Andrew Mitchell welcomes the Government statement on building safety, unsafe cladding and leaseholders and calls for a speedy resolution.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be aware that this whole issue has caused extraordinary misery, anxiety and upset, and I had the opportunity this morning to speak to Jim Illingworth of BrumLAG. He, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and our friend Jack Dromey have worked closely, and he was clear that he is very grateful for this progress. We are seeing a mixed economy of response, although there are clearly issues of timing and other details, which I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will need to address. I hope that he accepts that he needs to crack the whip on this, but is he not well able to do so?
Michael Gove (The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his point. I had the chance to chat to Jim Illingworth and other cladding campaigners earlier today and he is absolutely right. I know that my right hon. Friend, as a Birmingham MP, is all too well aware of how many people in that great city are affected by this crisis, and I look forward to working with him and others to resolve it as quickly as possible.