Any debate about fire safety should not just be about cladding, nor just about buildings over 18 metres high, as residents of the four-storey block, Richmond House, which burned down in just 11 minutes in 2019, would testify. Nor is just about leaseholders, as the students and tenants, as well as leaseholders, in the Paragon building in my constituency found when they were evicted last October with one week’s notice as their blocks were found to be too dangerous to live in. Both blocks were built by Berkeley Homes. Nor is it just about residential housing, as those in student flats in Bolton found when fire crawled up the sides of their building.
The fire safety crisis did not just start with the tragedy at Grenfell Tower; it has been growing for years. As a result, hundreds of thousands of residents and users of thousands of buildings live in fear of being caught in a fire, and leaseholders face bankruptcy in having to fund the costs. In her report on building regulations, Judith Hackitt summed up a
“mindset of doing things as cheaply as possible and passing on responsibility for problems and shortcomings”.
One could start with the deregulation of the building and fire safety standards that began in the ’80s, when building control services were opened up to the private sector so that building inspectors now price for work on the number of visits, so fewer visits mean a cheaper bid. Developers have been cutting costs for years, going for the cheapest materials and corner-cutting again and again on site. Then we have had the growing skills crisis in the construction industry. The Government ignored the recommendations of the inquiries into the Lakanal House and Shirley Towers fatal fires almost 10 years ago. Even now, there is the inability to train and accredit qualified fire safety inspectors who are needed to inspect the properties that in fact should never have been signed off as safe to occupy in the first place.
As I said, the scope of this Bill is far too limited. It is fiddling while too many of our constituents and their homes are at risk of burning, and leaseholders face unaffordable costs. Responsibility for sorting this should lie with those who are responsible—the Government and their friends in the construction sector. As other speakers have said, the Bill hardly scratches the surface of the crisis. It does not even implement the recommendations of phase 1 of the Grenfell inquiry.
4.45 pm
Despite its limitations, I support the Bill, as well as the amendments tabled in the names of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), and the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland).