The findings and recommendations of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 report were discussed at a general debate at the House of Commons on Monday 2 December 2024, which also saw calls for a fundamental review of building regulations guidance
Opening the general debate was Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government Angela Rayner, who paid tribute to 72 lives lost in the Grenfell Tower tragedy, saying: “That day of truth must now lead to a day of justice.”
She reiterated the Prime Minister’s earlier commitment that the government would respond to all 58 recommendations of the report “within six months”.
She said: “There must be full accountability for the failures that led to the biggest loss of life in a residential fire since the Second World War. The Metropolitan Police will continue to have our full support as they carry out their independent investigation.”
Remediation Acceleration Plan and ‘Residential PEEPs’
Several building safety updates were announced during the debate, including the government’s Remediation Acceleration Plan (read the FPA’s news story here) and its response to the 2022 Emergency Evacuation Information Sharing Plus consultation, with details of a new ‘Residential Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan (PEEP)’ policy (read the FPA’s news story here).
Under the “ambitious measures to fix buildings faster”, Rayner said: “By the end of 2029, every residential building of 11 metres or over with unsafe cladding will either have been remediated or have a date for completion, or the landlord will be liable for severe penalties.”
Regarding the new emergency evacuation policy for vulnerable residents, Rayner stated that the government had committed to funding from next year “to begin this important work by supporting social housing providers to deliver residential PEEPs for their tenants”.
“Future years funding will be confirmed at the upcoming spending review, and statutory guidance has been updated to provide for evacuation alert systems in all new blocks of flats over 18 metres.”
She added: “This means that, with our most recent move to provide sprinklers in all new care homes—strengthening protections for some of the most vulnerable—we have now addressed all of the recommendations made by the Grenfell inquiry to the Government in its phase 1 report.”
Leadership from industry
Rayner also spoke of the need for a “generational shift in the safety and quality of housing” for all and called on industry to play its part:
“We now need leadership from industry to step up the pace on cultural change across the construction sector, but more crucially, we need a cultural shift that is about empowering people so that we put people and safety first, not profits. That is what needs to change. It is in that spirit, inspired by the Grenfell community’s incredible strength and tireless campaigning, that we will continue to push industry to deliver the necessary changes. Let me be crystal clear: we will be holding industry to account as closely as we need to. I know that Members across this House share my desire that this report be a catalyst for change.”
Rayner spoke of “new legal obligations for landlords” to remediate unsafe cladding with “severe penalties, including sanctions for inaction”, adding that the Building Safety Levy and repayment of government funds by developers would ensure that costs would not fall on the taxpayer. Referring to a new joint plan with developers to accelerate remediation, Rayner said that “developers are committing to achieve ambitious stretch targets to assess all their buildings by July 2025, and to start or complete remedial works on all their unsafe buildings by July 2027”.
She added that the government would also begin working with insurers to consider whether “for the duration of the remediation programmes, the Government might support industry to reduce fire-related liabilities to lower the high insurance bills that leaseholders face”.
Review of Building Regulations
There will be greater enforcement on those failing to remediate, Rayner said. She cited a recent case where the London Borough of Tower Hamlets successfully obtained a remediation order to remove unsafe cladding, adding “I expect to see many more in the future”.
New legislation would be proposed, with Rayner stating that the government had also “committed to a system-wide reform of the construction products regulatory regime, and why we will consult on robust sanctions, penalties, and liabilities against manufacturers.”
“I can update the House that we have made good on our pledge to write to organisations identified by the inquiry for their part in this tragedy. Organisations will hold different levels of responsibility, but I can announce that we will publish guidance early next year to support the first set of decisions that will stop the most appalling companies from being awarded Government contracts.”
Speaking about the current state of fire safety building regulations and the guidance set out in Approved Document B (ADB), Rayner said:
“As I have said, the system itself needs reform. Statutory guidance on building regulations covering fire safety and building design is now subject to continuous review by the Building Safety Regulator, but I want to go further. I can announce today that I have asked the regulator to undertake that a fundamental review of the building safety regulations guidance will be produced, updated, and communicated to the construction industry, because we must get this right.”
More information on the review can be found here.
Joe Powell, MP for Kensington and Bayswater, added that justice was more than contracts and criminal charges and went beyond Grenfell: “Across the country, up to a million people are still stuck in unsafe buildings. They are victims of the building safety crisis.”
He referred to the Phase 2 report’s scrutiny of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), adding: “It is essential that RBKC, residents, and Ministers agree on a plan to complete the refurbishment with transparency and accountability on budgets and timelines, because those residents have been living on a building site for far too long. It is not enough just to talk about change. Until the tenants of RBKC and the housing associations in my constituency are treated with respect and have access to what they are entitled to as a right, they will lack trust in the institutions that are meant to serve them.”
Clive Betts MP for Sheffield South East also noted that individual developers and the development industry had so far been “financially held to account”, but that product manufacturers had as of yet “not been asked to pay anything towards rectifying the buildings, and as the Grenfell inquiry showed, they are responsible for a lot of the problems”.
Betts later picked up the issue of product testing and a change in process for making all tests public. Shadow Secretary of State, Kevin Hollinrake, agreed, adding: “One of Martin Moore-Bick’s recommendations was exactly that: that all test results should be published, not just the ones that support the safety of the product. That would go a long way towards ensuring that the true safety of the products is established.”
Hollinrake added: “I welcome the Labour Government’s pledge to respond to all 58 recommendations within six months and to provide annual progress updates to Parliament. This is a critical moment for accountability and reform, and we stand ready to support all proportionate and necessary measures to protect public safety.” He went on to ask whether there would be a single construction regulator, with one Secretary of State holding end-to-end responsibility, as recommended by the Phase 2 report.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government (Local Growth and Building Safety), Alex Norris MP addressed some of the key talking points from the floor, including further responses that could be expected from the government soon:
“We have said that we will address the recommendations within the timeline to which we have committed, but we understand that systematic challenges in the building safety industry have been highlighted by the inquiry report, the Morrell-Day report, and the Hackitt review, all of which we will pick up as part of the process, because the whole system needs reform.”
Closing the debate, he added: “On identification, we have set up a ‘tell us’ tool through the cladding safety schemes, so residents can tell us directly. We are working very hard going through Ordnance Survey maps and doing all the line-by-line work needed to assess 175,000 building records by April—540,000 in total—to ensure we find all the buildings that have cladding defects, so remediation action can take place.”
“Today’s debate has been very important and has highlighted just how far we have to go, as the inquiry shows us. We still have thousands of buildings with unsafe cladding. We need a complete reversal if we are going to put people and safety first, ahead of profits, empower residents and hold those responsible for the safety crisis to account.”
You can watch the debate here.
You can access the full transcript here.