Grenfell Tower Fire: Eighth Anniversary

Debate between Scott Arthur and Joe Powell

Tuesday 10th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Joe Powell]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that very valid point. It is good news that the Government have accepted all of Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s recommendations, and I applaud them for taking the time to come back in detail rather than rushing a response. However, it is absolutely vital that timelines are met. The example of the slow pace of change on remediation is a warning to us all that this matter has to be gripped from the centre if we want to see systemic change.

In another example, shared ownership leaseholders in my constituency at Shaftesbury Place—a property managed by Notting Hill Genesis—saw their building insurance soar by more than 2,000% after a fire safety inspection. That is an increase of £5,000 a year in individual service charges. Those residents contest the report and the recommendations, and I hope that Notting Hill Genesis will work out a reasonable solution, but that is an example of what has to be fixed. The building insurance market may require Government intervention, as we did with flooding.

I know the Minister agrees that we must quicken the pace of remediation, and I urge him to consider what more the Government can do to underwrite the major works now, so that people do not have to wait. The best example of such action would be to widen access to the building safety fund to social housing providers so that they can put more capital into maintaining the condition of their current homes and into building new homes. I know the Government are also focused on giving the Building Safety Regulator the resources it needs so that we can rightly enforce higher standards post Grenfell, as well as accelerating house building and avoiding unnecessary delays.

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. I hope we will continue to debate this matter in the years to come, and that we can start to talk about the positives that have come out of it in terms of the recommendations and the lives that will be saved and changed. Eight years on, in Scotland—my hon. Friend might be surprised that that is what I am going to talk about—there are 5,500 properties affected by flammable cladding, with 25,000 people living in them. I sense my hon. Friend’s frustration over the pace of remediation in England, and in particular in his own constituency; in Scotland, after eight years, just one building has been remediated. Hopefully in England, the pace is faster than that.

[Joe Powell]

I thank my hon. Friend for sharing those statistics. I think the reality is that the money is there; what we need to do is go building by building and solve the problems. That is where I welcome the Government’s emphasis on devolving some of the decision making, for example, to a London remediation board, which might be something to look at for other parts of the country.

I am sure the House would appreciate an update on the Prime Minister’s welcome commitment on 4 September that all the companies found by the inquiry to have been part of these horrific failings will stop being awarded Government contracts. As the inquiry said, the companies that made the cladding and insulation products—Arconic, Celotex and Kingspan—behaved with “systematic dishonesty” and

“engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market.”

Rare Cancers Bill

Debate between Scott Arthur and Joe Powell

2nd reading
Friday 14th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Arthur]

The challenge is devolution. I am a huge fan of devolution, but often the UK is at its best when it works together, particularly on healthcare. I hope that in time we will see progress and the nations will work together. I do not want to overstate this, but there have been discussions across the UK about how we could work together on the issue, so perhaps the answer is, “Watch this space.”

The Bill’s fourth measure is to trigger a review by the Government of the orphan drug regulations, to examine how they can be reformed to better incentivise pharmaceutical companies to invest in clinical trials for rare cancers. Specifically, it will consider how incentives could be provided to pharmaceutical companies to trial the repurposing of new cancer treatments. We often hear about how drug development for one cancer can be used to defeat another; that is what Kira relies on right now. My Bill aims to build a foundation for industrialising that approach via incentives. The EU has a similar system for incentivising the testing of drugs for paediatric use that have already been approved for adult use, so the approach has been tried and tested.

Together, these measures will ensure that we have leadership in Government and will remove the barriers to running new clinical trials that researchers and pharmaceutical companies face.

[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the powerful way in which he is introducing the Bill. Will he recognise the work of pioneering teams such as the one at Charing Cross hospital, under Imperial College healthcare NHS trust, where Professor Michael Seckl is leading the way in groundbreaking treatment for and research on gestational trophoblastic disease and germ cell tumours? Does he agree that those centres need support to expand and share their research findings with the rest of the NHS?