Hansard

It is a pleasure to close the debate for Scottish Labour. As we have heard, since the Grenfell tower tragedy, the Scottish Government has fallen behind the rest of the UK in making buildings safe. In England, the UK Government has completed work on 797 buildings, and the Welsh Government has completed work on 37, but the Scottish National Party Government has managed to complete work on just two. In the meantime, residents of 103 buildings in Scotland have faced unacceptable delays, have been unable to move, have been unable to get insurance and, most important of all, have been scared in their own homes. That is why we welcome action now, delayed though it is, and will support the bill at decision time.

I pay tribute to the residents and owners whose patience has been admirable and whose determination that the Government takes action has been unwavering. They have put up with so much but have kept going and kept pushing for more to be done. If the bill passes today, it will be because of their resolve.

The bill will pass in an improved state since stage 2 because of a more collaborative approach, as colleagues including Miles Briggs, Ariane Burgess and Willie Rennie have noted. Proposed changes to the bill from colleagues across the chamber have been accepted. However, it was disappointing that the Government did not accept some amendments that could have improved the bill further, including those from my colleague Mark Griffin that sought to clarify key concepts such as whether the bill should include details on what buildings are made of and a definition of tolerable risk, as set out in the committee’s stage 1 report. The amendments were quite basic, and I am disappointed that they did not garner the Government’s support.

I turn briefly to my amendments. Having listened to the experiences of owners and occupiers and having learned from the rights violations related to the Grenfell tower fire that Richard Leonard spoke about so passionately, I worked cross party, and I thank members for their support for provisions that will ensure that owners and occupiers of such buildings have a voice. I am pleased that the Government supported those amendments and others in the same vein from Miles Briggs and other members. In relation to the threat of a conflict of interest in the development of the single building assessment being mitigated by the bill’s operation, I welcome the minister’s commitments on the record.

My amendments to ensure that disabled people have access to a personal emergency evacuation plan in the event that remediation works are identified as being required for their building are particularly crucial, given the fact that 41 per cent of disabled people who were in the Grenfell tower when the disaster happened died. Often, people assume that disabled people will be fine, but they are often left out by default. My amendments will ensure that disabled people will be considered by design, which is why they matter. It is, indeed, a matter of rights.

In the letter that the minister sent me last week, he said that he does

“accept that there are specific considerations that must be explored within the context of the Cladding Remediation Programme”.

He also said that he is

“committed to ensuring that the needs of all homeowners and residents, including disabled people, are fully considered and addressed”

and that

“this must go beyond evacuation and recognise the need for accessible communications and the provision of person-centred advice and guidance as identified on a building-by-building basis.”

I am pleased that my amendment on that issue was agreed to, and I welcome the minister’s offer to work together to take things forward. I hope that his commitment will come good that, through regulations, personal emergency evacuation plans for disabled people who request one will be developed. He can be assured that I will be here to make sure that that happens.

I am hopeful that the work that we have all done together across the chamber on the bill, on behalf of the owners and occupiers of such buildings, will mean that they will finally get action and the peace of mind that they deserve.

We must never forget why we are here. In Grenfell tower, in 2017, 72 people tragically lost their lives, with others losing their livelihoods and loved ones. Willie Coffey reminded us that there have also been tragedies closer to home that have driven our need to act. We owe it to all those people and to the firefighters who work daily to save our lives to ensure that nothing like the Grenfell tower disaster ever happens again.

In the stage 1 debate, I said:

“time is of the essence.”—[Official Report, 12 March 2024; c 51.]

Upon the passage of the bill today, as my colleague Mark Griffin has implored, time will be of the essence once again. That is why the comments by Jeremy Balfour and other colleagues that we need to move apace must be heeded. It is imperative that the Government moves without delay. No stone should be left unturned, and no dangerous part of a building should go unfixed. The Government must now act quickly, transparently and engagingly in the interests of safety and of residents, because this is, indeed, about human rights. The owners and occupiers of such buildings have gone this long without their rights being prioritised or protected. I hope that that will now change and that buildings across the Glasgow region and the rest of Scotland can at last be made safe, with rights protected.