Speeches by Norris.

“When I took over as Minister, I inherited a trajectory on which the effective remediation of buildings in the way you talk about was going to take us into the 2040s. It will probably not surprise you that one of the first questions I asked as the new Minister was, “How many buildings are we talking about here?” The ans…”

“It will be advisory in the sense that it is not statutory. We have largely asked Judith to convene her own team. When you had Philip White before the Committee, he was about to go on to a session with the industry responsibility group—I am getting its name slightly wrong. I mean the coalition of the willing, as they ca…”

“We cannot say it is enough if we see the degree of complaints and dissatisfaction that we still see. We should be open to any and all ways of trying to close not only feedback loops but, most importantly, action loops. Another important thing we inherited from last April is stronger consumer standards, so people have r…”

“I am not sure I could make an assessment on them being “swamped”, because I have not had that conversation with them, but I can speak from my experience. Clearly, people are feeling the need to escalate their complaints to them to a significant degree, as they do to us, so the system obviously does not work yet. One of…”

“Right from the outset, the Deputy Prime Minister and I made the conscious decision that we would meet with anybody in any format they wanted, and in whatever way helped that access. We do big group sessions and we do smaller, facilitated ones—perhaps with some food—with roundtable-type activities. We also do individual…”

“That is something that the Deputy Prime Minister and I have reflected on a lot over the last few weeks. I want to say, candidly, that I believe yes. As I say, our answer to everything was yes. Our attempts were, as I say, to have the broadest possible range of engagement moments. That is, of course, on top of the inbou…”

“Absolutely. I have met with Roy Wilsher already. He forms part of the ministerial advisory group that I will be relying on to develop policy. We will be working very closely with the inspectorate indeed, obviously with appropriate gaps between the Executive and the inspectorate.”

“Yes. Certainly for the aspects that we control, we are going to do much better in that regard by making sure we have comprehensive databases. We will offer all the opportunities that people want to have that conversation. If anybody listening today wants to have an individual conversation, I will have that in whatever …”

“First of all, I think that that report, and some of the reporting in the media around culture, brought these issues to the fore. It was a priority for my predecessor, Diana Johnson, including both as Chair of HAC and subsequently as a Minister. Fire services are interesting organisations. We talk about the culture in t…”

“Oh, sorry, I totally missed that. No, we accepted that recommendation and we are having an independent college of fire and rescue. That is another thing that we are working with the advisory group on. We still have to decide the kind of form and functions of that, but, yes, very much so; I think it is a great opportuni…”

“This is something that we wrestled with in the “English Devolution” White Paper, and that will follow in the Bill. It is very complicated. If arrangements deliver locally, that is the primary thing, but I do think that there is a responsibility for us, as the national holders of the ring. You cannot keep layering on mo…”

“I mean that the elected mayor will exercise those functions through a statutory deputy.”

“I expect the announcement of the chair to be any day now. Can I just say it—it is probably easier? It is going to be Judith Hackitt. I keep telling people, but it was never clear whether we had announced it or not. We have asked Dame Judith Hackitt to chair it, and she has said that she will. We are now pulling togethe…”

“One of the very important recommendations in the inquiry was the establishment of a panel to assess and bring forward ideas on building control. We are setting that up very soon. It is a real challenge within the system, as it is with fire risk assessors. Unless you have enough high-quality building control professiona…”

“They say exactly the same thing to me, and our view is exactly the same. We just want to have that good and appropriate balance that means that the process works effectively but still holds safety at its heart.”

“On the oversight mechanism, I am saying that I cannot make that commitment today. That work is ongoing at the very centre of Government. On the tracker, that will be publicly available. People will be able to scrutinise it and talk to us about it. We are very mindful of progress. I think I am probably unique among Memb…”

“That is—”

“I cannot make that commitment today, Mr Cocking. That is a Cabinet Office-run process. I have made a commitment in line with what we published in the inquiry, on the publicly available information, and there is ongoing work across Government on the national oversight mechanism more generally.”

“Thank you for having me this morning. I recognise that characterisation from my own mailbag, as I suspect colleagues will too. It still seems too hard for tenants to get the change that they need, or to be listened to, and organisations perhaps see that as either inconvenient or unimportant to them. That has to change.…”

“In our design and preparation of the regulations we did all the impact assessments that you would expect, whether that is for environmental or equality responsibilities. In Government we have discussed the challenges and the impact that it might have on supply. I think that speaks to why we have given more time for the…”