wait for the leaseholders to waste their money.

The Lords amendment is not perfect, but I am trying to articulate a cry for help from my constituents and others around the country. I agree with and support the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox). Let us find a way to make sure that those who were responsible stand up and pay the bill. They have made a lot of money in the past, legitimately, on building homes; those who did not put up the right cladding should automatically be in the frame. Meanwhile, the costs spiral and my constituents will pay them.

Today, for the first time, I shall vote to maintain and hold the Lords amendment. I say to the Government that if they do not want it, they had better get to the Lords and get us something decent that allows us to give support to our leaseholder constituents, because that would be doing the right thing.

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab) [V]]

I speak in favour of the Bishop of St Albans’ amendment. As the UK Cladding Action Group has previously reported, there have already been leaseholder suicides and, worryingly, 23% of those surveyed by the group have considered suicide or self-harm.

The Government must realise that the building safety fund only covers unsafe cladding, yet 70% of the buildings surveyed have non-cladding fire safety defects. They must understand that providing cladding remediation funding for buildings over 18 metres, yet forcing leaseholders in buildings under 18 metres to pay, is entirely unfair. They must recognise that there is no support available at all for interim measure costs, including increased insurance premiums and waking watches, which often run into figures of more than £15,000 per week.

To add further devastation, as we have heard today, Inside Housing has reported that even the minority of leaseholders who could apply for loans face a wait of potentially years. In the meantime, many residents still live in unsafe buildings and are understood to have already received requests for up-front payment, with freeholders sometimes instructing solicitors to carry out debt recovery. This could result in a tide of bankruptcies and evictions. The situation is so bad that I understand that analysts at the Bank of England are now assessing whether Britain’s building safety scandal could cause a new financial crisis.

It is clear that the Government’s approach is untenable and it must change today. Even the National Housing Federation states that the only way to prevent leaseholders and social landlords from having to pay to remediate buildings they did not construct is for the Government to provide up-front funding to remediate all buildings. I hope all MPs today can recognise the moral duty they personally have to protect our constituents and will vote in favour of the Lords amendment.

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

I had very much hoped that it would not be necessary for us to continue to have this debate in relation to this Bill. The core elements of the Bill are worth while and I support them. Unfortunately, however, it creates a set of potential liabilities upon wholly innocent leaseholders, without giving them an adequate means of redress. That is simply unfair. It is unfair on my constituents and it is unfair on people who have bought properties in good faith and who have relied on professional advice and the regulatory regime that was then in force. If there are people who were at fault, either in the construction of the buildings or in the way in which surveys were carried out, they should absolutely be held to account, but the people who should not end up with a liability are the leaseholders, who have acted in good faith throughout. It is the absence of protection for them that, regrettably, causes me to have to support the Lords amendment again today.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) tabled what I thought were constructive amendments, which I was happy to sign. I hope—still; even at this late stage—that the Government will see that there is a basis for progress to be made. As things stand, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) noted, we have to continue to press the case on the Government. I hope that, if the House rejects the amendments—I hope it will vote for the Lords amendments and deal with the matter—it will give the Government yet a further chance to resolve this matter.

At the end of the day, we are not asking that the taxpayer pick up the burden. We are asking that the leaseholders should be relieved, certainly in the short term, of the pressures that fall upon them and that they are unable to deal with. The Government are in a position to fund the cash flow that leaseholders cannot fund and which is driving them to desperate situations. It is absolutely right that they should then seek to recoup those funds from those who are responsible and who have been at fault. There is nothing in the Lords amendment or the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset that would prevent that from happening. I urge the Government to think again and recognise that, although the core elements of the Bill are good, collaterally, it does real injustice to innocent leaseholders, such as many in my constituency and elsewhere. For heaven’s sake, can we not find a constructive way forward to achieve the objectives of the Bill and protect innocent leaseholders? Those things should not be mutually incompatible, but at the moment we have not yet found a solution.