Bob Blackman
MP for Harrow East · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I hope that the Leader of the House will again provide protected time and prevail on his colleagues not to have too many Government statements, so that we can have a reasonable debate on the subject.”
“Since the changes, we have been inundated with requests from Select Committees to have statements in the House, which I welcome. Next Tuesday, before the two debates that have been scheduled, there will be Select Committee statements on the Treasury and Public Accounts Committee reports.”
“On Tuesday 20 October there will be a debate on manufacturing skills. On Thursday 22 October there will be a debate on compensation for Equitable Life policyholders. I am sure that the whole House will recognise the importance of hospital radio across the country.”
“Many of my constituents work at Heathrow airport. They have had to work extra hours, as the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned, and they have suffered abuse, too. I put on record my appreciation for all that they have done. Even more of my constituents use Heathrow for business travel and social travel.”
“I am sure that the Leader of the House will join me in congratulating Radio Brockley on this wonderful anniversary. Perhaps we could have a statement in Government time on the importance of hospital radio in the health service and the benefits it brings to patients and staff.”
“This is a sad day for the UK-Israel relationship, given the risks of what the Foreign Secretary is doing. Affecting the Israeli elections by making even moderate politicians even more hawkish is a huge risk.”
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“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson). I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton) on her maiden speech—I assure her that the case load continues year after year. I also offer my appreciation for another formidable lady: Her Majesty the Queen. I was delighted to see her join in the celebrations of her jubilee unaided yesterday. On the Gracious Speech, I wish to talk about several of the Bills that are coming up. First, the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill gives us the opportunity to level up each part of the United Kingdom. I was absolutely over the moon at the local election results in Harrow last week, when we took eight seats from Labour and took control of the council for the first time since 2006.”
“It is clear that the Chinese Government were watching the west’s reaction to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Members of this House have been sanctioned by the Chinese Government for doing nothing more than calling out human rights abuses in China, so surely the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) about the sanctions and the people to be sanctioned should be taken on board by the British Government, and his suggestion should be implemented immediately.”
“My right hon. Friend will be well aware that, despite some difficult elections elsewhere, in the London borough of Harrow we gained eight seats from Labour and took control of the council for the first time since 2006. Will he join me in thanking and congratulating the councillors who were elected across England, Wales and Scotland last Thursday, the activists and all the support people who did the hard work and the hard graft to get them elected and get representation across our councils?”
“T3. I welcome my hon. Friend’s commitment to end the scourge of fly-tipping across the country. It is the No. 1 issue that every one of my constituents raises when I speak to them. Can she assure us that there will be a process for urban and suburban councils to get funding from the Department to ensure that they can combat this scourge in our society?”
“Families in my constituency have very generously offered to house Ukrainian refugees. I was going to raise the plight of the Lykholit family from Ukraine, who applied on 18 March, but they have received their visas today after an extended wait—that is good news. However, there is the plight of those who are still in hotels waiting for their visas, particularly the relatives of people who assisted holocaust survivors in escaping the Nazis. Will my hon. Friend prioritise those people? We owe them a big debt of gratitude for the risks that they undertook.”
“But it is deeply disappointing that, three years on from that being announced in the Green Paper, we do not seem to have made much progress. There is no road map to put us on the route to success. The purpose of this debate is to remind the Minister of the urgent need to deliver the bold action that was promised in the 2019 Green Paper. The 2030 ambition was acknowledged by everyone to be extremely challenging only three years ago. We have lost three years, so it is even more challenging now. We should be clear that if we do nothing, we will not achieve that target, so there is no time to be lost. When the ambition was announced, we had 11 years; now, there is only eight. We are nowhere near achieving our ambition, particularly for our more disadvantaged communities in society, which have the highest rates of smoking.”
“My view is that, given that we have the opportunity to debate this issue, and possibly even shape Javed Khan’s views and recommendations, it is better to proceed and get the answers from the Minister about where we stand on the review. I hope the Government will commit to introduce all the recommendations of Javed Khan’s review, whatever they may be, to achieve what I am sure we all in this room wish to achieve: a smokefree 2030. The hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy)—I will call her my hon. Friend—and I have co-sponsored this debate, and I am sure she will speak on many of aspects, particularly levelling up. The Government have a bold ambition, which I strongly support—I am sure we all do—to bring the end of smoking within touching distance.”
“In fact, if smokers quit at an early enough stage, even seasoned smokers who have smoked for many years will see their lungs recover. I thank the Chairman of Ways and Means and the Backbench Business Committee, on which I sit, for granting this debate. Originally, our intention was to focus on Javed Khan’s long-awaited review. The officers of the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health and I believed that the review’s recommendation would be published last Friday. Javed has had to delay his publication, but I hope that when we see it, it will be as radical as we believe it to be. Given the delay in publication—until the middle of May, I believe—we were left having to decide whether to proceed with this debate or wait.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered progress towards the Government’s smokefree 2030 ambition. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. For those who do not know, today is my birthday. What better way to celebrate my birthday than to speak in Westminster Hall? On a personal level, it is tinged with sadness, because tomorrow is the anniversary of my mother’s death. She died from smoking—officially, it was lung and throat cancer, but I am clear that smoking killed my mother. That is one of the reasons I am so passionate about ensuring that young people do not start smoking and that those who smoke give up as quickly as they can, because the medical reality is that the lungs can recover.”
“I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. Clearly, people start smoking when they are young. They continue to smoke well into their later life, and it is very hard for people to give up if they have already committed to smoking cigarettes, because nicotine is the most addictive drug that we know of. Therefore, it is very hard for people to get off it once they have started, so it is far better that we prevent people from starting to smoke in the first place. At the moment, I believe that around 200 to 300 young people start smoking every day, which is why it is imperative to stop them doing so right now. Indeed, Cancer Research UK has estimated that we will have to wait until 2047 for the smoking rate in disadvantaged communities to reach 5% or less, which is the smokefree ambition.”
“The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has estimated that, for every pound invested in smoking cessation services, £2.37 will be saved on treating smoking and smoking-related diseases, as well as increasing productivity.”
“The Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O'Brien), has said that the Government must “floor it” when it comes to prevention and public health, but we cannot floor it unless there is gas in the tank. Gas in the tank is what we are lacking right now. Funding for public health is in a parlous state. We must face up to the fact that funding for smoking prevention has been particularly hard hit. After the spending review was published, the Health Foundation estimated that funding for smoking cessation and tobacco control had been cut by one third since 2015. The cuts in budgets for tobacco control are the falsest of false economies. Unlike most pharmaceutical drugs, smoking cessation saves money, and with no negative side effects.”
“The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that “instead, departments will be expected to deliver on these missions from within the cash budgets set out in last autumn’s Spending Review. Departments and public service leaders might reasonably ask whether those plans match up to the scale of the government’s newfound ambition—particularly in the face of higher inflation.” The levelling-up White Paper missions include narrowing the gap in healthy life expectancy between the local areas where it is highest and lowest by 2030, and increasing healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035. Smoking is responsible for half of the 10-year difference in life expectancy between the most and least disadvantaged in our society, so achieving the Government’s levelling-up mission on life expectancy will depend on delivering the smokefree 2030 ambition.”
“We need new sources of funding, and the 2019 Green Paper recognised that we would need funding to end smoking, that there was pressure on budgets and that existing sources of funding were not sufficient. Three years and one pandemic later, the pressure on budgets is even greater. In its submission to me, the Local Government Association said that local authorities are paying some £75 million for quitting services overall. Clearly, they need additional funding to achieve what is required. We are talking about disadvantaged communities, and levelling up is quite rightly a flagship policy for the Government, but there is no new funding to deliver on the bold ambitions set out in the levelling-up White Paper.”
“If we get to that point, it will improve the position no end. That is in the NHS plan, but for future years. I see no reason at all why that could not be introduced now. That is a management decision by the NHS, and I would ask my hon. Friend the Minister to encourage the NHS to do precisely that. The all-party parliamentary group had an excellent meeting with the chairman of the independent review, Javed Khan. It was a very encouraging meeting, and we expect his recommendations to match the scale of the challenge, but unless his review is turned into a meaningful plan of action that is backed up by funding, it will not be worth the paper it is written on.”
“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and for the work that he has done on combatting smoking over many years. He raises the issue of smoking in pregnancy, which is the one target that the Government came closest to missing at the time of the last review. The target was 11%, and the Government just about achieved it. I am very clear that, for young women who are pregnant, we need to ensure that, if they smoke, they should be referred immediately to quitting services at the first meeting to discuss their pregnancy through the health service, and not just them but their partner as well. If both give up smoking, there is a strong chance that they will continue to not smoke. They need to understand the damage that they will do to their unborn child and the damage that they are doing to themselves.”
“Friend the Minister is this: if the Javed Khan review recommends a levy, will she commit to meet with us as APPG officers and with independent experts to discuss our proposals for a “polluter pays” levy to provide the investment that is needed to deliver the Government’s smokefree ambition? My final point is that this review also needs to look at shisha tobacco, chewing tobacco and snus. Unfortunately, those areas are completely unregulated at the moment, but are extremely damaging to people’s health. I look forward to hearing the contributions of other Members and of the Front Benchers.”
“The Government made it very clear in the spending review that there is no new money for public health, so an alternative source of funding is urgently needed. With only eight years to go before we reach 2030, the Government need to decide where that money is coming from. The existing funds are not sufficient, and our proposals provide a new source of funding in addition to tobacco taxes. If the Government are unwilling to accept our proposals, they must come up with an alternative solution that will match the scale of their ambition. As such, my question to my hon.”
“However, as I have said, that review will report very shortly—in the middle of next month—and the discussions I have had with the chairman of the review make it very clear that the measures he will be recommending will need investment, and will be radical. Once Javed Khan has reported back to the Government, there will need to be serious consideration of how the funding to deliver the smokefree 2030 ambition can be found. That will need to be done in parallel with decisions about what interventions are needed, as interventions cost money and can be delivered only if the funding is found. Pressure on budgets has only worsened since 2019, with the covid-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on our nation’s health and on Government finances.”
“It is also supported by three quarters of the public, including those who voted Conservative in the 2019 election, with fewer than one in 10 being opposed to the levy. What could be better than introducing a tax that the public support? If we want to achieve a smokefree 2030, it is vital that we tackle high rates of smoking among our most deprived communities, pregnant women and people with mental health conditions. As the Government have said, this will be “extremely challenging” and cannot be achieved on the cheap. Health Ministers in both Houses have said that they do not want to prejudge the review, and therefore could not accept amendments calling for a consultation on a levy.”
“To quote my noble Friend and fellow APPG officer Lord Young of Cookham, speaking in the other place, our proposed levy will allow the Government to “put the financial burden firmly where it belongs, on the polluter—the tobacco manufacturer—and not the polluted—the smoker.” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 16 March 2022; Vol. 820, c. 290.] The reality is that this levy could raise £700 million a year from the profits of the tobacco companies—money that could be applied to smoking cessation services. There is public support for this measure. It has been endorsed by more than 70 health organisations, including Cancer Research UK, Asthma + Lung UK, the British Heart Foundation, the Royal College of Physicians and the Health Foundation.”
“That may have been true in 2015, but it is not the case today. In 2015, we could not prevent tobacco manufacturers from passing the costs on to consumers because we were in the European Union. We are no longer part of the European Union, and therefore by capping tobacco prices and controlling profits, the Government can ensure that tobacco manufacturers bear the full cost of the levy, helping incentivise the industry to move out of combustible products and make smoking obsolete by 2030. I can think of few better Brexit dividends than making tobacco companies pay for the damage they do.”
“There were objections because we were part of the European Union, but when speaking for the Government on Report in the House of Lords, the noble Lord Howe stated: “the tobacco industry is already required to make a significant contribution to public finances through tobacco duty, VAT and corporation tax.” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 16 March 2022; Vol. 820, c. 297.] However—this is the key point—tobacco companies pass on the cost of tax increases to smokers, which means that it is not the tobacco industry that contributes to the public finances but ordinary smokers, who have little choice but to buy cigarettes to maintain their deadly addiction. Indeed, when HM Treasury consulted on and rejected a levy in 2015, it was on the grounds that it would add an extra tax burden to smokers.”
“It requires producers of packaging waste to pay for its collection and recycling. Lord Greenhalgh, the Housing Minister, said: “The reality is that we cannot keep looking to the Treasury to keep bailing everybody out—we have to get the polluter to pay.” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 5 January 2022; Vol. 817, c. 566.] I could not agree more, and that principle applies even more strongly to smoking, which, as the chief medical officer pointed out, is a deadly addiction created and marketed by companies for profit.”
“He also said—and who could disagree?—that “if it is deemed appropriate to have a form of price and profit regulation for the medicines industry, which delivers products that are essential for life-saving, it does not seem too far a stretch to think that an equivalent mechanism might be used for an industry whose products are discretionary and life-destroying.” [ Official Report, House of Lords, 16 March 2022; Vol. 820, c. 294.] a stretch to think that an equivalent mechanism might be used for an industry whose products are discretionary and life-destroying. I completely agree with him on that approach. The Government already accept the principle that the polluter should pay to fix the damage they do. The extended producer responsibility scheme, which comes into force in 2024, is another good example.”
“However, there are already numerous exceptions where hypothecation has been justified. One is the health and social care levy, which has just come into force. Another is the pharmaceutical pricing scheme, which the Department of Health and Social Care uses to raise funds for the NHS and provides a model for how our proposals could be implemented. The noble Lord Stevens, formerly chief executive of the NHS, pointed out that the pharmaceutical pricing scheme was put in place by a Conservative Government in 1957 and has been sustained ever since with the support of Conservative, Labour and coalition Governments.”
“However, to the great disappointment of the APPG, the Government opted to oppose our amendments when they returned to the Commons for consideration. That leaves us without a mechanism for funding the smokefree 2030 ambition, with only eight years to go. It appears that when the noble Lords met Ministers and Treasury officials to discuss the amendments, it was the Treasury, not the Department of Health and Social Care, that objected to the proposal to consult on a levy—not to introduce one, but to consult on the principle. The Treasury has a philosophical aversion to anything that smacks of hypothecation—raising funds to be put to specific purposes. Its preference is for funds raised to go into one big pot—the Consolidated Fund, from which all Government spending flows—that it controls and allocates, thereby giving it ultimate control.”
“However, to date I have not had the courtesy of a reply to any of those letters. If the “polluter pays” levy has been seriously looked at and a decision has been taken not to proceed, that was certainly not communicated to MPs or the all-party parliamentary group. That is precisely why officers of the APPG tabled amendments to the Health and Care Bill calling for a consultation on the levy. The amendments would not have committed the Government to going ahead, but would have ensured that they fulfilled their commitment to consider a “polluter pays” approach and that our proposals get the consideration they deserve. Our amendments were carefully considered by the other place and passed by a majority of 59—the greatest defeat the Government suffered on the Health and Care Bill.”
“Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), was: “My understanding—although my recollection may fail me, so I caveat my comment with that—is that this was initially looked at that stage, but was not proceeded with.” —[ Official Report , 30 March 2022; Vol. 711, c. 867.] My hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood might like to check his recollection. The all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health, following its initial recommendations, put forward detailed proposals to Government in its June 2021 report about how a “polluter pays” levy could operate. I shared a copy of the report with Health Ministers at that time and wrote to the Secretary of State in July 2021, and again in December, asking for a meeting to discuss the levy. In September, I wrote to the Chancellor about the proposals.”
“The then Public Health Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), and her opposite number, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), were the keynote speakers. The Minister gave her commitment that the Department would continue to explore further funding mechanisms with the Treasury, as had been promised in the Green Paper. On 30 March, the former Public Health Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), challenged why the commitment to consider a “polluter pays” approach had not been fulfilled. The response at the Dispatch Box from the Health Minister, my hon.”
“They also acknowledged that there were precedents, and that the approach had been taken by other countries, such as France and the USA. Only months after the consultation closed in October 2019, the pandemic struck and put the prevention strategy on the back burner. It soon became clear that an effective prevention strategy was essential to build back better from the pandemic. It is also essential to deliver on the Conservative manifesto commitments to level up, reduce inequality and increase healthy life expectancy by five years. Those commitments are baked into the levelling-up White Paper and, the Government have said, will be enshrined in statute. On the anniversary of the Green Paper’s publication, on 22 July 2020, the all-party group held a roundtable to examine the actions needed to deliver the smokefree ambition.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. Vaping has its purpose, which is to encourage people to quit smoking and take up vaping. I am concerned that people may take up vaping and then escalate to smoking. We do not yet have medical evidence on the long-term effects of vaping on health, so I am cautious. Clearly, it is better to vape than smoke, but let us not encourage people to take up vaping as an alternative to stopping smoking completely. The all-party group has encouraged the “polluter pays” approach. The situation is very frustrating. The Government recognised in the Green Paper three years ago that budgets are tight and new sources of funding are needed. As recommended by the all-party parliamentary group, which I chair, the Government agreed to consider the “polluter pays” approach to funding.”
“Those companies would not be allowed to pass a levy on to the consumer; they would have to pay it out of their profits, making their product that kills people less profitable. Until we get to that stage, we are not going to have the money in the health service that is required to stop smoking—to encourage people to quit, and to encourage young people not to start. That is why we have concentrated on the levy today. I look forward to helping my hon. Friend the Minister in her arguments with the Treasury, if that is what we need to do to achieve that goal. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered progress towards the Government’s smokefree 2030 ambition.”
“Friend the Minister that we will be calling for another debate on its recommendations and looking forward to a commitment from the Government that they will be implemented. However, the most important thing is that all those recommendations, whether they are on raising the age of sale, more tobacco control or licensing—we could go through all the options—will cost money to implement, which is why today we have concentrated on the levy. I return to the central point that I made at the beginning of the debate: the difference between a levy and taxation that is imposed on the tobacco companies is that the companies just pass the costs of taxation on to the consumer, so they suffer no consequences whatsoever from it.”
“I thank everyone who has contributed to the debate, including the Front Benchers, and I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for her commitment, which we all share. We have to remember, however, that Professor Sir Richard Peto has pointed out that smoking has killed nearly 8 million people over the past 50 years in the UK alone. That is 400 a day, every day—far more than have died under covid. It is obviously something that can be prevented, but more importantly even than that, 2 million more people are expected to die over the next 20 years unless we get smoking rates down. We all support the Javed Khan review, and we are looking forward to it. I understand that it is going to be published on 17 May. I can inform my hon.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for her answer, and for the tremendous work she has been doing since she became Foreign Secretary to deepen the relationship with India. Indeed, the Prime Minister’s visit last week built on that relationship. Clearly there is a need for defence, trade and other opportunities, but there is also a requirement to move India away from its relationship with Russia. What will my right hon. Friend do to ensure that our friendship continues with India, and that it is moved back towards the west?”
“You and I, Mr Speaker, were looking forward to a visit to India during the Easter recess, but we have witnessed the Prime Minister’s groundbreaking visit. He is the first Prime Minister to visit the state of Gujarat, which is where Shri Narendra Modi was Chief Minister and is the powerhouse of the Indian economy. Many Gujaratis live in the UK, and wherever they have come they have brought with them economic power and the ability to contribute directly to our economy. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the plan is to conclude the free trade talks by Diwali? We will then be able to have a double celebration of Diwali—the Hindu new year—and a new opportunity for a free trade deal between our two great countries.”
“Residents constantly contact me about the state of roads and pavements in the London Borough of Harrow. I put this down to the inefficiency of the Labour-run council. However, on Saturday The Sun published the real reason, with £2 million of council tax payers’ money being given to contractors, contractors not actually doing the work, and then council staff receiving kickbacks. There is an ongoing police investigation on this issue. I understand that every member of the department has now either resigned, retired or been sacked. The council tax payers naturally say, “Are councillors involved? What has been going on?” This has been covered up for eight months. Can we therefore have a debate next week on corruption in local government and transparency? Whether it is Liverpool, Croydon or Harrow, Labour-run councils are corrupt.”
“The Chairman of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee—the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts)—and I have been involved in the prelegislative scrutiny of the Bill and the whole process behind it. Is my right hon. Friend the Minister saying that not only can we pass the Bill today with the Government amendments but he will continue to look to revise the law and to embrace more people in the law through secondary legislation?”
“I have a couple of points to make about where we are now, to put them on the record so that we can get through this phase in the secondary legislation. I would like clarity from the Minister on the position of housing associations when pursuing developers who have developed social housing that is clearly not fit for purpose.”
“As has been said, many of those people have been presented with eye-watering bills, such as £250,000 or more, to fix fire safety issues that are definitely not their fault, are clearly the responsibility of the developer in the first place and should have been put right since. Also in preparation for this debate, I had a look at the Select Committee’s first report on prelegislative scrutiny of the Bill—the Chairman of the Committee may recall it. If the Government had accepted our proposed changes, we probably would not be here today discussing Lords amendments. Almost all the proposals in our report are now in the revised Bill. That is a significant change and demonstrates that when we are dealing with issues of such a technical nature, prelegislative scrutiny is the right way forward. I commend its use to Ministers in the future.”
“Secondary legislation will come along on the back of the Bill, and that will be the detail that really matters to the people we represent—the leaseholders, who are the one party in all of this who are completely innocent and should not be penalised in any way, shape or form. It is a contradiction that we are asking leaseholders to make a contribution to fire safety costs and cladding remediation for which they have no responsibility. I welcome the cap, but I do not see why that cap has been set at a particular figure. Many of the people we are talking about are not wealthy. They may have bought their leases a long time ago, and they are often living on fixed incomes and have no disposable income to put towards the costs, because they are paying the other bills for their properties. They are not able to stump up huge amounts of cash.”
“Friend the Secretary of State, who has dramatically changed the whole approach taken in this Bill. The Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), is no longer in his place, but I think he recognises the dramatic changes that have taken place during the passage of the Bill through the other place. When preparing for today’s debate, I thought of one or two ironies. The first was that the Second Reading debate was so shortened that we all got three minutes to speak, but today, although we have a reasonable amount of time to debate the issues, the business managers are encouraging us not to go on too long. That seems suitably ironic. There are several issues to address. I thank the Minister for making it clear that this will not be the end of the process.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, in particular as chairman of the all-party group for fire safety and rescue. As I mentioned in an intervention, I have been involved in prelegislative scrutiny of the Bill from its beginning and in the various reports the Select Committee produced in the wake of the Grenfell fire. The eye-watering aspects of building safety across this country really only came to light with that terrible tragedy at Grenfell, nearly five years ago. We have all learned a lot. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing, who is new to the job and to the Bill, on the rapid progress that has been made since he was appointed. I also congratulate my right hon.”
“The evidence that was presented to the Select Committee suggested that we still do not know exactly how many buildings need fire remediation, how many need cladding remediation, and what the cost of that work will be. Until we have that data, we will not be in a position to say what the total cost will be to the Treasury and the Department, and how it will be funded.”
“I believe that more people should exercise common- hold, because I want to see more people enfranchised. The Bill appears to suggest that they would be penalised for doing so, but that cannot be right and the Minister needs to correct that. I shall mention two other issues briefly. What happens to overseas ownership of buildings? Will we pursue those people to the nth degree or will they get away scot-free? My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) referred to the insurance companies. To me, they have not so far put their minds to the problem. The Bill is vastly improved compared with when it left this place. I will support it wholeheartedly today on the basis that we will not draw a line under it and that will be the end of it; secondary legislation will be required to amend it further.”
“From my reading of the Bill, that does not appear to have been given proper consideration and we need to look at it in the secondary legislation. Since Grenfell and the publication of the original draft Bill, a raft of new high-density, multi-storey blocks of flats have been erected. Most of them now need fire remediation. I find it bizarre that developers would ignore all the suggestions of what needed to be done, but they have. We had an example earlier this year of a developer putting in a planning application for a 44-storey tower block in east London with only one stairway. It was outrageous, but it was only the intervention of the fire brigade and local residents that prevented that planning application from being approved. Another issue is the commonhold versus leasehold model.”
“In reality, the lower height properties do not have the compartmentalisation that high-rise flats have. As a result, there is a greater inherent fire risk in lower level designs. If a fire breaks out in one of those units, it is likely to spread rapidly across a broader range of properties. That is a serious fire risk and it needs to be remediated. I welcome the move from 18 metres to 11 metres, but it does not design out the original problem. We need to make it clear in the future that designing out such risks has to be paramount. Another issue is disabled access. One concern is that when disabled people have to leave a property to flee a fire, disabled access is not always available. That has to be taken into consideration.”
“I agree with my right hon. Friend, but let us make it clear that it should not be housing associations paying for the costs of remediation—it should be the developers who did the work in the first place, under instruction. If the developers are no longer in business or have retired, will housing associations have access to the building safety fund? That will be important, because—as Opposition Members have said—the cost will fall on those paying rent in housing association properties, and that is unfair. Will the Minister make sure that proper protection is given to the affordable homes programme? Otherwise we will not get the new properties developed that we all want to see to enable more social rented accommodation in this country. One change in the Bill is that from 18 metres in height to 11 metres.”
“I apologise for taking part in a bit of a pincer movement on the Minister. He mentioned the 30-year rule; there will be developers who say, “We built under the regulations that existed over those 30 years.” Are we going to say to those developers, “No. As a result of fire safety issues, you must remediate those buildings in line with the regulations that are now in place, not those that existed 30 years ago”?”