Jim Fitzpatrick: To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 25 June 2019 to Question number 268957 on High Rise Flats: Insulation, what non-ACM cladding is being tested; when the results will be known; and how many buildings are estimated to be affected.
Jim Fitzpatrick: I wanted to intervene before the Minister moves away from his general points. I pay due regard to his expertise as a former Solicitor General, to his explanations about complicated interpretation and definitions, and to what he said about the Court of Appeal not accepting what the Government were trying to do. However, given that he accepts that there would be unanimous support for Government...
Jim Fitzpatrick: The Minister mentions the road safety statement, which was welcome and made a difference. It is refreshed occasionally, but that is now overdue by at least six months. The Department for Transport was supposed to produce it, and the reshuffle has delayed it even further. Perhaps he can have a quiet word with his colleague at Transport to find out when it will arrive.
Jim Fitzpatrick: It was due at Easter. It is now summer.
Jim Fitzpatrick: It is a pleasure to see you presiding, Mrs Moon. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I pay tribute to the petitioners. I thank Brake and the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety for their briefings, and I thank the Petitions Committee for facilitating the debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for her excellent...
Jim Fitzpatrick: The hon. Gentleman makes an appropriate point. Individual drivers have personal responsibility: when they get medication, they need to ensure that it does not impair their judgment and that they are not a risk to others on the road. Pharmaceutical companies have a role in that, because they should be printing large warning labels on medication to say: “Do you know this means you are not fit...
Jim Fitzpatrick: I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate; I thank the Backbench Business Committee for the time, and congratulate the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) on securing it. I am also pleased to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine). My starting point is the last debate on...
Jim Fitzpatrick: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Jim Fitzpatrick: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly in this debate. I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) on helping to secure it in time generously allocated by the Backbench Business Committee. I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), who—along with so many other colleagues present—has worked so hard to ensure that...
Jim Fitzpatrick: To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the results of the recent fire tests on non-ACM cladding demonstrated; how many blocks those tests found to be affected; and when those blocks will be made safe in the same way as blocks affected by ACM cladding.
Jim Fitzpatrick: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what information his Department holds on the number of greyhounds exported from the UK to Ireland in (a) 2018 and (b) 2019.
Jim Fitzpatrick: The Whirlpool situation has highlighted a problem exposed by the Electrical Safety Council about the difficulty of identifying the owners of the defective appliances it recalls. Can the Minister say a little more about what progress has been made on requiring the registration of purchase of electrical goods at point of sale by the retailer, rather than by consumers registering afterwards?...
Jim Fitzpatrick: (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on what the Government are doing to protect people from violent crime.
Jim Fitzpatrick: I am grateful to the Minister for her response and I share her opening sentiments. There have been four murders in London in four days, with two murders in my constituency in two weeks. I commend Tower Hamlets police for early arrests in both incidents. Londoners do not want to see politicians scoring points and/or playing party politics; they want answers and they want action. Clearly,...
Jim Fitzpatrick: Have local authorities actually availed themselves of that power in respect of defective cladding? It is quite difficult for local authorities to step in, is it not?
Jim Fitzpatrick: I beg to move, That this House has considered the accountability and role of housing associations. I am pleased to see you presiding, Mr Owen, and to see the Minister in his place. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important issue. I thank the National Housing Federation; Grenfell United; the Deputy Mayor of Tower Hamlets, Councillor Rachel Blake; the House of Commons Library;...
Jim Fitzpatrick: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I will come to that point later. For residents, be they social renters, key workers, people with shared equity or leaseholders, accountability and transparency are key. For public sector home owners or renters, responsibility for their home maintenance is generally clear, but in the private sector it is not. A recent example of...
Jim Fitzpatrick: My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I will come on to the role of housing associations and the change in their ethos. That will reinforce the concern that he expresses. I hear all the time from constituents who are having trouble getting complaints about their housing associations dealt with. Issues such as above-inflation rent increases, unjustified service charges, unreasonable...
Jim Fitzpatrick: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, which I am also trying to make. The Government’s proposals for a national regulator and beefed-up regulations are sound and welcomed across the sector—the House reinforced that last week during the Grenfell debate—but there is a gap that local authorities could easily fill. There could be local oversight through local authorities engaging with the...