This week marks an important step in the urgent work needed to end the cladding scandal. Seven years on from the Grenfell Tower fire, too many people across the country and in the Cities of London and Westminster are trapped in unsafe buildings, forced to hold waking watches and at risk of untold costs to remove cladding on their own homes.  

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This situation has been made worse by a glacial pace of action by successive governments. It took three years to open the Building Safety Fund, and five years to pass a Building Safety Act, which is still being implemented. Issues remain with the set-up and operations of the Building Safety Regulator, which are not only slowing down the pace of delivery of new buildings, but the remediation of existing stock.  

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This is a complex problem, but underneath it lie a few simple truths. Everyone deserves to feel safe in their own home. Nobody should be liable to pay from their own pocket for the failures of developers. And we can never let a tragedy of the nature and scale of Grenfell happen again – particularly when we know the risk which unsafe cladding poses.  

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Since the election, the Government has acted with the speed and decisiveness which this situation requires, allocating funding in the Autumn Budget for cladding remediation, pushing developers to act faster, and this week publishing a Remediation Action Plan which sets in stone a deadline to complete works on all high rise buildings with unsafe cladding by 2029.  

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Investment in enforcement is particularly key, and it is encouraging to see this reserved for local authorities, fire and rescue authorities, and the Building Safety Regulator to ensure that the framework surrounding these important operations can act with the necessary speed.  

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It is shameful that the last Government failed to properly identify the full scale of the issue, and so I was also pleased to see a commitment to identify all unsafe buildings in the Action Plan. Residents have frequently been in touch detailing the safety issues in their own buildings which have failed to be recognised. I would encourage Government as they go to identify further unsafe buildings to work with local authorities and residents, who often have detailed knowledge of the situation on the ground.  

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More needs to be done, particularly to ensure that buildings between 11 and 18 metres in height are also included in plans. While I recognise the reasons for which the Government has prioritised remediating high-rise buildings, only setting the requirement for 11 to 18 metre buildings to have a date for completion by 2029 will leave many residents in the same anxieties which they have had for the past seven years.  

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I encourage the Government build on the Remediation Action Plan in this area to ensure that residents in these buildings have the security which they have long been calling for.  

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We must never forget that the residents of Grenfell Tower had been asking questions about the safety of their homes before the tragedy. They have been badly let down before, during and after the tragedy.  

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Going forward, I will continue to speak with constituents, councillors, and the Government to make sure that all residents in the Cities of London and Westminster have the action they deserve.  We must act to make sure that the tragedy at Grenfell Tower is never repeated, and it is my sincerest responsibility as your Member of Parliament to do all I can to ensure that this action is taken.