My Lords, in Alice in Wonderland, Humpty Dumpty says:
“ ‘When I use a word, … it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’ ”
That is exactly the position we find ourselves in today. It is an argument about the meaning of words, which the noble Lord, Lord Newby, in an excellent speech, has just pointed up. If one took the Government’s statements and sought to give the usual meaning to the words, then there would not be a problem here this evening.
I noted down what the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, said in his opening remarks: these are just some of the statements he made. My writing is not fast enough to recite his whole speech, but if one took his whole speech, one would think there was no disagreement between us at all. “More needs to be done”, he said. “Industry must play its part and pay its way,” he said. “I agree that leaseholders need more protection,” he said. “Forfeiture,” he said—the fact we are talking about forfeiture is a sign of quite how serious a crisis we are facing—“is a draconian measure”; my writing was not fast enough here, but I think he said, “which is to be discouraged.” He also said, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, just said, that these measures will be further addressed in the building safety Bill.
All those statements that the noble Lord made go to the heart of the protection we have been seeking to provide for all of those categories of people affected, not just those who live in buildings of more than 18 metres and not just those with costs directly attributable to cladding if they fall in the category of remediation costs which are essentially post Grenfell. This is the key point, because assessments that have been made about fire risks which are not just restricted to cladding are in the wider areas, some of which are in the expanded fire safety order which the Minister referred to.
The issue then is whether the scheme that the Government have said they will introduce to implement the principles that the Minister himself has set out to the House this evening is adequate to the task. We take the Minister at his word that it will be adequate to
the task. There is some disagreement about how far it needs to be legislative and how far not legislative, though the fact that he constantly refers to the building safety Bill leads us to think that it will be substantially legislative. In so far as it is not legislative, these measures could be put in a legislative form, or he could make a categoric statement about when the Government will come forward with a comprehensive scheme.
So far, so good. What happens is that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and his understudy who is here this evening, if I may so describe him—anyway, he seems to be maintaining the line of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans—and other noble Lords then consistently, on now about 10 occasions during the passage of the Bill, have come forward with proposals to put into legislative form what the Government themselves have told us they want to do. What happens, because we are now back in Alice in Wonderland, is that we pass amendments saying that remediation costs should not be passed on to leaseholders which are attributable to the additional costs which have come post Grenfell, and then the Government come along and say, “Ah, but this does not take account of the following five concerns.”
These are the concerns that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, just mentioned about small costs, concerns about defining costs, concerns about costs which might be attributable to leases which applied and which tenants willingly engaged in before there were any additional costs put forward—we had a whole list of issues that were raised. What then happens is that the ever-receptive Bishop of St Albans, and other noble Lords change the amendments to take account of the Government’s concerns. Indeed, the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, this evening meets most of the concerns that have been raised by Christopher Pincher in the House of Commons and by the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, here.
It is worth dwelling on this, because these are hugely important issues potentially affecting millions of people, so we ought to be clear about it. Under the noble Baroness’s amendment, proposed new subsection (1) states:
“The owner of a building may not pass the costs of any remedial work attributable to the provisions of this Act”—
so defining clearly what should and should not apply. Proposed new subsection (2) states that the prohibition on remediation costs being passed on to tenants will have effect
“only until a statutory scheme is in operation which ensures that leaseholders and tenants of dwellings are not required to pay more than £50 per month during the course of the lease”,
but it does not apply to a cost that
“is permitted under a lease or tenancy agreement that was made before this Act is passed, and … does not exceed £500, whether as a one-off cost, or in total across a 12-month period.”
This meets the concerns that the Minister has raised, unless he does not propose to bring forward a scheme that meets his commitments in due course, which is the reason why we go round in circles again.
We then come out of Alice in Wonderland and into the real world. In the real world, we all know what is happening. It is not a secret to those of us who are
politicians what arguments have now been happening for two months. Two things are happening. First, a battle royal is going on between the Minister’s department and the Treasury about what costs the Treasury will meet and how narrowly defined they need to be. The Treasury is already concerned about the size of the fire safety fund, the £5.1 billion fund which the Minister referred to, and whether the costs even under that scheme will end up being significantly higher. It certainly does not want more costs to be recognised. The second thing going on of which we are all well aware is that, although the Government say—because huge numbers of people are affected by this, many of them first-time buyers, many of them who have, under Conservative schemes, bought council properties and are leaseholders —that they want to see them fully protected, they do not at the moment either have a plan to fully protect them nor, to be blunt, do they want to protect them any more than they think is politically necessary to get this and subsequent legislation passed, presumably in the run-up to the next election, in a judgment they make on the salience of the issue.
We then come to the role of this House, which is unusual in this case. We had a lecture from the Chief Whip earlier about the supremacy of the House of Commons, which we all recognise, but the supremacy of the House of Commons is in this instance qualified in two respects. The Salisbury convention is clear that the supremacy of the House of Commons applies to all matters which the Government have placed in their manifesto. This House does not seek to cut across clear manifesto commitments which the Government have made when they want to realise them. The Government’s commitment at the election was to sort out this issue; it was not not to sort out this issue. If we take that reading of the role of this House, we will actually be implementing the Salisbury convention this evening if we pass the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. We are seeking to hold the Government to their manifesto commitments to the people, not going against them.
The other reason why we are back in Alice in Wonderland in respect of the role of this House is that, when the Minister and the Chief Whip said this evening that the Bill will fail, it will fail only if, in response to the amendment being carried, the Government choose to let it fail rather than accept an amendment that puts into law the very commitments that they have said that they propose to meet.
We are in a conundrum as to what to do. If we vote for the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, we be voting for something that will indeed send the measure back to the House of Commons and could, if the Government refused to give way, lead to the fall of the Bill. That is entirely in the hands of the Government. However, it is manifestly not the case that we are breaking the Salisbury convention, it is manifestly not the case that we are going against the commitments that the Government themselves have given, and it is manifestly not the case that we would be the cause of the Bill falling. The Government would be the cause of the Bill falling, because they were not prepared to accept the amendment.
We all have judgments to take as to how to vote, and I respect people who take different views on this issue, but it is very clear to me that this is not about the supremacy of the House of Commons. As the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said, in what I have to say is the most impassioned speech I have heard him deliver to the House, this is a matter of the good faith of the Government and whether, when they say something, they mean it. If this House has any role to play, it is to see that high standards of conduct in public life are maintained, that Governments are held to commitments that they give and that the ordinary meaning of words should be taken to apply when they are uttered by Ministers.