DESPITE CROSS party support, amendments to the Fire Safety Bill (FSB) that would have protected leaseholders from remediation costs – and forced the government to implement recommendations from the Grenfell inquiry – were defeated.
The FSB’s return to the House of Commons this week was reported yesterday to have seen over 30 Conservative MPs join other parties in backing amendments to ensure leaseholders ‘will not have to pay for emergency fire safety work’. Earlier this month, Labour brought forward a vote and a list of proposals to parliament that aimed to protect leaseholders from paying for fire safety works.
A cross party debate then took place that saw Conservative MPs join Labour and other parties in ‘urging the government to act’. Conservative politicians warned their own party that ‘not enough was being done’ to help leaseholders, and while developers and manufacturers ‘should be pursued for costs’, they also urged the government to ‘step in immediately to prevent more people being presented with unaffordable bills’.
The vote saw the Conservatives ordered to abstain, with remaining MPs voting 263 to 0 to support the ‘non-binding motion’. Over 30 Conservative MPs had at that point signed an amendment to the FSB which would ‘bar building freeholders from passing the costs of removing cladding or other fire safety work on to leaseholders’. Conservatives Royston Smith and Stephen McPartland co led the amendment, and ‘could not accept’ the loans proposal the government has made.
More recently, it was reported that their amendment had the backing of 38 Conservative MPs, meaning the government was ‘facing potential defeat’, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson having ‘suggested he agreed’ in parliament, insisting that leaseholders ‘should not have to worry about the cost’ of fixing fire risks.
The scale of the rebellion had meant that if two more MPs had backed the amendment it would have passed. The announcement earlier this month by the government revealing a five point strategy that aims to ‘provide reassurance to homeowners and confidence to the housing market’ saw Mr Jenrick announce it would fund removal of combustible cladding ‘for all leaseholders in high-rise buildings’ above 18m.
However, the backlash over the plans saw Mr Johnson criticised by his own MPs, including Mr McPartland, who warned the government that 10 Downing Street should take over, and that the Conservatives who signed the amendment showed ‘the level of support’ within the party. He believed the top of the government was ‘worried by the strength of feeling inside the parliamentary party’ as a consequence, and that the exclusive focus on cladding costs ‘doesn’t help most people’.
Ahead of the voting yesterday, he warned the government that owners could face repair costs of up to £50,000 should the bill not be changed, though it was ‘hinted’ that the government ‘is unlikely to accept’ the amendment. Labour’s shadow policing and fire minister Sarah Jones said that the party would support the amendment, and called on the government to ‘do the right thing’, but BBC News warned that the government’s majority ‘and the fact that only English MPs can vote on the bill’ meant it was ‘unlikely to pass’.
The Guardian and Inside Housing have now reported that the amendment failed to pass, losing by 340 to 225, with all of the amendments defeated in a House of Commons vote that saw Labour accuse the government of moving ‘at a snail’s pace’ to tackle the cladding and fire safety crises. Other amendments defeated would have forced the government to implement key recommendations from the Grenfell inquiry, and to set up a national public register for fire safety.
Home Office Minister Kit Malthouse said that while the government agreed ‘with the intent to give leaseholders peace of mind and financial certainty’, and that the amendments were ‘well-intentioned’, they were ‘not sufficiently detailed’, and ‘could even delay repairs’, adding that the government planned to ‘tackle the question of who should pay’ in the Building Safety Bill (BSB).
He also noted that the FSB was ‘not the correct place for remediation costs to be addressed’, and that the BSB ‘is the appropriate legislative mechanism for addressing these issues’, stating: ‘It is unacceptable for leaseholders to have to worry about fixing historical safety defects in their buildings.’
On the inquiry amendment, he said the move was ‘unnecessary’ as the government intends to introduce the measures ‘through regulations’, adding that ‘I can reassure the Grenfell committee that the government remains absolutely steadfast in its commitment to implement the inquiry recommendations’.
He did not rule out a public fire safety register ‘in the future’, but said that ‘there is a need for detailed policy consideration prior to implementation of such a database, which makes us the wrong time to impose this in primary legislation’. Ms Jones called this ‘an absolute cop-out’, adding that she had heard ‘first hand’ from leaseholders of ‘the horrors this government is wilfully enabling’.
She stated: ‘If the government would say today: “we will commit to legislate to say leaseholders should not have to foot the bill”, we could accept that there’s a commitment there, but there isn’t… the words are said, but there’s no action to put it into law.’
Runcorn leaseholder Julie Fraser reacting to the news by noting that she faces a bill of up to £40,000 for a flat she purchased for £75,000, adding: ‘It’s dreadful. I don’t have another £40k to throw at the building. I may well have to go bankrupt.’
Another leaseholder, Abigail Tubis, faces an £80,000 bill, and said: ‘I have struggled for the last 18 months with coming to terms with this scandal. My days are filled with despair, regret and anxiety … I can’t have a family with the idea of bankruptcy over my head.’
UK Cladding Action Group’s co founder and leaseholder Rituparna Saha commented: ‘No fair-minded person believes it is right to force victims and taxpayers to pay billions of pounds to bail out the construction industry, cladding manufacturers, developers, building controllers and the regulators who caused this crisis to happen.’
Mr McPartland responded: ‘We never asked the government to pay for the full costs of remediation, we never asked for the taxpayer to bail people out. We just want the taxpayer to provide a safety net for leaseholders to ensure that fire safety works are actually undertaken.’
Mr Smith added during the debate: ‘In trying to help, Mr Deputy Speaker, this government has satisfied no-one and has upset just about everyone. The leaseholders are not responsible for this. They know they’re not. We know they’re not. The government knows they’re not. And therefore... the government’s position is now untenable.’
Fellow Conservative MP Bob Blackman also criticised Mr Malthouse’s claim that the BSB would deal with the issue, stating that it would ‘likely not come into law for 18 months’ and ‘leaseholders don’t have the time’. However, other Conservative MPs echoed Mr Malthouse’s concerns about slowing down the FSB.
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