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Government defeats amendment to protect cladding leaseholders for third time
MPs have once again voted down an amendment to prevent fire safety costs being passed on to leaseholders, despite a rebellion by a number of Conservative MPs, including former party leader Iain Duncan Smith.
However, it faces a further vote on Wednesday after once more failing to pass its controversial legislation through the House of Lords last night.
The government is struggling to pass its Fire Safety Bill due to support among peers for an amendment that would prevent fire safety costs being passed on to the residents of affected buildings.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday, housing minister Christopher Pincher described the amendment as “unworkable and inappropriate”, saying it would delay works by preventing even minor costs being passed on to the residents of a building.
But he faced a series of MPs, including several from his own party, who spoke against the current legal position – where leaseholders have no meaningful protection from vast bills and face crippling costs for insurance and waking watch provision in the meantime.
Shadow housing minister Sarah Jones said: “Does the government only care about the donors who keep its prime minister in fancy furniture, so he can spend £60,000 on curtains in Number 10 while their are nurses and key workers who face £60,000 bills for cladding replacement with no wealthy donor to bail them out?”
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Among those to speak in favour of the amendment were Mr Duncan Smith, former work and pensions secretary and Conservative Party leader, who said he would vote for it to “articulate a cry for help” from affected constituents.
However, the amendment was defeated with 320 MPs voting against it and 256 in favour. This shows a marginal increase for the rebels since a vote in March, which passed with 322 MPs in favour and 253 against.
The Scottish National Party has abstained on the bill, which only covers England, despite many other non-English MPs including all six Scottish Conservatives voting on it.
According to the official Hansard record of the vote, 31 Conservative MPs rebelled and nine abstained. The MPs who voted for the amendment included Mr Duncan Smith, former Brexit secretary David Davis, and Esther McVey, who was housing minister as recently as February 2020.
Felicity Buchan, the Conservative MP for Kensington, where Grenfell Tower is located, abstained.
Following the government’s victory in the Commons, the bill returned to the Lords, where peers once more voted in favour of the amendment triggering another vote of MPs, which is expected on Wednesday morning.
The government has offered £5.1bn in funding to leaseholders in buildings taller than 18m and plans to introduce a forced loans system for those in buildings between 11m and 18m.
However, this funding only covers the specific work to remove dangerous cladding, meaning leaseholders still face enormous bills. Those in blocks below 11m have no support whatsoever.
Inside Housing reported on Tuesday that the loans programme requires future legislation to pass before being rolled out and may not be in place for years as a result.
Grenfell United, the bereaved families and survivors group, said: “We are deeply appalled that the majority of MPs have voted for the third time to make innocent leaseholders across the country foot the bill for fixing and mitigating fire safety defects.
“It’s ludicrous that the government expects us to believe their flimsy excuses for rejecting the amendment. The Conservatives’ votes show that their claim of being the party supporting first-time homeowners is a cruel joke.
“It’s particularly galling that, after all the trauma our community has gone through with the loss of 72 of our loved ones in the Grenfell fire, our MP Felicity Buchan has parroted the Tory government’s line and chose to abstain from voting on the amendment.”
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