Meeting of the Parliament 14 May 2024
I thank the members of the bill team and the minister for making themselves available to my Labour colleagues and me during the passage of the bill. I also thank the committee clerks and fellow members for their work in drafting the stage 1 report on the bill. I appreciate the time and effort from everyone who has contributed to the bill as it has made its way through the committee stages and, subsequently, to the chamber.
As elected members, we must be satisfied that the bill, like all bills that are put before us, is necessary, that it will improve outcomes for those affected and that it will make people’s lives safer and better. In this case, we also have to ask ourselves whether the bill, if passed, will help to prevent a Grenfell tragedy from happening again. It is horrifying that the Grenfell tragedy was not a one-off freak occurrence. The losses in Milan in 2021 and Valencia earlier this year show that, until we remove dangerous cladding from our buildings, we will continue to run the risk of more fires and more bereaved families mourning their loved ones.
For the bill to pass the tests that I have set out, it must get dangerous cladding off buildings more quickly than has been the case in Scotland up to now. My amendments were drafted in that context. They sought to streamline the process of entering buildings on to the register, to provide assurances to people about the types of action that had been carried out on buildings to remove cladding and to clarify some of the terms that are employed in the bill to help developers to know when action should be taken.
I commend the work of my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy and her efforts to ensure that the voices of residents are part of the process and that disabled people’s requirements are not ignored.
I recognise the minister’s efforts to engage with members through the legislation process, and I appreciate his assurance that he will use every tool that is available to him to handle the crisis in cladding in Scotland. That is welcome, but people have been waiting in properties that they could not insure, remortgage or sell—never mind the worry and stress of another Grenfell tragedy. They have been waiting in that situation for seven years now.
We know that removing dangerous cladding from buildings is complex. It has been the subject of working groups, regulations, standards and primary and secondary legislation in the United Kingdom and Scotland. However, underneath the noise, the politics, the meetings and the endless promises, we must not forget that seven years is far too long to wait for action for the vast majority of affected buildings.
I do not think that the bill will slow down the process of removing cladding, and I recognise the efforts that colleagues have made to ensure that the Government provides clarity and transparency on the way in which it claims that the bill will speed up the process. The bill, as amended, serves its purpose, but I believe that my amendments and those of my colleagues would have improved it.
I am still concerned that so much of the detail is left to secondary legislation. That seems to be symptomatic of the Government’s approach across many bills that we have seen, particularly in this session of Parliament. The approach seems to be to give Parliament the bare bones of a law to agree on in principle and then to promise to deliver the detail at some later point. That stifles proper consideration of policy, and it cannot replace debate on the detail of proposals.
We will support the passage of the bill at decision time. We believe that the bill is a welcome and overdue step to remove unsafe cladding from buildings. It will start to clarify the role of Government and developers and key aspects of regulations, which will be essential for remediation and removal of cladding in the future. However, much still needs to be done at pace to ensure that Scotland catches up with the rest of the UK in removing the threat of combustible cladding from people’s homes.
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