Meeting of the Parliament 12 March 2024
The purpose of a stage 1 parliamentary debate is to agree the general principles of a bill, and I think that we can all agree with the general principles of this bill. However, we are regularly lectured by Government ministers that we cannot will the end if we do not will the means to it. Well, Government ministers have had the means to this end now for years: Barnett consequentials of £97 million since 2021 and a further £300 million allocated—almost all of it unspent.
I pursued the previous cabinet secretary on this question, going back three years, because I have never understood the Government’s absolute indifference to the sense of urgency, which the rest of us get. Every day that goes by with no remedial action means another night for families—for children—not knowing whether they are going to be the next victims.
The Grenfell tower tragedy, which claimed the lives of 72 people, was nearly seven years ago and it is nearly three years since the Scottish Government started assessing high-rise blocks for fire safety risks, yet we know that, out of 105 affected buildings in Scotland, only one block on one site—Glasgow harbour—has had dangerous cladding removed, and only one block on one site has had any mitigation work carried out. No wonder the Fire Brigades Union told me yesterday:
“This lack of meaningful progress is reprehensible and continues to show contempt for those living and working in these buildings”.
So, I say to the minister, where is the sense of urgency? Where is the duty of care? If we are debating general principles this afternoon, what about the principle of keeping our people safe and secure? What about the principle of the rights to food, to clothing and to shelter? What about the principles of subsidiarity and of dweller control? What about the principle of people before profit? I can only conclude that too little attention is being paid to the interests of the people whose homes these buildings are and that too much attention is being paid to the vested interests of the industry, the professionals and the bureaucrats.
Back in December 2021, when I asked about resident and tenant participation, I was told—I quote the now Deputy First Minister—that
“No tenants or owner occupiers of high rise flats with high pressure laminate or aluminium composite materials are on the ministerial working group on building and fire safety.”
None—but wait. In that same parliamentary answer, I was informed:
“The Cladding Program stakeholder group does include an owner-occupier representative.”—[Written Answers, 5 January 2022; S6W-5042.]
One, out of 14 listed members of the group. What ministers need to grasp is that there is an unequal struggle here between the rights of citizens and residents and the power of the profit takers and the corporations—that this is not about welfare: people are not looking for private benevolence but for social justice.
This year is the centenary of the birth of Colin Ward, the great left-libertarian thinker on housing, who said:
“A goal which is infinitely remote is not a goal at all, it is a deception.”
It is a source of amazement to me that there has not been a popular revolt about this.
On some of the bill’s fundamentals, there are improvements that can be made. There should be a clear timetable for implementation within the bill. The details of the responsible developers scheme should be in this bill, not in regulation or other secondary legislation. Orphan developments must be covered—of course they must—and they should be treated equally. The establishment of a cladding assurance register is welcome, but it should not wait and it must be available for public inspection. What about local government and housing association properties? What about other public buildings that may be affected? What about other flammable materials, such as high-pressure laminate?
We owe it to the memory of those 72 people who died on 14 June 2017 and in the following days; to their families, who can never be compensated for their loss; and to people such as the firefighters who saved so many lives at Grenfell, who, we learned last year, are now themselves suffering from rare terminal cancers—some aged only in their 40s. For all of their sakes, we need to get this right, but getting it right should not mean taking our time. If we learned something over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is that doing the right thing as a community and acting in the right way as legislators can be done at speed. That is a lesson that I hope the minister and the Government will finally heed when Parliament votes for the bill tonight.
15:39