Marie Goldman

Let me begin by congratulating the Minister and welcoming her to her position. As we have already said in this Chamber, the Liberal Democrats welcome the final Grenfell report. We want to record again our thanks to the families of the victims, and, of course, the survivors, for giving their testimony, their experts and their statements to the inquiry; we know how difficult that will have been. Much has already been said today about the issue of cladding, so I will not say anything about it in my speech. As other Members have pointed out, this is not just about the remediation of cladding; there are many other fire safety issues in buildings that need to be remedied. This is a debate about building safety, and we must discuss other matters. There are various fire safety issues in various buildings in my constituency, particularly—I am sure that other Members will have correspondence about this in their inboxes—the need for fire door remediation. Either the fire doors were inadequate when they were installed in the first place, or they were installed incorrectly. That needs to be fixed, but the developers, the building owners and, through them, their management companies are not taking responsibility for it. Indeed, they are trying to pass the buck and make the leaseholders and the tenants pay for the replacement of the doors where that is necessary, and using defects periods that may well have expired as an excuse for not taking up those issues and not paying for remediation. In one instance, one of the leaseholders commissioned a survey before the expiration of the defects period, which identified problems with the fire doors, but the developer is still claiming not to be responsible for replacing all the fire doors in the building, although they are of identical design, and the developer has accepted responsibility for these particular doors. This is an example of where the construction industry is, unfortunately, not taking responsibility for the issues that it has created, whether intentionally or unintentionally. There are other fire safety issues, which we will all have seen in our inboxes. Some of them will be things that we in the construction industry—I have worked in it for many years—describe as patent defects, which can be seen. When someone comes across a patent defect, they can see that something does not work, but there are many latent defects, which are hidden in the depths of a building and cannot be seen by the naked eye. Those defects become apparent much later, and we need to provide a way to help leaseholders by ensuring that they do not have to shoulder the financial burden of rectifying them. Such defects are fundamental to the building—for example, there are safety issues around gas pipes that have been incorrectly installed. In some cases, it has been found that there is inadequate shielding around the pipes, as happened in a building in my Chelmsford constituency. I could go on and on about other fire safety issues, but I know that other hon. Members want to speak and I have quite a few things that I would still like to say. There is a huge backlog of issues that need to be remedied, and the Minister talked about the number of buildings that need to be remediated. I spoke to a fire safety expert from a local authority—not one in my constituency—who is responsible for looking at all the buildings in the authority’s housing stock. They had to put together a report that had to be submitted by the deadline, which I believe was earlier this year. When they tried to submit it to the Health and Safety Executive, the HSE said, “Whoa, hang on! Don’t submit it now—we can’t cope. We’ll let you know when we want to receive those documents. It may well not be until 2029.” So I would say that the number of buildings the Minister talked about is definitely an underestimate, and I urge her to discuss this issue with the Health and Safety Executive to see what other resources it might need to be able to move more quickly. Let us remember that people are living in buildings that they have officially been told are not safe. Every single night, they go to bed knowing that their families and children are sleeping in buildings that are not safe. We do not know the full extent of the problem, and there are many recommendations that can come out. We can talk about how the construction industry operates and so on, but let me talk briefly about the planning system. When we are talking about fire safety, it strikes me as very strange that the fire services are still not statutory consultees on planning applications for high-rise buildings over 18 metres. Of course the fire services are experts in fire safety, yet we do not make them statutory consultees. That feels very strange to me, and it feels like a big oversight. I urge the Minister to look into that. Members have talked about historical issues and the need to remedy them. I point out to the Minister and everyone present that these issues are not just historical. I am aware of buildings less than two years old that have fire compartmentation problems and missing firestopping. This is an ongoing issue. As one fire safety expert put it to me, “After everything that happened with Grenfell, developers are still getting away with it.” This is a systemic problem, and there are many reasons for it. It is partly driven by finances and other things, but as the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) said, it is also a cultural problem. There is a lot that we need to work on. I will briefly admit to a slightly guilty pleasure: I quite like watching the programme “Air Crash Investigation”, which might seem a bit macabre. I do not want to give the impression that the airline industry is perfect, but I big up those in the airline industry. The industry investigates issues and crashes, works out what went wrong, and then does not point the finger of blame, no matter where the fault lies. It looks at how such issues could have been avoided, and how it can make sure that they do not happen again in the future. If only we could make the construction industry do the same and change the culture, rather than shrugging our shoulders, saying, “Well, it’s not my fault,” and blaming the subcontractor, the manufacturer or whoever. Having worked in the construction industry for a long time, I know that that happens a lot. If we could change the culture to be more like how the airline industry investigates problems, I would be very happy to see that. There is another industry that the construction industry could learn something from. I have just mentioned fire safety issues and things that need to be remediated, and I am sure that many people in the Chamber have been issued with safety recall notices, whereby motor manufacturers have to recall cars and fix the safety issues. If there is a problem with the brakes, or anything in the engine is a safety issue, they recall the car and fix it at their expense. I would like to see something similar happen in the construction industry, so that people take much more responsibility. I come back to leaseholders, because it is incredibly important that we remember the implications for them when there is delay and things are not fixed. Not only is there a fire risk—as I mentioned before, we have people who are on 24-hour watch. Other Members have mentioned the difficulty with getting mortgages. At the moment, many leaseholders cannot sell their properties and move on. That has implications for the housing crisis, because it means that there is less churn in the housing industry, as fewer people are able to move out of their flats and allow other people to move into them. That is exacerbating the crisis. As others have mentioned, there is also the problem of insurance. Like other hon. Members, I am concerned that social landlords are not eligible for Government funds to remediate buildings, leaving many of the most vulnerable people at risk. I urge the Government and the Minister to listen to the National Housing Federation, which represents hundreds of housing associations, and the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign on these issues. I remind the House that the Liberal Democrats have been calling for the removal of dangerous cladding from all buildings, and we need to make sure that leaseholders do not have to pay for it. To reiterate what I said earlier, this should not be just about cladding. There are other serious issues, particularly firestopping. Fire doors are incredibly important. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) said to the Prime Minister just last week, we need the Government to step in and provide the cash up front to carry out the remediation in some circumstances, and then they should go after those responsible. That would alleviate a lot of suffering. Finally, I would just like to say that fire safety is not a luxury. It should be seen as a right.