THE FIRE Safety Bill’s return to the House of Commons this week may see 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 – including remediating cladding. 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 Fire Safety Bill (FSB) which would ‘bar building freeholders from passing the costs of removing cladding or other fire safety work on to leaseholders’. Conservative MP Royston Smith, who co led the amendment, added: ‘Leaseholders bought their homes in good faith.
‘They would have trusted the developer to build a safe home, and they would have trusted the government to ensure that it conformed to the law. Today I’m asking the government to accept our amendment and, once and for all, tell the leaseholders it’s not their fault and they will not have to pay.’
His fellow Conservative MP and co leader of the amendment, Stephen McPartland, added that he ‘could not accept’ the loans proposal, as ‘having such debt on a property like that is not affordable’. Both were disappointed that Labour had ‘not simply supported’ their own amendment ‘which would then be close to a Commons majority’, though Labour said it would back it in a vote.
In response, Housing Minister Christopher Pincher said that an announcement would come ‘very shortly’, but the issue was ‘complex and involved many factors […] there is no quick fix; if there was then we’d have done it long ago’. A series of Conservative MPs told him that the funding released so far ‘would not be enough’, and that action ‘was needed rapidly’.
More recently, Mr McPartland and Mr Smith’s amendment had the backing of 38 Conservative MPs, meaning the government was ‘facing potential defeat’ on the issue. Mr McPartland said campaigners were making ‘huge progress’ towards ensuring leaseholders do not have to pay to ‘fix historic fire defects’, 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.
Mr Pincher had asked Mr McPartland to ‘withdraw’ the amendment because the government will ‘very shortly’ announce a financial situation, but Mr McPartland refused, and ‘made clear that any proposal involving loans for leaseholders would be unacceptable as it would see many effectively losing money through building up debt on their properties’.
The scale of the rebellion means that if two more MPs back the amendment to the Fire Safety Bill, it would pass. Mr McPartland said, when asked if Mr Pincher had offered enough: ‘Absolutely not. The housing minister asked us to drop our amendment because they’re frightened. And we now have 38 Conservative colleagues signed up to the amendment, so we’re making huge progress and we’re going to continue doing that.’
He accused Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick of ‘incompetence’, and suggested Mr Pincher ‘doesn’t seem to have a grip of the issue […] it’s almost like he doesn’t actually fully understand it’, citing the change of advice at the start of 2020 ‘meaning buildings of all heights became embroiled’ in the crisis – rather than just those over six storeys – as being ‘part of the problem. This meant 100,000 buildings – up from 1,700 – became affected, comprising over 4m flats.
Mr McPartland also noted that campaigners estimate between £20bn and £40bn is required to fix the crisis, because ‘even second-storey flats with wooden balconies are subject to the advice’, and he suggested changing the guidance to exclude properties on lower storeys, without including materials like wood and making more ‘risk based assessment[s]’ of individual blocks.
He added: ‘I think one of the things that people are missing is that a lot of people are trapped in a position where they cannot sell these properties. When we hear about [...] loans, I made it very clear in PMQs [prime minister’s questions] that I would not support loans to leaseholders.’
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.
Mr McPartland said he had listened to the announcement ‘with my head in my hands’ and saw it as ‘smoke and mirrors, to look as though we’ve tried to fix the problem, but it’s not going to do it’. He also noted that the funding would fail to cover fire safety costs beyond cladding, and called the loan scheme ‘unworkable’.
He added that ‘that £50 a month would take somebody 83 years to pay the bill off, and that’s just on cladding, never mind anything else. And is that on the flat, or on the individual? It just creates huge problems’. Mr McPartland also warned the government that 10 Downing Street should take over, and that the nearly 40 Conservatives who signed an amendment to the FSB, barring leaseholders from having costs passed onto them, showed ‘the level of support’ within the party.
He noted that 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’. 10 Downing Street ‘has to get involved and take a grip of this situation, because it’s clear, the department [the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government] doesn’t have a grip’.
Now, BBC News has reported on the vote taking place today as the FSB returns to the House of Commons, with Mr McPartland warning 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, with a spokeswoman stating: ‘We think the package we have come forward with is the right balance and will sort this issue for them and their constituents.’
Mr McPartland, writing on his website, said that the government’s proposed repayment cap covers cladding remediation ‘but not other costs’ including increased insurance premiums or sprinkler retrofitting. He added: ‘Leaseholders are being bankrupted by these costs in all our communities and cannot sell their properties with these debts attached.
‘We cannot abandon leaseholders to the crippling costs of massive insurance premiums, waking watch and remediation of defects which were not deemed unsafe when they bought their property.’
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’, adding: ‘This is an opportunity for the government to finally put the public’s safety first and to deliver on the promises it has made to leaseholders. Blameless victims of this crisis, who are living in dangerous homes and facing financial ruin, expect nothing less.’
However, BBC News pointed out that while Labour has given its support, the government’s large majority ‘and the fact that only English MPs can vote on the bill’ means that it is ‘unlikely to pass’.
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