This week in parliament MPs debated the Building Safety Bill. The Bill is a response to the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower in which 72 people lost their lives.

After the horror of Grenfell, the Government and industry must take shared responsibility to make all buildings safe and ensure the costs of doing this are not passed onto leaseholders.

Labour did not oppose the Bill as we welcome many of measures within it. However, there is real concern about what is not included in the Bill.  Labour has called for the Government to go further and legislate to ensure leaseholders are protected from the costs of removing or fixing any historic cladding and non-cladding defects. So far, the Government has failed to do this.  

Ministers have promised on at least 17 occasions that leaseholders should be protected from ruinous fire safety costs, but time and time again their situation has got worse not better. You can see Liz call out the Government’s record of failure on this issue here.

Locally, Liz has met with people in Leicester West who have been caught up in the cladding scandal and will continue to push for the Government to provide them with the safety and support they deserve.

Labour’s priority is to protect innocent homeowners. We are committed to working cross party to resolve this crisis, and we will continue to try and amend the Building Safety Bill to give leaseholders the protections in law that have long been promised by the Government.