Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc) Bill (First sitting)

Sagal Abdi-Wali Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 12th November 2026 Public Bill Committees

[James Asser (West Ham and Beckton) (Lab)]

As we have London Fire Brigade witnesses, I declare that my partner works for it, in fire safety.

[Sagal Abdi-Wali (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I declare that I am still a councillor in a local authority.

[The Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith (Florence Eshalomi)]

I declare that the headquarters of the London Fire Brigade are in my constituency and that I meet the fire commissioner.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Fortune]

Q Do you think the Bill does that?

Kate Green: I would certainly want to see more protection for residents who are acting in the right to manage and resident management company space. Prescribing more closely what can and cannot be reflected through service charges may be something that the Government should explore.

[Sagal Abdi-Wali]

Q You spoke about the undue burdens that residents have had to go through for so many years. I want to ask about the clear backstop. Where those responsible have ultimately failed to act, what difference do you think it will make in allowing public bodies to step in and get the work done?

Kate Green: The difference ought to be, from the perspective of the resident, that the work gets done first and that the argument about who pays does not delay the work to make their homes safe. A backstop needs to be exactly what it claims to be: a backstop. What we actually want is a system that ensures, much more swiftly, much earlier and much more effectively, that people fulfil the remediation obligations imposed on them.

As I say, we are probably particularly concerned about those developers whose remediation activity will be overseen through the medium of the developer contracts. We still have quite a complex landscape, I think, of ways in which residents might try to compel remediation. A backstop is necessary, but we would much prefer to see a left shift, ensuring that the obligation to remediate is carried out by responsible actors at the earliest point and is compliant with regulatory requirements from the start of the process.

[The Chair]

A one-minute question and answer from Bob Blackman.