Tag: Robert Jenrick

Below is the text of the statement made by Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, in the House of Commons on 21 January 2020.

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s Phase 1 Report.

It is now over two and a half years since the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower, and I believe I speak for all Members of this House when I say that we once again offer the 72 victims, the bereaved, the survivors and everyone affected our profound condolences. They remain in our thoughts and prayers. They seek answers, accountability, justice and action to ensure that this terrible tragedy is never repeated. That is why yesterday I set out our immediate plans to improve building safety in this country. Getting this right is a priority for this new Government and the Prime Minister, and it is something that I will personally be taking forward at pace.

Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way so early in his speech. He refers to the statement he made yesterday. I welcome the decision in that statement to consult on ensuring that building regulations are relevant to buildings of a lower height, but he talked about that being relevant to new buildings and not to existing buildings. He will know from the fire at Samuel Garside House in my constituency that that was an existing building, and that it went up in just six minutes. If the fire had happened in the middle of night, it could have led to huge loss of life. Fortunately it did not, but I ask him to consider whether the regulations should not also be relevant to existing buildings, as well as to new buildings of a lower height.

Robert Jenrick

I will come to that issue in a moment. The right hon. Lady and I have worked together on this and she has been a strong advocate for her constituents after the fire in Barking.

The announcement we made yesterday goes further. It says that we will be working with experts to develop a far more sophisticated measure of safety in buildings than simply the crude one of height alone that has existed for decades in this country. Once we have arrived at that, it will inform all the actions that building owners will have to take. It is the responsibility of building owners to take a view of building safety through an independent assessment of risk in that building that bears in mind all the characteristics of the building, whether it be the height, the residents in the building, the fire safety system or—as with the fire in Barking—balconies and other materials that are used on the building.

Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op) rose—

Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab) rose—

Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con) rose—

Robert Jenrick

If I could perhaps make some progress, I will come to the points around building safety in a moment and return to the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell).​

As I have said, getting this right will be a priority for the Government, for the Prime Minister and for myself. We will be introducing two Bills: one to deal with the immediate fire safety issues that we have identified, and another that will bring in the biggest change to building regulations in almost 40 years. Having met families of the bereaved and survivors, some of whom join us in the Gallery today, I remain acutely aware of our responsibility to ensure that they continue to receive the support they need and to see the change that they rightly demand. They have shown incredible resilience and acted not just with great dignity but with great courage. Their voices are being heard, and they must continue to be. On 30 October last year I stood in the House with the Prime Minister following the publication of the Grenfell inquiry’s phase 1 report, which covered the events of the night. Our immediate response was to accept in principle all the findings of the report that relate to the Government. Since then, we have worked at pace to deliver the Government’s response, which I am setting out today.

Sir Martin’s report provides a detailed, minute-by-minute account of what happened on the evening of 14 June 2017. It is built around the testimony of survivors and of the fire and rescue team involved in the response. The report made very important recommendations, including new duties for building owners; operational changes for the London Fire Brigade and, indeed, for fire and rescue services more widely, as well as for emergency services across the country; and addressing the continued presence of unsafe cladding on buildings.

Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)

Will the Secretary of State give way?

Robert Jenrick

If I may, I will come to my hon. Friend in a moment.

I will now turn to the actions the Government have taken since receiving the report. First, in response to Sir Martin’s findings that there was compelling evidence that the external walls on Grenfell Tower were not compliant with building regulations—this was an important finding—we are wasting no time in addressing this. The Home Office will introduce the fire safety Bill in the coming weeks so that the necessary changes are made as soon as possible. This Bill will leave building owners in no doubt that external wall systems, including cladding, and front doors to individual flats in multi-occupied residential buildings fall within the scope of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. This means that they must assess the risk and they must take precautionary measures to keep people safe. The fire safety Bill will also make clear the enforcement powers that can be taken locally against building owners who have not remediated unsafe ACM—aluminium composite material— cladding. This Bill will be the first step towards the new regulatory framework that will implement the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower inquiry phase 1 and the regulatory requirements to do so.

Lucy Powell

I thank the Secretary of State for the tone in which he is conducting this debate, and indeed in which he has been leading on these issues since he took over. Could he clarify whether this new body will mean that residents such as mine in Skyline Central 1, who are facing £25,000 bills each being passed on by the ​building owner, can have recourse back to the building owner, who would have to meet the cost of their now unsafe building?

Robert Jenrick

That will depend on the exact legal relationship in the building in question, and I am very happy to work with the hon. Lady to help investigate that. It is the responsibility of building owners to take action and, as she rightly mentions, many have for various reasons passed that on to leaseholders. I am acutely aware, as I said in the House yesterday, that some leaseholders feel trapped and unable to fund the mediation works that now need to happen, and that costs should not be a bar to that. As I said yesterday, we are now working with the Treasury to see if there are ways of providing financing to support those individuals.

Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)

I thank the Secretary of State for being generous with his time. On that very point, he mentions having conversations with the Treasury to look at different options—he said this in his statement yesterday—but is there any set timeline for the conversations that he will have with the Treasury on this point? I ask, because leaseholders have been in this position for two years and seven months, so the sooner we can resolve how to support them so that they do not to have to front the costs of any remediation works, the better. What is the timeline that he has with the Treasury to ensure that this can be sped up, because it has been over two years?

Robert Jenrick

I cannot give the hon. Lady an exact timetable, but it is worth saying that we have already—I will come on to this in my remarks—made available £600 million for building owners in both the social sector and the private sector. On expert advice, I have targeted that public grant funding towards ACM-clad buildings of over 18 metres. I will say again that all of the expert opinion I have seen has confirmed the decision that those are the most unsafe buildings and that they should be the priority for public funding. A number of building owners are already helping to remove cladding in their own buildings, and coming up with funding arrangements to help leaseholders to meet those costs, such as low-cost or zero-interest loan schemes. If the Government can assist in that, I think we should do so, because we want to see this cladding removed as soon as possible.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)

May I slightly extend that point, as these issues reach across the Floor? Since the terrible Grenfell disaster, people in a privately owned block of flats in my constituency have faced massively increased insurance costs. They have been unable to get anyone to give them a confirmed view about the cladding, or to receive information from the fire brigade about the real nature of the threat and danger. Everybody has run for cover, and as result those people have already spent a vast amount of money—they are not wealthy people. They have now been told that the cladding does not pose a threat, but they have a backwash of costs and are still affected by this issue. Will the Secretary of State consider whether insurance companies, and others, should have been charging leaseholders those extra costs until it had been confirmed that there was a real threat?

​Robert Jenrick

I would be happy to take up the individual case raised by my right hon. Friend, and the wider point. We are working closely with the insurance industry. This issue involves a range of materials, the most dangerous of which is ACM cladding, which was on Grenfell Tower. That has been the focus of public money. It is the responsibility of all building owners to have an independent assessment and ensure that the building is safe—it sounds as if that is what happened, perhaps belatedly, to the building in my right hon. Friend’s constituency. That assessment should provide the answers, after which remediation work, if necessary, needs to happen at pace. If I can help to support that in any way, I will.

Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)

This inquiry is not about finding blame; it is about finding causes and rectifying the situation. In this case, the problems that have been created regarding the wider building stock and liability are no fault of property owners, tenants or leaseholders, and that leaves a liability that falls on the Government, at least to a degree. Otherwise, there will be widening injustice, bankruptcy and failures across a whole sector of housing, because we are trying to remediate the failure of regulation in the past.

Robert Jenrick

The question at the heart of my hon. Friend’s remarks is what the judge will determine in the second phase of the inquiry. What went wrong that led to that cladding being on Grenfell Tower? Was it a failure of Government or of regulation of the construction industry, or a combination of those things? I do not think we can prejudge what the judge will determine over the course of the detailed second phase of the inquiry that is about to commence.

Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)

I have followed these matters over the past couple of years, and in my experience the Secretary of State has done more to try to resolve these problems than any of his predecessors, all of whom tried to tackle a thorny issue. He is right to say that ACM is probably the most dangerous cladding, and we should deal with that first. Advice Note 14 does not deal with ACM, but it does effectively say that other combustible materials should not be on the outside of high rise buildings. The official guidance was more equivocal than that, which leaves long leaseholders in a difficult situation with unsaleable properties—I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in that regard. We must consider this issue. Yesterday the Secretary of State said that he would look at doing more, and we will need to.

Robert Jenrick

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend who is a long-standing campaigner on this issue. Next month we will publish the final result of the testing process that my Department has been undertaking over many months with the Building Research Establishment. That will lay out for all to see evidence that I have already seen about the safety, or otherwise, of a range of different materials. I believe it will demonstrate that ACM is by far the most concerning material and should come off buildings as quickly as possible.

Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)

Will the Secretary of State give way?

​Robert Jenrick

I had better make some progress, but I will return to my hon. Friend in a moment.

The Bill we will bring forward later this year will be the first step towards the new regulatory framework that will implement the recommendations of the phase 1 report’s legislative requirements. Under the Bill, building owners and managers will be required to share information with fire and rescue services on external wall systems, and undertake regular inspections of flat entrance doors. The Home Office will consult on the detail of the proposals in spring this year.

That legislative action will address many of the inquiry’s recommendations and forms part of the wider Government response to ensure that action is taken against unsafe cladding. My Department has already introduced a ban on combustible materials on the external walls of new buildings over 18 metres, and, as I have said, made available £600 million in Government funding to support that work.

Sir Martin’s report concluded that it was not just the materials of the building that contributed to the tragedy: more people could have survived the fire had the London Fire Brigade conducted a full evacuation earlier in the night. He recognises existing Government guidance stating that fire and rescue services should have contingency plans for when a building needs full or partial evacuation, and noted that the London Fire Brigade policies were in this respect deficient.

Andy Slaughter

In the Minister’s statement yesterday there was not anything that I saw about evacuation and changes to the stay-put policy, which would be a huge change that would have implications for means of escape, alarms, sprinkler systems and so on. When can we expect the Government to pronounce on that?

Robert Jenrick

I will come on to that point in just a moment, if I may.

Sir Martin recommended that the Government produce national guidelines for carrying out the evacuation of high rise residential buildings. I am now working closely with colleagues in the Home Office on those guidelines. My Department and the Home Office have formed a steering group with the National Fire Chiefs Council and other experts, which met for the first time in December. The group agreed on the scope of an evidence review into stay put and evacuation. Let me reiterate, however, that the advice from the National Fire Chiefs Council is that stay put remains an appropriate policy providing compartmentation is maintained. In fact, Sir Martin highlighted that effective compartmentation is likely to remain at the heart of fire safety and the response to fires in high rise buildings. I think that that is an important point that we should all bear in mind in how we communicate on these issues to members of the public.

A number of recommendations made by Sir Martin were for the London Fire Brigade, and for fire and rescue services more widely across the country. The firefighters serving that night showed exceptional bravery and dedication. I would like to pay tribute to their courage, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister did last year. However, the report made very clear that there were failures in the London Fire Brigade’s response. Significant changes are needed in its policies, guidance and training, including on evacuation procedures. We know that fire ​and rescue services across the country need to have the training and processes in place to be able to respond as effectively as possible to fires in residential buildings. The control rooms that co-ordinate emergency responses must have the processes in place to deal with all incidents effectively.

I am pleased that London Fire Brigade has already rolled out fire survival guidance training, and is reviewing its policies and guidance in the light of the inquiry’s recommendations. It is important that all our emergency services have proper protocols in place to ensure that they can work together and communicate effectively in an emergency. The Home Office is working with the interoperability board to ensure that those lessons are learned. While these recommendations are not aimed directly at the Government, clearly the Government have a role and we will not sit back.

Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. As Home Secretary I chaired the board of JESIP, the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme. What is clear from Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s report, page 698, is that the protocol was not followed on the night of the Grenfell fire. He recommends changes to that protocol. Have the changes been put in place? Equally important, have frontline officers and staff of the three emergency services had the changes drawn to their attention, so that they know what they must do when they are working together in a major incident?

Robert Jenrick

My right hon. Friend makes a series of extremely important points. Those issues have been brought to the attention of all the emergency services; they are now working through them. The Home Office is helping to co-ordinate that work and, like her, I hope that those lessons are learned as quickly as possible so that if we are ever presented with a tragedy on this scale again all the emergency services can work together as one, in a co-ordinated way.

Fire and rescue services need urgently to address these issues and must set out their plans to do so. There have been some welcome developments, including, for example, that the London Fire Brigade now carries smoke hoods on its fire engines; that five pumps and a drone, rather than four pumps, are now deployed to fires in high-rise buildings; and that the London Fire Brigade has already taken steps to ensure that personnel understand the risk of fire taking hold in external wall systems. My hon. Friend the Minister for Crime, Policing and the Fire Service will address the House at the end of the debate on the work he is doing with the sector.

The work I have outlined shows the urgency with which we are addressing Sir Martin’s recommendations. The Government did not wait for the phase 1 report to begin addressing the most pressing building safety issues. We took immediate action in the aftermath of the fire with a comprehensive and independent review of building safety, chaired by Dame Judith Hackitt.

Bob Seely

It seems to me that ACM cladding, which my right hon. Friend addressed earlier, goes to the heart of the matter. How many high-rise buildings with unsafe ACM cladding have been identified and have had remedial treatment? How many others does he think still have to be identified, and what steps is he taking to do so?​

Robert Jenrick

We are working very closely with the social sector and private owners. I am afraid that, frustratingly, progress has been extremely slow, as my hon. Friend and others across the House know. The fund that we opened for the taxpayer to pay for the remediation has so far seen only four successful applications. However, there is evidence that progress is moving at a pace that we have not seen before. There are now only 10 buildings in the private sector that have not begun the process of remediating, which means drawing up a plan and beginning with or contracting workers who can come on site and take away the cladding. There are exceptional circumstances with all those 10 buildings because, unfortunately, they have been identified only recently as having ACM cladding, so they have come to the process only over the course of the autumn. I want that work to proceed at a pace that we have not known before. As I said yesterday, we are now commissioning an independent building safety construction expert to advise my Department on how we can get that moving very quickly.

It was clear to me when I became Secretary of State—this was confirmed by Sir Martin’s report—that we need to go further to bring forward a series of very significant reforms and ensure that the work moves at pace. In response to Dame Judith Hackitt’s report, we are creating, immediately, the new building safety regulator. As I announced yesterday, we have chosen that that will be established within the Health and Safety Executive. The new regulator will raise building safety and performance standards. It will oversee a new and more stringent regime for high rise buildings and for higher risk buildings more generally.

Non-compliance is an issue in the industry, and the building safety legislation announced in the Queen’s Speech will ensure that the new regulator has the appropriate powers to sanction those responsible. This is a new and significantly tougher regime, underpinned by improved enforcement, dedicated to ensuring that our buildings are made with the necessary high safety standards and that the people within them always feel safe.

Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)

My right hon. Friend refers to people who suffered from the fire. Can he confirm how many of those families are still waiting for permanent housing? If there are any, what is he doing to find them a permanent home speedily?

Robert Jenrick

Of the households who lived in Grenfell tower, 10 are yet to move into permanent accommodation. Of them, one is in hotel accommodation; the others are in high-quality temporary accommodation. Without going into the personal details of each household, which would not be appropriate, I can tell the House that I have personally reviewed the circumstances behind each of them, and my right hon. Friend the Housing Minister and I have worked closely with Kensington Council to review them again several times since coming to office. They are complex cases with a range of individual circumstances behind them, but we are hopeful that many of them will move into accommodation in which they feel comfortable as soon as possible.

Yesterday, I announced a series of new measures, including the appointment of a construction expert, to quicken the pace of the remediation of ACM cladding. ​I announced that I was minded to lower the height requirements for sprinklers in residential buildings from 18 metres to 11 metres, and I will set out a full proposal on how we intend to deliver that in February.

As I have stated, I have had the privilege of meeting survivors and their families and friends as well as people from across the community of north Kensington, and from the schools, such as Kensington Aldridge Academy and St Francis of Assisi Catholic Primary School, that provide a safe and caring space for children affected by the tragedy to reflect and remember their loved ones, to the worshippers at the Al-Manaar north Kensington mosque, who came together to support the community after the fire and continue to do so. One thing has been clear to me: this is a community of people who look after one another, who will continue to support one another and who will never forget what happened on the evening of the fire.

We owe it to them to ensure that their views are heard throughout our work, that justice is delivered and that the system is changed so that such a tragic fire can never happen again. That means reforming our building safety regime, but it also means reform of social housing to ensure tenants’ voices are heard and that their landlords provide good-quality, safe accommodation with strong and robust sanctions in place to hold them to account where that does not happen.

The Prime Minister and I have committed to bringing forward a social housing White Paper. This will set out further measures to empower tenants, hold social landlords to account and support the continued supply of social housing. This will include measures to provide for greater redress and better regulation and to improve the quality and safety of social housing.

Lucy Powell

Most people would welcome the White Paper the Secretary of State has just announced, but will he consider extending it to those living in private blocks? Many more people are now living in high rise blocks in city centres such as mine, but leaseholders have no rights against the building owners and very little recourse, and there is no teeth when the leasehold valuation tribunal or any other body finds in their favour. The need of private tenants and leaseholders for recourse is just as great.

Robert Jenrick

The hon. Lady makes several important points. Much of the work of the social housing White Paper will apply to private leaseholders, and of course we have a separate stream of work on reforming leasehold. We have already said we will shortly publish a draft Bill on leasehold reform, and we await the further reports from the Law Commission and then in time from the Competition and Markets Authority on leasehold, which will inform our work and I hope lead to significant legislation to reform the leasehold market later in this Parliament.

Dame Margaret Hodge

I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way again. As he will remember, one of the issues that arose from the fire in Barking was the fact that none of the leaseholders had household insurance, so when they lost all the contents of their homes or the contents were damaged they had no recourse to insurance to replace them. Is he giving any consideration, in any of these reforms, to introducing a system whereby not only is building insurance imposed ​on leaseholders—presumably in social housing that would be covered by the local authorities—but victims of fires do not end up losing all their belongings and having no money with which to replace them? These are people on the edge who really are finding it hard to manage.

Robert Jenrick

I did look into that issue when the right hon. Lady raised it after the fire in Barking. I am acutely aware of the number of individuals who do not have household insurance—that was brought home to me after the floods in Doncaster last year, when we encountered many households that did not have it. I do not think that it is for the state to intervene—I am not sure how practical it would be for household insurance to be provided centrally, regardless of the value of the contents of individuals’ homes—but I am happy to think again, and to speak to the right hon. Lady if that would be helpful.

My Department continues to hold regular meetings with the crucial stakeholders, including Grenfell United, to discuss our emerging proposals, and to ensure that the reform we are introducing is what is needed to deliver meaningful change. I am grateful for their engagement and commitment. It was at their request that we did not rush to publish the social housing White Paper, but are continuing to work with them to ensure that they will—I hope—be able to support it in due course. I will report back to the House shortly with our conclusions.

We know that for the families, the relatives and the survivors, change cannot come quickly enough, and we know that there is still a huge amount to do. We have heard that already, in the opening of this debate. The recent fire in Barking and the fire in Bolton at the end of last year only serve to remind us of the urgency with which we must act, and will continue to guide our work.

Phase 1 of the inquiry was just the first part of a complex process to uncover the truth of what happened. Next week, phase 2 hearings will begin as the work of the inquiry continues. Those hearings will help us to understand how the building was so dangerously exposed to the risk of fire. I have no doubt that Sir Martin will leave no stone unturned in his work. There will be tough questions for those involved in the refurbishment of the tower, and for the manufacturers of the materials used; but there will also be questions for central and local government to respond to, and I will support the work of the inquiry in any way I can.

We also continue to work alongside others to bring about changes that will protect the public, and I will ensure that further updates on the steps taken to implement the chairman’s recommendations are shared with the House at the earliest opportunity.

Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)

As has already been noted, a number of survivors and families from Grenfell are present today. They will be looking for leadership from both their local council and this place. Can the Secretary of State reassure us that he will continue to speak to all the people and organisations involved in the north Kensington area?

Robert Jenrick

I will certainly make that commitment to the bereaved, to the survivors, and to the community of north Kensington. I have met a number of those groups on a number of occasions since becoming Secretary ​of State, and last week my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I met a group of survivors, bereaved people, local residents and members of the community.

I think that I speak for the whole House in once again offering the bereaved and the survivors our most profound condolences. Their pain and loss were unimaginable to us. We owe it to them, and to all whose lives have been affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower, to match these sentiments with action, on a scale and at a pace commensurate with the tragedy, and to do everything in our power to ensure that this never happens again.

Below is the text of the statement made by Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, in the House of Commons on 20 January 2020.

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on the major package of reforms to the building safety system that I am announcing today.

The Government are committed to bringing about the biggest change in building safety for a generation. We took action to address the fire safety risks identified following the Grenfell Tower tragedy, and in the autumn we committed to adopting in full the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower inquiry phase 1 report. We will shortly publish our response to the phase 1 report, and a full debate is scheduled tomorrow for the House to discuss this important issue at length. The focus of this statement will be on the wider programme of building safety reforms and the work that I am leading to ensure that everyone is safe, and feels safe, in their own home.

The Government have already taken steps, including on aluminium composite material remediation, to tackle fire safety, but as that work continues, it becomes ever more evident that problems have developed over many decades, leading to serious incidents and the risk of further loss of life. This is completely unacceptable. It is clear that the problems will take many years to put right, but all of us—building owners, the construction industry, local authorities, the fire service and the Government—have an absolute duty to ensure that action continues to be taken as quickly as possible so that a tragedy such as the one at Grenfell Tower can never happen again.

There has been progress, but it has been unacceptably slow, so today I am setting out reforms that go further, and I intend to ensure that they do so faster. First, we will begin immediately to establish the new building safety regulator. This new regulator will be established within the Health and Safety Executive, which is an experienced regulator and is committed to introducing the new regulatory regime at pace. Ahead of legislation, the regulator will initially be in shadow form, and I am pleased to announce that Dame Judith Hackitt will chair a board to oversee the transition to this new regime. I expect the shadow regulator to be established within weeks, and we will be recruiting the first national chief inspector of buildings.

Secondly, our consultation on sprinklers and other measures for new build flats has now closed. I am carefully considering the responses and evidence received, but I can inform the House today that I am minded to lower the height threshold for sprinkler requirements in new buildings from 18 metres to 11 metres. Subject to further consideration, I will set out my detailed proposals in that respect in February.

Thirdly, we banned the use of combustible materials in the external walls of high-rise buildings in December 2018. My Department concluded a review into the ban’s effectiveness, and today I am announcing a consultation on the ban, again going significantly further, including by lowering the 18 metre height threshold to at most 11 metres.

Fourthly, my Department, with support from the independent expert advisory panel, has provided advice for building owners on the steps they should be taking ​to address a range of safety risks. We have listened to feedback, and I am today publishing updated advice that will provide the further clarity they have sought. This advice brings together 22 separate advice notes into one consolidated document.

There is evidence that there has not been enough focus among building owners on buildings below 18 metres. The expert panel has decided to clarify that more action is needed to review the risks in buildings below 18 metres, and owners of those buildings should review the advice and take action where needed. I want to be clear with the House that it has never been the case that, simply because a building is below 18 metres, owners are exempt from ensuring the safety of their residents. The requirement on building owners is to make sure buildings of any height are safe, and I expect all owners to be acting responsibly.

The panel’s new advice makes clear that ACM cladding with an unmodified polyethylene core should not be used on buildings of any height. This reflects the evidence from the materials research programme, which to date has confirmed that ACM presents a much higher risk than any other materials tested when used on the external walls of buildings.

The consolidated advice note also clarifies the actions building owners should now take in relation to fire doors. I welcome the commitment from members of the Association of Composite Door Manufacturers to work with building owners to remediate their doors that have failed tests, and we will continue to monitor the situation closely.

Fifthly, I am today publishing a call for evidence seeking views on the assessment and prioritisation of risks associated with external wall systems, such as cladding, within existing buildings. For many years, we have relied on crude height limits with binary consequences, and it is clear to me that this approach to assessing risk does not reflect the complexity of the challenge at hand. I have concluded that we need a better, more sophisticated system to underpin our approach. Height will remain a significant and material factor, but it will sit alongside a broader range of risk factors. I am therefore today commissioning leading experts in the field to develop, as quickly as possible, a sophisticated matrix of risk that will replace the historic system and underpin our approach to future regulatory regimes.

Sixthly, while I welcome recent progress, remediation of unsafe ACM cladding, especially in the private sector, is still far too slow. This absolutely cannot continue, particularly when funding is now being provided by the taxpayer. Although all unsafe ACM cladding now has mitigation safety measures in place where required, I do not underestimate the concern of residents living in buildings where remediation has not even started.

The latest data show that, out of 92 buildings in scope, 82 applications have been made to the private sector ACM cladding remediation fund, and that the 10 for which applications have not been made have exceptional circumstances, which I have reviewed. However, an application to the fund is not an end in itself; that can never be sufficient. Construction work to remediate these buildings should be proceeding as quickly as possible. We will therefore be appointing an independent construction expert to review remediation timescales and identify what can be done to increase the pace in the private sector.​

Inaction must have consequences. From next month, I will name those responsible for buildings where remediation has not started and remove them from the public list only when it has. My Department will be working with the relevant local authorities to drive enforcement where necessary. The Home Secretary will deliver the fire safety Bill and associated regulatory changes in order to enable delivery of the recommendations of the Grenfell inquiry phase 1 report. The proposed Bill will place beyond doubt that external wall systems, including cladding and the fire doors to individual flats in multi-occupied residential blocks, fall within the scope of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. These changes will affirm the ability to enforce locally against building owners who have not remediated unsafe ACM buildings. Building owners and developers who have not already taken action must do so now. Further delay is not acceptable.

Finally, I am aware of the concerns of leaseholders about meeting the cost of remediation. As I do not want cost to be a barrier to remediation, I am considering, with Her Majesty’s Treasury, options to support leaseholders. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor and I will set out further details in due course.

The safety of people in their homes is paramount. Through the reforms that I have outlined today, I want to make it clear that this Government will not falter in doing whatever it takes to ensure that all buildings and all residents are made safe. I commend this statement to the House.

Below is the text of the statement made by Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, in the House of Commons on 9 January 2020.

Today I am announcing the opportunity for towns across England to compete in a new town of the year competition. The competition aims to celebrate towns’ achievements in areas such as entrepreneurship, technology, community, enterprise, and integration. This will help deliver on the Prime Minister’s bold agenda for the future, making this decade a time of renewal for towns and communities.

In the months ahead, I will complete a countrywide tour of all the 100 areas receiving funding under the £3.6 billion towns fund. This will ensure these places are ​receiving the practical support and investment they need on the ground so we can help local communities to deliver real change.

Some £16 million of funding has now been delivered to local authorities to help develop new innovative proposals in the 100 areas across England, as part of the towns fund. Each place will have the opportunity to bid for funding of up to £25 million.

To assist with this, I will establish a new towns hub’ within my Department, which will work to develop each town’s investment proposals. The hubs, based across the country will have a named representative from the Department, supporting local people on the development of their plan. They will also evaluate the emerging town investment plans, share best practice across towns and build on the towns fund investments for potential future support to towns from across Government.

Finally, today I am also announcing a new expert-led advisory panel, which will be convened to advise on how we can revitalise our towns over the next year. The specialists, including entrepreneurs and people who have delivered real change, will help shape this Government’s policy to support the growth agenda.

These announcements reaffirms out the Government’s ambition to level up the country. It sets out how we will help restore the fabric of our towns and cities and give local people far more control in how they are invested in, and to hear directly from people in these communities on the specific support and investment they need.

Below is the text of the speech made by Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, at Policy Exchange on 23 October 2019.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, it’s a real pleasure to be here today.

When I walk into my office at the Ministry of Housing each morning, there is a wall of portraits of some of the great reforming ministers who’ve held my office in the post-war era. From Harold McMillan, Sir Keith Joseph to Michael Heseltine.

I think that some of them have set out to build more homes, some to reform our undoubtedly complex and convoluted housing and planning system and some have used this office to breath new life into communities. Whether that’s London’s Docklands or inner city Liverpool.

I take inspiration in different ways from each of them and many of their different achievements. And if I am given time to do so – which is not a given in this job, as their do seem to be quite a lot of housing secretaries – I’ll seek to carry forward in different ways those different torches that they’ve brought forward themselves.

Another of my predecessors, John Prescott, in a classic of the genre that he created of inadvertent phrases, he said when he was addressing a Labour Party Conference as Housing Secretary that the green belt was a great post-war achievement, and I intend to build on it.

That isn’t one of my priorities, Number 10 will be pleased to hear if they’re listening to this speech. But I do want to build upon some of the great things some of my predecessors have achieved when they’ve really tried to reform the housing market.

But today I want to make an argument that I would suggest has not exercised the considerable talents and imagination of my predecessors nearly as much as one might have wished.

Not, how many homes? Not, where do we build the homes? Or even, for whom are we building homes? Although, it’s not unrelated to those very important questions. But, what do those houses actually look like? How do they relate to each other? How are those houses homes? And how do we collectively create places where people can actually build good lives?

And I’d like to thank Policy Exchange and Create Streets for giving me the platform to do so today. Policy Exchange, under Dean’s formidable leadership and Create Streets under Nicholas Boyd-Smith’s very prescient guidance, has developed an argument, which you are now very familiar with; to coin a phrase, for a “kinder and gentler”, a more humane, more beautiful architecture. And above all an argument that appears to be winning.

It’s an argument which appears to be turning the tide on the post-war vision of housing.

When I was first appointed just a few months ago I was sent a letter by the Prime Minister congratulating me and he pointed out a phrase in Kenneth Clark (not the MP for Rushcliffe, you won’t be surprised to hear), but the author of that seminal series from my childhood, Civilisation.

A phrase that he said that:

“If I had to say which was telling the truth about society, a speech by a Minister of Housing or the actual buildings put up in his time, I would believe the buildings.”

And I think that was a challenge to me, not to just make fine speeches, but to be judged on the types of buildings that are built whilst we’re lucky enough to be in office.

And that’s the challenge that I’m going to take up today.

RIBA Stirling Prize

Earlier this month, I was at the RIBA Awards to help announce the winners of the Stirling Prize for the building that has made the greatest contribution to the evolution of architecture in the past year.

As I’m sure some of you will know who follow these things, the winner was Goldsmith Street in Norwich and that became the first-ever social housing scheme to win the Stirling Prize.

These are very beautifully designed homes and they meet the exacting Passivhaus standard for energy efficiency with state-of-the-art insulation, triple-glazed windows, and high-tech fans blowing fresh air in and stale air out.

They come with high ceilings, spacious bedrooms, fibre-optic broadband, garden lawns, parking, communal greens with flowers, plants, benches and safe play areas for children.

It really is a superb development that is deserving of the award.

But I was struck by how, what was actually being celebrated, was remarkably simple. It was even ordinary.

There was even a moment where the architect who presented the award said, “isn’t it wonderful that these houses have front doors.”

They were terraced houses with doors on streets lined with trees. Things which most people in this country will consider to be pretty straightforward, ordinary features that have existed for hundreds of years.

And, it made me realise that over the last few years many developers, many architects, and, yes, most governments, have suffered from what can only be described as collective amnesia.

We’ve forgotten what it means to build beautiful homes and create beautiful places.

We’ve forgotten the basics of building attractive homes which people can actually take pride in and care for.

The sorts of homes where people want to raise their children, to grow old together, can be good neighbours.

Places which are designed with communities where people can live and pay respect to the identity and heritage of their area.

So Goldsmith Street is not just living proof that new buildings can be attractive and environmentally friendly, important those objectives are and which I’ll return to in a moment, it is I think a reconnection with common sense.

The research that my department has been doing shows very vividly, what you heard from Dean in his brief introduction, that unsurprisingly, people care about quality. They care about beauty, they care about a sense of place.

Almost 70% of people who believe new homes are well-built are more likely to support development in their local area.

And unsurprisingly, it’s the same story when we talk about the design of places.

The research suggests that the vast majority of people now feel that new build houses must be well designed and if they are, they are far more likely to support new homes being built in their neighbourhood than those who feel that the new houses are likely to be ugly or not in keeping with their local environment.

So if we want to meet the challenge of the housing crisis, we have to make sure that the new homes we build are beautiful, good quality, safe and part of real, functioning communities.

So what are we actually going to do? How are we going to take up the mantle that has been provided to us by Create Streets and Policy Exchange and many others, some of which are represented in this room.

The NPPF, BBBC and National Design Guide

It’s now time for government to play its part. We are going to begin that process by creating the first National Design Code.

We’ve already made some important steps in this regard.

As you know, we’ve revised National Planning Policy Framework, to make clear that creating high-quality buildings and places must be at the heart of the process.

The Framework expands on the fundamental principles of good design to define what is expected of local authorities and developers to support the creation of beautiful places.

It also provides guidance for local authorities to explain how planning policies and decisions could facilitate this.

My predecessor, James Brokenshire, appointed the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission under Nicholas’s leadership along with the great Sir Roger Scruton, to advise the government on how best to promote and increase the use of high-quality design for new build homes and neighbourhoods.

Their interim report, published in July this year, has set out over 30 propositions, including ones to encourage greater community involvement in shaping new homes…

…creating the kinds of places in which people genuinely want to live.

They’ll be reporting back later this year and I’m confident that we will be taking forward their recommendations.

But I think we can go significantly further than that. And that’s where I hope my new National Design Code will come in.

We’re going to be using this to set out a very clear model for the first time for promoting good quality design and the style of homes and neighbourhoods that people actually want to see across the country, not set by edict in Whitehall but shaped by local people.

I want these local Design Guides, which every local authority will be asked to create, to actually become the product of listening to local groups, considering local tradition and embedding in these codes and then in turn embedding that in planning policy, making it a legal right for local people to demand these standards.

And I think these codes will turn out to be quite simple. They’ll set for example, a presumption in favour of homes on streets; homes with front doors; homes with fronts and backs; homes with quality facades; roofs in line with local tradition; concerns for local vernacular and heritage. And a presumption, for the first time, in favour of tree-lined streets.

In the last month, we’ve also launched our National Design Guide introducing the national gold standard to which local authorities should adhere and use as an essential reference when designing their own tailored guides in due course.

The National Design Guide illustrates how well-designed places that are beautiful, enduring and successful can be achieved in practice.

I think there’s a great deal more we can go beyond this and I think we only have to look to some of the great visionaries of the past, people who created beautiful towns and cities in the not too distant past.

People like Ebenezer Howard and Henrietta Barnett who created places people now love and cherish. We want to build upon this.

I want to see today’s developers, architects and designers striving to be the Howards and Barnetts of our time – to create green neighbourhoods of the future with social wellbeing, belonging and community cohesion at their heart.

And leaving a green legacy that future generations will thank us for. So we have to set our sights high.

Alongside good quality design and placemaking, we also have to ensure that these new developments are actually gold standards for sustainable, environmentally friendly homes which, like our garden cities of the past, will actually stand the test of time.

Future Homes Standard

In this regard, we are paving the way for our Future Homes Standard that I was able to announce just a few weeks ago.

The consultation we’re running here, which will last until the beginning of next year, will have stronger building regulations to ensure that every new home that’s built in this country from 2025 will have low or zero-carbon emissions and the highest levels of energy efficiency.

And we’re clear that developers will now need to do their bit in tackling the threat of climate change, embracing new technologies, such as air source heat pumps and the latest generation of solar panels.

It’s through these reforms that we can create the future-proof homes that people really need.

Because it’s only by taking a longer-term view that we can begin to re-establish that integral link between people and places. Between community and identity.

Whatever one’s view of the referendum, no one can deny that the country’s decision to leave the European Union has also brought to the fore many of the underlying social and economic divisions that we always knew existed, but which successive governments have failed properly to address.

And it’s those divisions which have, to some extent, been born out of people feeling disillusioned and disconnected from the decision-making that affects their day to day lives.

Now none of these problems can be solved overnight. Our increasingly polarised society won’t be brought together in an instant.

But there are real practical steps we have taken to put local people at the forefront of decision-making and to give them a greater say in how their neighbourhoods develop so that it reflects the true identity of their communities.

More people than ever before now have a direct place-making role in their local area, with over 2,600 different groups having started the neighbourhood planning process since 2012.

That means millions of people taking ownership of their neighbourhoods, defining what is important to them and making sure that actually happens.

And as Secretary of State I intend to take that forward, putting plan-making at the heart of our planning system and ensuring that those plans have quality of design and have the environment at their absolute heart.

This also brings me on to another area I want to take forward as Secretary of State.

Protecting our heritage

It shows what we can achieve when we put power directly into people’s hands.

But it also I think shows that to create real places, they have to have a sense of identity and that means protecting their past.

I want to encourage local communities and heritage groups to get far more involved in identifying the historic buildings in their area…

… so they can be at the heart of the process of recognising, defining and protecting the buildings they truly value.

Because we know that, where buildings are on local or national heritage lists, they are often shielded from development.

And that, again, builds consent for development and builds better communities.

Until now, this has mostly been the domain of our local planning authorities.

But only 50% of planning authorities even have these lists, and where they do, they are often out of date or incomplete.

This isn’t good enough.

Protecting the historic environment must be a key function of the planning system.

All local planning authorities must play a far more proactive role in supporting local communities and heritage groups to identify and to protect more historic buildings.

In the 1980s, Michael Heseltine reinvigorated our national heritage lists. And now I want to complete that work and to do the same at the local level.

As a first step, I am announcing, what I think will be the most ambitious new heritage preservation campaign since Michael’s work 40 years ago.

We will start with 10 English counties and support them to complete their local lists and to bring forward more suggestions for the national statutory lists as well.

It will see local people coming forward to nominate the buildings and community assets they cherish – protecting them for future generations.

We’re backing this programme with £500,000 of government investment – giving counties the tools, funding and expertise they need to shift their approach to heritage and conservation up a gear.

To help us do this, we will appoint a National Heritage Advisor to support this vital work and to make sure that Government is actually delivering. I want to thank Marcus Binney, Simon Jenkins and the SAVE team for their input and inspiration for this initiative.

We hope this will help boost conservation efforts in these counties, enabling fresh engagement with local communities and heritage groups.

But our work doesn’t stop there.

We are also working with the Department for Culture and with Historic England on developing an entirely new heritage conservation programme. We are going to be be supporting Historic England to develop a new process to enable faster community nominations of important heritage assets in the new Heritage Action Zones.

This builds on the £95 million fund government announced earlier this year to unlock the economic potential of 69 historic high streets. We’re determined the ensure that these places can once again be refreshed and renewed and given new life.

At the heart of this will be local people as well as a new team of heritage activists, what we want to call the modern day Monument’s men and women who will be working across England to find these buildings and get them listed, locally or nationally as soon as possible.

Heritage and sustainability

Our new heritage preservation campaign also supports that wider shift we’re seeing in society…

…that focus on sustainability, and how we can protect communities and our planet.

Today, there is more recognition than ever that we must be building to last.

Research shows that the construction, demolition and excavation of old homes generates around three-fifths of total UK non-hazardous waste every year – which is a staggering figure.

For the country to cut its carbon footprint, drive sustainability and meet our net-zero targets, all of us – in industry and in government – have a responsibility to promote the re-use of existing buildings.

The ill-fated programme of demolition and destruction pursued by government’s of the past resulted in thousands of well-built, pre-1919 terrace houses, for example, being needlessly destroyed.

In great cities like Liverpool, the Housing Market Renewal Initiative resulted in property prices sharply increasing while putting important historic buildings, like the birthplace of Ringo Starr, under threat.

Today, developers are rediscovering the value in the renovation and refurbishment of Victorian terraces.

Like the Welsh Streets of Liverpool, streets that were under serious and needless threat of being knocked down. These are now in a new wave of regeneration and renewal.

We also need to be ambitious, creative and imaginative in repurposing commercial and public buildings.

I think of examples like the redevelopment of the HMS Daedalus site in Lee-on-the-Solent.

After the Second World War, this naval site included several beautiful Victorian buildings. It was used as a technical training facility for the Royal Navy before falling into disrepair.

Demolition seemed the only viable option until developers came forward with proposals to uncover the base’s rich history – converting the derelict buildings into new homes and apartments with all of the car parking and landscaping it needs.

I hope examples like this will be taken forward by developers across the country – bringing historic buildings back into life, making them useful for communities.

I will certainly be supporting initiatives likes that, through the planning system and through my powers as Secretary of State. Bringing new purpose to brownfield land to historic buildings, to get people back to living in empty homes.

Housing supply

I think these examples show us that we can reconcile two extensible posing challenges. How we can design beautiful, eye-catching homes whilst also building at scale, at pace and at low cost.

Critics would have us believe that these challenges cannot be solved simultaneously.

I think that cynicism is wrong and unfounded.

What we’ve seen in some of the country’s largest and most successful recent developments, from Northstowe in Cambridgeshire to the Stonebridge homes of Yorkshire, to the wonderful redevelopment around King’s Cross…

… is that design which speaks to an area’s heritage, its history and its identity is universally popular.

In fact, it is only beautiful design, in-keeping with an area’s existing aesthetic and sensitive to local concerns, which unlocks public consent for new development…

Which saves costly delays from legal challenges and frees up developers to get on and the build the homes we need.

For too long there has been a misconception in the housebuilding industry that quality is the enemy of supply.

In fact, experience shows us that it is those developments of the highest quality and the most attractive designs which are approved faster, sell faster and which are the most enduringly popular.

The exciting technological innovation currently taking place across the sector through Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) makes it easier than ever before for architects, designers and builders to integrate beauty into their plans without compromising on delivery.

The great package of measures the government has introduced in the last 10 years to:

simplify the planning process;

bring forward brownfield regeneration; and

set the housebuilding industry free

which I believe has to just be the first steps, has resulted in a record number of homes being built.

However, we know that we need to go further. This year likely it will be the year we build more homes than any year, bar-one, in my adult lifetime.

Conclusion

But we must go much further and faster.

It means that even our target of building 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s may not be ambitious enough.

To do this, we have to embrace technology, the technology being brought forward for the digital age, to make homes built faster.

But I think we also need to renew our enthusiasm for quality design in the supply of homes so we can build a greener and a better Britain.

That’s the challenge I will be taking forward as Secretary of State. Working with Policy Exchange, working with Create Streets, to build a Britain that is genuinely built to last…

…To create a society that has re-established powerful links between identity and place, between history and the future, between community and purpose.

This, I hope is a country that rediscovers the truth, first espoused by John Ruskin when he said that, we must build and when we do let us think that we build forever.

For me, that will be guiding principle as we set out the future of the planning system.

Below is the text of the statement made by Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, in the House of Commons on 17 October 2019.

Two thirds of social housing tenants would like to buy a home, yet only a quarter believe they will ever be able to do so. That is why I have announced today the Government’s intention to reinvigorate the home ownership offer for social housing tenants, by introducing a new right to shared ownership.

This will help reduce the gap between ambition and expectation, and make home ownership attainable and affordable for many more social housing tenants. It is part of the Government’s wider commitment to support people and families from all backgrounds to realise their ambition to own their own home.

The right to shared ownership will give housing association tenants the right to purchase a share of the home they rent and to purchase further shares in future when they can afford to do so. Alongside this, the Government will also cut the minimum initial ownership stake from 25% to 10% for all shared ownership homes, making the tenure even more accessible for aspiring homeowners who are struggling to raise a deposit.

This will build on the Government’s existing proposals to introduce a new national model for shared ownership. This new model will be redesigned to work effectively for aspiring home owners in today’s housing market, for example, by allowing shared owners to buy further shares in smaller increments, cutting the costly fees charged for additional shares and introducing a standardised ​preferred model to improve mortgage availability. The combined package will make it much easier to buy an initial share and to purchase additional shares in order to build up to full ownership.

The Government intend to make the right to shared ownership available to tenants in all new social homes delivered with grant in the future. Future investment will be considered at a future fiscal event.

We will also work with the housing association sector on a voluntary basis to determine what offer can be made to tenants in existing homes, so that the new right to shared ownership is extended as widely as possible. The right to shared ownership will not apply to tenants living in existing local authority homes, who already have the statutory right to buy.