Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent discussions he has had with community groups affected by the Grenfell Tower fire on the potential reform of fire safety legislation.

The Minister of State for Housing has regular meetings with Grenfell United and met with them to seek the group’s views on the proposals set out in our consultation Building a safer future: proposals for reform of the building safety regulatory system, which was published on 6 June.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/building-a-safer-future-proposals-for-reform-of-the-building-safety-regulatory-system

There will be further engagement with Grenfell United during the consultation period.

More generally, the Government is committed to putting residents at the heart of the new, stronger system of building safety for high-rise residential buildings.

We want residents to:

• Be empowered to hold their buildings’ owners to account;

• Have a strong voice in decision-making about the safety of their building;

• Be listened to straight away when they have safety concerns.

To bring about this culture change, we are consulting on proposals to give residents:

• more access to safety information about their buildings;

• more involvement in decisions about safety in their buildings through engagement with their building safety managers; and

• a quick, clear route to escalate safety concerns.

These proposals have been shaped by our Residents’ Reference Panel members, who are residents of high-rise buildings, and our call for evidence, which has helped us to identify best practice in how residents and their landlords, or their building managers, can work together to make sure that their buildings are safe.

We want to hear residents’ views on these proposals, and we will be engaging with people who live in high-rise residential buildings over the summer to gather feedback as part of the consultation.