Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 7:56 pm on 16 September 2020.
Thank you, David Melding, for raising this important issue. You make a very cogent argument for the justice of doing something to help these people who did all the right things in terms of the conveyancing operations before they bought the lease on their flat, and it's indisputable that there has been a failure of policy makers, as well as a failure of building regulations. I was particularly shocked to read that, in the House of Commons on Monday last week, they defeated a proposal to force Government to implement the results of the recommendations of the first part of the Grenfell inquiry. How shocking is that, given the costs of setting up that inquiry, to then not implement its recommendations? It's really quite shocking.
So, I do hope that we will hear from the Minister that we will be able to set up a fund, which may be an interim fund whereby, in due course, we can get the money back from these errant builders and errant regulators, because there's no doubt that somebody must pay, but it shouldn't be the poor leaseholders who are trapped in their flat and need to be able to get out of this situation.