Meeting of the Parliament 12 March 2024
Absolutely. For so many people—whether it is those who gave evidence to the committee or our constituents—there is huge frustration about being kept in the dark for too long. Politicians talking about this is one thing, but the work to come up with solutions for the developers that will be tasked with making buildings safe and undertaking surveys must progress at pace. There must be constant reporting so that the issues are resolved and people can move on with their lives by selling their property, if they want to, or getting insurance.
Ensuring that people who live in the buildings have peace of mind is probably the most important aspect. We must never forget that, as many people have said, people’s homes are at the heart of the issue. As well as it being a stressful time for them, those affected feel that they have not been communicated with and that they have often been kept in the dark in relation to the issues affecting their homes.
It is clear from the committee’s evidence and discussions that there will need to be specific on-going management and factoring solutions for many buildings. Such issues are not within the scope of the bill, but the Government needs to take them forward.
Specifically, concerns have been raised about electric bikes and cars being stored or parked underneath buildings that have cladding issues. Ministers cannot ignore the management risk around that. Although that is not within the scope of the bill, I think that, as a result of the bill, ministers will need to introduce a factoring or safety management bill.
The UK Government has provided the Scottish Government with £97 million of Barnett consequentials to carry out assessments and remove dangerous material from buildings. On Friday, we learned from data that the Scottish Government published that it has spent only 7 per cent of that money, or just over £7 million, on identifying and removing dangerous cladding on buildings. That has been a failure to date by the Government. Scottish Conservatives will work hard and scrutinise the bill at stage 2. I hope that the Scottish ministers will work cross-party to make sure that the bill is as good as it can be for the people who we represent and who are looking to the Parliament for solutions.
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