News & Insights

The Week in Parliament

The big news out of Westminster this week is the Government’s NHS reform paper- we have a comprehensive overview of that here. But that’s not the only thing to be happening in Parliament.

Westminster

The other major story in Westminster this week was the announcement of the Government’s plans to remove dangerous potentially flammable cladding from high rise buildings. The aftermath of the Grenfell Tower disaster has led to a near-total rethinking of building safety in England and Wales. There has been significant consultation on potential changes, at least one of which drew a prominent judicial review claim, 2019’s British Blinds and Shutters.

The proposals have already proved controversial, not least with the Government’s own backbenchers. Whilst the Institute is not professionally concerned with the quality of the proposals per se, we are interested by the process by which they were arrived at. The Secretary of State in his statement to the house indicated that the decision had been led by the advice of the independent expert advisory panel on how to priorities the removal of materials. This may indeed be fair, experts can better comment on technical matters such as this.

Where there may be some doubt however is in the development of the restitution and remediation scheme, and particularly the mechanisms the Government is claiming will protect leaseholders from having to pay costs to replace cladding. The public outcry has already started, primarily at the decision to leave those living in blocks under 18 metres tall out of the fund. Leaseholders in these blocks will get no money from the Government, but will be eligible for long-term loans instead.

Although the Government has consulted on many different aspects of building safety reform, it is not clear how much of a consultative approach they have taken to developing the remediation scheme. For those who may be left carrying the burden of replacement costs or their representatives, questions may well be asked about how they had their say. We wouldn’t be surprised to see a bit of a furore over this one.

Wales

In the Welsh Senedd this week, the Government previewed its imminent consultation on a draft Social Partnership Bill, intended to “strengthen and promote social partnership and ensure fair work and wider social and economic wellbeing”. In addition to matters of fair work, the bill is also planned to cover public procurement and its place in the Welsh economy and social structure. With such a wide-ranging remit, the consultation is likely to draw a lot of contributions from all across society- it should be an interesting one to watch.

Northern Ireland

Stormont saw opening of the second stage of debate on the Protection from Stalking Bill, the result of a significant review of extant policy and framework and the results of a Government consultation exercise that demonstrated significant support for changes to the “underused” existing legislation. At first glance, the bill seems to be the result of a very solid consultation process. There are obvious examples of where consultees views have been taken into account, and the process involved further events, including a supplementary session when the consultation has closed which brought in operational organisations and voluntary sector to “keep awareness high”. One of the things discussed at some length in the Wednesday Wisdom this week was the importance of drawing attention and placing your consultations within the appropriate context. This seems to have been a good example of that practice.

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