Andy Slaughter
MP for Hammersmith and Chiswick · Labour · United Kingdom
“I welcome the Bill, and thank the Government for introducing it and bringing it back to the House before the summer recess. It is the result of years of committed campaigning, led by the families of the victims and survivors of Hillsborough.”
“I know that case means a huge amount to the hon. Lady as a constituency MP, and I thank her for all the work she does on the Justice Committee. I think we have only begun to scratch the surface. This Bill will be a transforming piece of legislation. I will make one final comment.”
“This would be a new, independent public body that collated, analysed and followed up on the conclusions and recommendations made after official investigations into deaths and state failings, in order to improve oversight and implementation of them.”
“I think I have taken enough time, but I thank the Member for that intervention. This afternoon, the Justice Committee signed off a new major report on legal aid, which will be published on Friday. Those who are interested can read more there.”
“In the time that I have, I will focus my remarks on clauses 1 to 16, which create a new appeals body for immigration and asylum cases known as the independent immigration appeals authority.”
“From that visit, our diagnosis was that these are operational problems. There are two key questions for the House: will the IIAA fix the problems with the current system, and will it be truly independent from the Home Office?”
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“She later clarified by saying, “I might have been canvassing there, but I’ve never been into a flat there.” I do not want to personalise the matter, but it is clear that she is simply out of touch with the people she is trying to represent, and honestly cannot represent the people of north Kensington in particular. That is why a ready solution was available in the form of commissioners. None of us, particularly those of us with a local government background, want to see commissioners go in, but they had been put in previously during less extreme cases. There is a suspicion that politics is preventing that from happening. An obvious course of action is to put commissioners in to manage the situation. We have London elections next May, so what is the problem?”
“From what I have seen of her, I do not think she is up to the job either. I found it highly embarrassing to hear her on the radio this morning saying that she had not been into high-rise council blocks before. She has been a cabinet member for at least five years and a councillor for the borough for at least 11. I have visited all sorts of accommodation around the borough hundreds if not thousands of times, for all sorts of reasons. In all honesty, how can someone who works for an inner London borough not have been into the flats?”
“Should there be a specifically designated Minister to deal with this tragedy? After all, Ministers are often appointed to deal with natural disasters; this is a man-made disaster with just as many—if not more—ramifications, and over more time. If the position is confusing at national level, it is even more confusing in Kensington and Chelsea. I am afraid that what has happened in that benighted borough since these terrible events has been appalling—almost tragicomic. First, there was the chief executive, clearly not up to the job, who was thrown under a bus to protect his political masters—he went reluctantly. Then there was a leader who should have gone as soon as it was clear that the disaster relief was a disaster in itself, but who said that he was leaving because of “purported” failures. A new leader has now been installed.”
“I use that as an example of the ramifications of this terrible national disaster, which will affect many people—not just in Kensington and the rest of London, but across the country. They will last a long time. I wish to put a number of questions to the Minister. The first is, who is in charge? We have heard statements from at least five Ministers; four were present at the beginning of this debate, but only for the opening speeches. Although I value the contribution of the Prime Minister and others and the ordering of a full public inquiry at an early stage, I am afraid to say that, since that happened, there has been confusion and a degree of inaction. I do not say that with any pleasure. Who is the Minister at central Government level who takes overall responsibility?”
“It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick). I do not pretend to match his expertise, but I hope that the Minister has listened to his absolutely vital points about the key element of safety and the passion with which he made them. My constituency neighbours Kensington; many of my constituents have strong community and family ties with the victims of Grenfell Tower. We are now host to between 50 and 100 of those victims in hotel accommodation in the borough. Just yesterday, I found out that Kensington Aldridge Academy, at the foot of Grenfell Tower, will now be housed for about a year in portakabins built on Wormwood Scrubs.”
“Friend the Member for Kensington, because she has been thrown in at the deep end in no uncertain fashion and she has absolutely risen to the challenge. She is a strong and powerful advocate for her community, but she cannot do it all on her own; this is a job, both locally and nationally, for the Government to take hold of. We must not forget this terrible tragedy, which has blighted our country, because if we do not learn lessons from it, it will recur again.”
“Although much of the attention on Grenfell concentrates on the external spread of the fire, the fire would never have got outside the tower block had it not started in a fridge-freezer. We still do not know—because the Government have not said—whether the tests have been completed, whether it was due to a design fault or whether the construction of that model allowed the fire to take hold. I hope that the points I have made are all relevant and are all matters for the public inquiry to consider, but some of them cannot wait until then. Certainly, the relief and rehousing of the people who have been displaced by the Grenfell fire cannot wait any longer. We are about to enter the summer recess, and I hope we do not come back in September or October to find that nothing has changed. I pay tribute to my hon.”
“There was an electrical fire in a fridge-freezer, just as one of the known fire risk white goods—an Indesit tumble dryer—caught fire causing a substantial tower block fire in my constituency last year. When are the Government going to start tackling these issues? The issues involve the registration of white goods, the collection of data on which are safe and which are unsafe, the recall of products when they are shown to be dangerous and the release of the risk assessments that currently—and scandalously—are not revealed on grounds of commercial confidentiality for the companies that manufacture the goods. It is another whole area of investigation that is long overdue.”
“We must not wait for the inquiry, because my constituents who live in tower blocks will not be able to sleep easily in their beds at night until they know that they are living, as they always thought they were, in entirely safe buildings and until they know what they are supposed to do in the case of a fire. The Minister therefore has quite a long agenda to tackle. Let me make one final point. It is a matter for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy rather than for the Minister’s Department, but I know he is taking an interest in it. The cause of the fire was once again a white good manufactured by one of the Whirlpool companies.”
“I absolutely agree that we can learn from the devolved Administrations on this issue. It is weasel words for the Minister to say that the coroner did not insist that we follow that recommendation. A coroner cannot insist on such matters. The coroner gave a clear indication, and the Government dodged the issue. I think that it should be revisited. Another issue that should be revisited is who carries out inspections of tower blocks. That is not just about cladding, but about fire alarms, means of escape, maintenance and access for emergency vehicles. In the course of the public inquiry, we may find out that all of those were factors at Grenfell Tower.”
“If we do not do that, a reducing number of people will get justice.”
“I was also infected with hepatitis B and C, and despite treatment, I continue to live with the adverse effects of cirrhosis of the liver…I am also one of the 3,872 haemophiliacs (and persons with bleeding disorders), who have been notified as being considered ‘At-Risk’ of vCJD (the human form of Mad Cow Disease).” This avoidable tragedy has completely transformed Andrew’s life and put him at huge disadvantage. He has never received a proper explanation. He has never been properly recompensed. Despite that, he has devoted his life to ensuring justice for all the victims. We owe it to him and to all those other victims—many of them, unfortunately, already dead—to drill down forensically into this tragedy, and to do so reasonably speedily and in a way that leaves nothing unexposed.”
“Andrew quotes from the letter from the consultant at the Royal Free, who said: “On further discussion he did not seem to be aware that he was Hepatitis C antibody positive and we therefore spent some considerable time discussing our understanding of Hepatitis C infection and the implications of antibody positivity.” Andrew says: “I am a severe haemophiliac, and one of only 250 HIV positive haemophiliacs who remain alive today. Of those originally infected in the 1980s, more than three-quarters have died during the course of the past 3 decades. Many of them were my friends.”
“With his consent, I shall discuss personal details, which, courageously, he wants in the public realm because he wants us to get to the bottom of this. In a letter to me earlier today, he wrote: “I have been looking at my medical notes, and have discovered that essentially, I am one of the patients who was not informed by their hospital (in my case Coventry and Warwick Hospital) that I had non-A non-B hepatitis throughout the 80s, and similarly, I was not informed that I had Hepatitis C when the hospital tested me without myself or my parents knowing”— he was a minor at the time— “despite testing me years earlier, without myself or my parents knowing. I only found out ‘by accident’ in October 1992, when I transferred my care to the Royal Free in London”.”
“Let us consider just some of the issues that are being dealt with here: non-consensual testing; victims not being informed of the results of that testing; non-consensual research involving previously untested patients; people being informed, if they were informed, in hospital corridors or through the post; and minors being told without their parents being present. All this was happening in our country in the relatively recent past. Then there is the cover up—the allegations in relation to documents being destroyed and people not being prepared even to answer questions. All that has to be addressed through this inquiry. Given the time, may I end by talking about Andrew March, as a large part of my involvement in the investigation is down to him?”
“We need here a combination of those forensic skills and people who know the issues and know the people involved, and are trusted by them. We have to have full access to documentation. We have to have proper rights of audience for the victims and their families. We have to have full representation. That means legal aid. I hope that in the same way that the Government are now discovering their neglect of social housing over many years has been a mistake, they will discover that the cuts in legal aid are also a mistake and are false economies. I say that while paying tribute to what the Minister has said today, but remembering that in the previous debate, which Andy Burnham held in this House only some two months ago, we were told that a public inquiry was not appropriate.”
“I have felt frustration taking part in every debate on the subject over the past seven years and during the endless meetings with Ministers through the all-party group, so I am glad that the Minister has said that his mind is open on the type of inquiry. We need an inquiry with powers, such as an inquiry held under the Inquiries Act 2005 with powers to call witnesses and interrogate them under oath. We need the forensic skills that a judge would bring, but at the same time the inquiry needs to have credibility and trust. We do not want to start making the same mistakes that we made with the sex abuse inquiries and are beginning to make, I am afraid, in the Grenfell inquiry. The other day, I was listening to Dr Richard Stone on the radio. He assisted the Macpherson inquiry and was trusted by the local community.”
“I have said to Minister after Minister over the past seven years that a bespoke solution is needed. We are talking about a finite and decreasing number of people, and we need a bespoke solution for each of those individuals and families, because everybody is in a different position according to their circumstances, health and personal needs. I again pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North, and to many other Members—I am surprised that the all-party group does not have 650 members, rather than 111—but the real credit goes to the victims themselves, who had to fight and fight and fight to get very little.”
“I would say one or two things on the remit and type of inquiry, because these are multiple failings. Yes, of course, there is the failing that led to the infections and the multiple infections in the first place, but, until recently the Government would not even mention the word “negligence”. Now, I am pleased to say, due in large part to what Andy Burnham has done, we are talking about criminality, but it has taken a long time to get there. On how the victims have been treated by the establishment, again, one could make comparisons with what happened with Hillsborough over many years, such as the way that they have been ignored and badly treated. In relation to recompense and financing, that includes the fact that the various trusts and schemes, as well as the quantum involved and the administration, have been appalling.”
“Like my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), I became engaged in this issue after 2010, when constituents contacted me, and one constituent in particular—a remarkable man called Andrew March, whom I shall say a little about in a moment. I feel slightly ashamed that I did not fully understand the utter tragedy of contaminated blood, which has not been with us for seven years; it has been with us for more than 30 years. As a country, we need to own up to the fact that we do not do these things very well. The same is true of Hillsborough and, in many ways, of Grenfell. These are not matters that have happened and then been dealt with appropriately. They are things that we have failed to address over years, if not decades.”
“May I ask the Secretary of State, as he continues to promote the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, what regard his Government have to the fact that 157 people were executed there last year, including minors, and that four young men who were arrested as minors, Dawoud al-Marhoon, Abdullah al-Zaher, Ali al-Nimr and Abdulkareem al-Hawaj, remain at imminent risk of execution by crucifixion?”
“I say gently to the Minister that the fudge at local level about who is control of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea will not work. The local community does not want the usual suspects in charge of the council. Will he say today that there will be no loss of social or affordable housing and that every single unit will be replaced? It is wrong that people on waiting lists are paying the price and will suffer as a consequence of Grenfell.”
“All of those will make a viable Palestinian state impossible. There has been a 70% increase in settlement building on the west bank in the last year. These are continuing breaches of international humanitarian law and the fourth Geneva convention. John Kerry has said that “the status quo is leading towards one state and perpetual occupation”. Just last week, the Secretary-General of the UN, António Guterres, said that “the only way to achieve the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people” is by ending the occupation. That is the issue at the heart of this and unless it is addressed, we will get nowhere. That is what I look to the Minister to address in his concluding comments.”
“The Arab peace initiative, which has been mentioned, is 15 years old and presents an easy and straightforward blueprint for peace: recognition by the states of the Arab League of Israel on pre-1967 borders and east Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state. That is a real basis for peace that the Israelis have never been able to approach thus far, or have never been persuaded by the international community to approach. On the other hand, there is the remorseless growth of settlements. In the last year or so, we have seen a change in the type and intensity of settlement growth. The 1,800 units in east Jerusalem, including around Sheikh Jarrah in the heart of east Jerusalem, that have been announced in the last couple of days are a fundamental game-changer, as are E1 and the new settlements between Bethlehem and east Jerusalem.”
“I condemn all atrocities on either side—deaths and injuries on either side are appalling—but I wish we could have some recognition from the Members who have spoken in graphic terms about individual acts of terrorism of the thousands of people who have been killed in Gaza over the past 10 years, many of them children. In discussing the need to end the occupation, let me contrast two things. The first is the abject failure of talks over the past 25 years since Oslo. It is not a coincidence that the talks have failed in that way. Many realistic proposals were made by Rabin before his unfortunate murder.”
“If we truly want to fulfil the unfulfilled part of Balfour, “that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”— and those rights certainly have been prejudiced in the west bank and Gaza over the past 50 years—we need to end the occupation. We have heard the humanitarian situation in Gaza described graphically. As was said, there have been three attacks by the IDF, one of the most powerful armies in the world, on the civilian population of Gaza, with thousands of people killed.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the excellent speech of the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), which I am sure was heard by the Minister. We are all happy to see the Minister back, although I agree with the shadow Foreign Secretary that it is a shame the Foreign Secretary could not turn up to a debate in Government time on this important issue. However, we are all very grateful to have listened to the Minister’s views on this subject, rather than the Foreign Secretary’s, as I suspect the Minister is rather better informed. This is a year of anniversaries, as we have heard from many hon. Members. It is 10 years since the beginning of the blockade of Gaza, 100 years since the Balfour declaration and 50 years since the occupation. One anniversary would be significant; I hope that three are concentrating our minds. The key is occupation.”
“I am sorry to say this, but I find the sophistry of the Secretary of State today quite sickening. The reason why people are refusing offers of accommodation is that they are not suitable, sometimes by reason of people’s age or disability, and not because these are fussy people. The units of social housing being offered are existing social housing, so what happens to the people who would have gone into them? We are going to have a net reduction in the amount of social housing. It is an open secret in west London that the administration in Kensington and Chelsea could not run a bath. That is why the residents of north Ken have had such a raw deal for so long. So when will the Secretary of State put country before party and send in the commissioners?”
“The Secretary of State said nothing about the cause of the fire. I realise that product safety is a matter for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but given that this is his statement, will he say when the tests of the fridge-freezer model that caused the fire will be complete, whether other fires have been caused by this model and whether he will immediately change the advice that owners of this model can continue to use it, pending the outcome of the tests?”
“I appreciate what the Minister is saying about the public inquiry. Can he give any information this evening about when we are likely to have an announcement about the chair or some idea of the timetable, when it is likely to start and over what period it will report?”
“Will the Prime Minister confirm that the 68 flats in the Berkeley Homes Kensington Row development that are to be allocated to the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire are already designated as social housing? What we need in places such as west London, where for many people social housing is the only affordable housing, is large investment in new affordable housing, not rearranging the same pot. Opposition Members will remain very sceptical about her conversion to social housing until she starts providing it, not just talking about it.”
“On the matter of tower block cladding raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), it is not just about flammability and the type of cladding, but how it is fitted, whether it has been compromised by later alterations, and whether it is compatible with the existing structures. This morning the Prime Minister was clearly struggling with that issue and who was going to enforce this and pay for it. May we have a full statement on those specific issues of fire safety, because nothing is more important now than the safety of the hundreds of thousands of people living in tower blocks?”
“She and my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), whose constituency used to cover North Kensington, have cared and looked after the population of that area, but that cannot be done without the necessary resources. The Prime Minister has to make good her pledge not only to the residents of Grenfell Tower, but to everyone in need of social housing. It must again be a main form of tenure in this country with proper Government support.”
“It is of course right to give precedence to Grenfell Tower residents, but why should it be a zero-sum game in which affordable housing is not being provided? It is exactly that issue which has led to the loss of trust among Grenfell Tower residents. The public inquiry must restore that trust, but the disaster relief, which was so appallingly handled by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, has added to the sense of gloom and suspicion across west London. I do not know why the Prime Minister could not answer this, but if it is right for the chief executive to go—the Prime Minister said it was—why is not also right for the council’s political leadership to go due to the disastrous way in which it has behaved? I end by commending the work, effort and maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad).”
“Tory Governments and councils have systematically undermined and devalued social housing over more than 30 years. I think of the example in my constituency of the West Kensington and Gibbs Green estates, where 750 affordable and social homes were sold off to a private developer as part of a scheme promoted by Tory councils in Hammersmith and Fulham, and Kensington and Chelsea. I will add that residents from those estates have been looking after five Grenfell Tower families who were unceremoniously dumped in a bed and breakfast hotel by Kensington and Chelsea without any means of support. I put it to the Prime Minister this morning that the 68 so-called luxury homes that have been made available at Berkeley’s Kensington Row development were already allocated for social housing. They are not additional homes.”
“My council wrote to everyone in a high-rise block in Hammersmith and Fulham the day after the Grenfell Tower fire assuring them that every one of those blocks had a fire-risk assessment, but we cannot rely on every housing provider to carry out a full inspection of its stock and to act on recommendations made, not least because they do not have the necessary funds after years of cuts. The Government must lead on those matters and enforcement. This week, figures showed that the number of social homes being built in England has fallen by an incredible 97% since Labour left office. In one of London’s biggest housing schemes, at Battersea power station, the developer is seeking to cut the number of affordable homes from the agreed 636 to 386. That is not a coincidence.”
“If the cause of this fire turns out—as in the case of the Shepherd’s Court fire in my constituency last August—to be a faulty electrical appliance, it will be a further indictment of the lack of any effective system of product registration and recall in the UK. Insufficient means of escape, the lack of sprinkler systems, poor maintenance, inadequate alarms, fire service cuts, and outdated building regulations—all are complex, difficult matters that need to be addressed.”
“This is not only a terrible disaster for all those involved and the west London community; it also has implications for the safety of hundreds of thousands of families living in high-rise buildings around the UK and draws attention to the neglect of social housing over many years. Yesterday, the Prime Minister apologised for letting down the people of North Kensington, but that apology appears already to have been forgotten, as she fails to give clear commitments on some of the key issues arising from the disaster. The Government must lead on the programme of making tower blocks safe and giving reassurance to their occupants across the country. The issue is not just the type of cladding and its flammability, but how it is fitted, whether it has been compromised by later alterations and whether it is compatible with the existing structure.”
“Equally, however, it is a rejection of its determination to continue the destruction of our key public services. Hammersmith residents were being asked to vote for the demolition and downgrading of their main hospital, Charing Cross; for cuts of up to 25% in schools budgets; for further cuts of £400 million to the Metropolitan police; and for the refusal by central Government to invest in genuinely affordable homes. They decisively rejected that, preferring the message of hope offered by Labour, yet there is every indication that the automaton in No. 10 will plough on with hard Brexit and austerity. Given the tragic events of last week, I will turn now to the consequences of the Grenfell Tower fire.”
“The Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), rightly pointed out yesterday that this Queen’s Speech would be a thin, anaemic document had it been for one parliamentary year, but that as a two-year programme it is a positive embarrassment. Fortunately, however, we are unlikely to have to wait two years before the electorate is able to put it and this Government out of their misery. I suppose we should be grateful that the disastrous general election campaign means that much of the Conservatives’ toxic programme for government has now been shelved, but that does not mean that we can rest easy. The general election result in my constituency and many others was in part a rejection of the extreme hard Brexit peddled by the Conservative party.”
“On behalf of my hon. Friends the Members for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad) and for Westminster North (Ms Buck) and myself, may I thank my right hon. Friend for visiting the area and making this issue an absolute priority? Will he and the Government ensure that disaster relief in north Kensington and pursuing the issue of the safety of people in tower blocks are made the absolute No. 1 priority?”
“It is clear from other fires caused by white goods that such incidents can lead, and indeed have led, to tragic loss of life. It is a great relief that that was avoided at Shepherds Court. Today, five of the flats affected remain out of action and the tenants from those properties are still in temporary housing provided by Hammersmith and Fulham Council. Although those tenants are being adequately housed, they experienced substantial trauma and upheaval as a result of this incident, as I am sure people appreciate. I visited the block last weekend. Most residents are now back in and the local authority has redecorated the floors, but the legacy of the fire will last for many years.”
“On 19 August 2016, Debbie Defreitas, a constituent of mine, was in the kitchen of her home on the seventh floor of Shepherds Court, an 18-storey block of flats overlooking Shepherd’s Bush Green, when she became aware of a burning smell. Her Indesit tumble dryer, which is a make owned by Whirlpool, was running and had caught fire mid-cycle. The fire subsequently tore through the block and 120 firefighters had to attend the scene to put out the blaze. The incident resulted in 100 families being evacuated from the block and 26 were found temporary accommodation in hotels that night. Luckily, there were only minor injuries, but London Fire Brigade has said that if the fire had happened late at night the outcome would have been far worse.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered Whirlpool and the product safety system. Thank you, Ms Ryan, for the opportunity to open this debate today in Westminster Hall on a subject that I have become heavily involved with and extremely concerned about during the last year. May I also say what a pleasure it is to experience your chairing of a debate for the first time? I am sure it will not be the last. This issue affects many people across the UK and I am very pleased that hon. Members from throughout the country are here today. Members will probably recall that I led an Adjournment debate last September on tumble dryers, as a direct result of a tragic incident in my constituency.”
“Ms Defreitas was supervising her tumble dryer when the fire broke out, as she had been advised to do. However, in reality many people would not do so and why should they? In the 21st century, manufacturers should make products without fault that do not pose a risk to life and property. Although it is perhaps inevitable that products are occasionally faulty, in such instances a manufacturer must take immediate action to inform consumers of the fault, and it must also issue an immediate and full recall. Anything less is hugely irresponsible.”
“I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention and I am also grateful to the large number of Members attending this debate, which shows the degree of interest in the subject. I will go through what happened—hopefully not at great length, but with some precision—to show just how culpable Whirlpool has been and to outline the specific tasks that we want the Government to ensure are carried out, so that there is no repetition of last year’s fire and this particularly serious issue is resolved. The key point is that my constituent had followed Whirlpool’s safety advice to the letter, which at the time of the fire was: “You may continue to use your tumble dryer whilst waiting for the modification, however we require that you do not leave your dryer unattended during operation”.”
“As a consequence, I believe lives are still at risk. In particular, Whirlpool’s complete lack of accountability and responsibility for those consumers whose daily lives have been—and indeed are still being—put at risk, is simply unacceptable. The company’s behaviour throughout this whole process prompts the question of why anyone would want to buy a Whirlpool tumble dryer, or indeed any other product made by the company, in future.”
“I absolutely agree and I know that a number of Members from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, some of whom are here today, have been putting a lot of pressure on. I hope that pressure will continue, because clearly the current Trading Standards regime does not work. That is why we need the Government to intervene and not simply say that this is a matter that can be resolved at local authority level. Given that the Shepherds Court fire was more than eight months ago, I am disappointed that I have had to come back to the House today to raise the matter again, as I had hoped that by now both the Government and Whirlpool would have taken action to remedy this situation. Unfortunately, however, there has been little progress: Whirlpool has not properly rectified the problem; and the Minister and the Government have not acted decisively.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, because I believe that Whirlpool is cynically trying to delay everything from legal actions on liability through to inquests, to resist what in the end will undoubtedly be very substantial payments that it will have to make. However, the consequences of these incidents, particularly for poorer people who may not have insurance and who—as is the case with some of my constituents—have lost all their belongings as well as their homes, are absolutely devastating. Since the fire in Shepherds Bush, Whirlpool has failed to answer the most basic questions in my correspondence with the company, and its letters in response are often written not by the company itself but by its PR agency, Ketchum.”
“Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) is stepping down as an MP, but as Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee he has tried to engage with Whirlpool with limited success. My hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), who sadly cannot be here, and my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), who is here, have also been instrumental in supporting the campaign and in coming with me to meet the Minister. Many Members have tried to engage with Whirlpool and the Government, but they have been ignored and have received answers that are simply unacceptable.”