Joe Powell

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Residents who raised concerns were ignored, and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea made a decision to cut costs that resulted in the contract that ended up being a major contributory factor in what happened. I have not had the chance to say this on the record, but I am pleased that one of the individuals involved in that is no longer at the Barnet tenant management organisation. That decision was wrong, and it has been corrected. I am glad that that has been done. In short, in Victoria the government stepped in and put homeowners and residents first. In this country, the previous Government took a market-based approach that has comprehensively failed to deliver remediation in a timely way. Why? It is because, for too long, the British state has been too passive in the face of this problem, relying on private developers to come up with the answers while millions of people suffer the consequences. The British state’s response to the cladding scandal has exposed many of the weaknesses that this Government want to fix: unaccountable power, opaque ownership and a shirking of responsibility; penny-wise cost cutting that stores up massive costs in the future; and a lack of public control over the basics of life, including housing. I hope that the Bill will contribute to that effort by creating more jeopardy for those delaying remediation and more options to finally fix every building that needs it, but the work to make buildings safe must continue even while we debate the Bill. Existing powers such as remediation orders and remediation contribution orders can be useful tools if Ministers provide a hands-on grip on the crisis by co-ordinating local remediation plans, creating national standards and ensuring that tomorrow’s Budget continues to fund the Department to get the work moving now. We need belatedly to shift to a “fix first and fast” model based on risk, as the Secretary of State said, leveraging all existing avenues to get work started.