Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:19 pm on 4 July 2017.
I thank the Member for the discussion I had with her this morning, and also the issue she raised with me this afternoon. The issue about the third party element of this is something I will take up with Lesley Griffiths in terms of building regulations and the compliance methods used for accessing buildings of risk, and it’s something that I will ask them to look at. I think I mentioned earlier I believe that the public inquiry may indicate that there were breaches to firebreaks within the Grenfell Tower flats through installation of third party activity or later post-dated developments. So, it’s something that is a serious concern. I will raise that with Lesley Griffiths.
In terms of leaseholders, there are some elements of control around leaseholders. There is a duty for tenants to inform the body in regard to what is deemed to be stored in there, in terms of dangerous materials. But there is also the issue around changing front doors. This is an activity often enjoyed by new leaseholders in the building—often not replacing them with fire doors. So, there is an issue where the local authority or the fire service can promote prohibition notices on there for change of use and return back to a fire-door process. I do believe there are some prohibition notices live currently, at the moment, in terms of looking at resolving those issues, but I will take the points that the Member has raised with me this afternoon and talk to other Ministers to see if we can resolve some of the concerns that she has.