Cladding on buildings

This council notes that:

1.0 despite nearly four years passing since the fire at Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017, which tragically claimed 72 people’s lives and injured more than 70 people, the fire at Grenfell Tower further uncovered the growing industrial and regulatory scandal in the built environment across England;

1.1 thousands of Salford residents are still living in buildings, and that number continues to rise, including disabled people who face compounding difficulties including lack of specific support for their needs, additional financial pressures, and the potential exacerbation of health conditions;

1.2 thousands of private leaseholders in Salford are paying inflated insurance and service charge costs to cover the on-going costs of waking watches, often running into hundreds of pounds every month, and will soon be faced with demands for tens of thousands of pounds more to remedy the fire safety defects. Moreover, they are unable even to sell or re-mortgage their defective properties because of a broken EWS1 process and mortgage lenders un-willingness to lend on them;

1.3 every year the housebuilders responsible for these defective properties bank billions in profits and pay out millions in dividends to shareholders, with The Independent also reporting back in June of last year that since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister the Conservative Party has received more than £11 million in donations from property developers and The Times more recently highlighting that property developers who built flats covered in dangerous cladding have donated £2.5 million to the Conservative Party since the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower in 2017.

1.4 the Government has provided no funding to correct fire safety defects that are not related to cladding systems or in buildings less than 18 metres tall and the £15 billion expected cost of all remediations as highlighted by the Homes, Communities and Local Government Committee in summer last year, is almost three times the £5 billion designated to rectify the industrial and regulatory crisis so far.

1.5 the Government has also cut the City Council’s overall core funding from central government by 53% since 2010/11, reducing the City Council’s overall local authority spending power and forcing authorities to raise council tax and precepts in order to maintain vital services such as enforcing building regulations. Salford City Council alone has lost over £222 million in cuts and un-funded budget pressures since 2010/11.

1.6 the on-going work of the Greater Manchester High-Rise Taskforce chaired by the Mayor of Salford and the work of the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign, which has brought together local campaigns, including Manchester Cladiators from across the country and proposed a Ten Step action plan to support residents in Salford and address the industrial and regulatory crisis swiftly and comprehensively across the whole of England.

This council believes that:

2.0 the industrial and regulatory crisis is a scandal that punishes leaseholders and residents of Salford for systemic problems with building safety regulations and methods of development in England;

2.1 this has had and continues to have a cruel effect on Salford resident’s mental health, leaving them in unsafe homes and facing life-changing bills;

2.2 it is grossly unjust that residents who bought homes in good faith should face remediation costs;

2.3 the Government’s Building Safety Fund is inadequate both in scope and amount, failing to protect all leaseholders from costs as requirements for remediation are accelerated;     

2.4 the Government must right broken promises, return to the original premise that no costs should be passed onto residents/leaseholders, abandon the loan schemes and two-tiered system for financial support recently announced by the Government, and act quickly;

2.5 a viable route to remediation is for payment nationally to fall on the building industry coupled with a ‘pay now, litigate later’ approach as recently developed by the Australian Labour Party State Government in Victoria;

2.6 developers who delivered dangerous and unsafe buildings due to negligence and poor workmanship should remediate this work rather than expecting residents/leaseholders to pay;

2.7 we support the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign and endorse their Ten

Step action plan which recognises that the knock-on effects mean that the industrial and regulatory crisis will not be resolved building by building, leaseholder by leaseholder.

This council resolves to:

3.0 thank the Greater Manchester High-Rise Taskforce, End Our Cladding Scandal campaign and Manchester Cladiators for their efforts in fighting this injustice, and to continue to supporting them in their work and their campaigning;

3.1 continue supporting the End our Cladding Scandal campaign’s 10-step plan to tackle this crisis, calling on the Government to endorse and implement 10-step plan in order to make safe all buildings - regardless of height or specific fire safety defects in order to protect residents and give them the peace of mind they are rightly entitled to;

3.2 call on the Government to provide the necessary funding in order to protect all innocent residents/leaseholders caught up in the industrial and regulatory crisis from ruinous costs that threaten bankruptcy or homelessness through a ‘pay now, litigate later’ approach as recently developed by the Australian Labour Party State Government in Victoria;

3.3 ask the Chief Executive of Salford City Council to write to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ask Government to accede to those asks articulated in End or Cladding Scandal campaign’s 10-step plan;

3.4 continue providing practical support to affected Salford residents/leaseholders, including asking the Planning Department to prioritise applications for fire-related remediation work, asking the Lead Members for Housing and Planning and Sustainable Development to continue to work with local groups and help affected Salford residents/leaseholders;

3.5 continue acting inclusively on this issue, including actively involving affected disabled people, raising awareness of their specific issues and campaigning;

3.6 ask the Lead Members for Housing and Planning and Sustainable Development to work alongside Salford’s Members of Parliament to develop a ‘Salford Ask’ outlining the funding required to remediate affected buildings in our city, saving Salford residents/leaseholders from hardship, un-fair costs and worse consequences.

HM Government’s provisional local government financial settlement and proposed council tax and precept increases for 2021/22.

This council notes that:

• on 25 November 2020, the government set out the outcome of the 2020 Spending Review, suggesting that core spending power for councils in England would increase from £49.0 billion to £51.2 billion in 2021/22, an estimated 4.5% cash-terms increase and a rise on real terms.
• the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s provisional local government finance settlement 2021/22 supplies the detail behind the increase and opens a 4 week consultation between 17 December 2020 and 16 January 2021.
• the data behind the provisional settlement shows that, when the government suggested in the 2020 Spending Review an estimated 4.5% cash-terms increase for councils in England, they are in fact assuming that councils in England will increase council tax by 2% and the adult social care precept by 3% to raise £1,918.4 billion from council tax payers in England in 2021/22.
• consequently within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s core spending calculations for councils in England, the government contribution element constitutes only 13% of the overall increase of £2.2billion - so, of the stated overall increase of 4.5%, only 0.6% or £292.7million relates to the government element.
• the government’s 2020 Spending Review and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s provisional local government finance settlement 2021/22 set against a backdrop of ten years of austerity and local government cuts, which has seen Salford City Council face £211 million in cuts to core government grant and unfunded budget pressures since 2010/11 and an overall reduction in core funding from central government of 53%.  

This council recognises that:

• the underlying assumptions within consecutive government Spending Reviews and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s core spending power calculations for councils in England has been to force councils in England to increase council tax and precepts and passport the costs of any increases onto local council tax payers.
• the government has failed numerous times over a number of years to hit its own deadlines to publish details of care system reforms for adults with disabilities and the elderly, which has resulted in the government          introducing the Adult Social Care (ASC) precept in 2016/17, forcing councils in England to considering increasing this government introduced precept by 13% between 2016/17 and 2021/22 with no national funding solution still on the horizon.
• the fair funding review for local government has also been delayed for a second year, with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government confirming in April 2020 that the implementation of the review will not go ahead in 2021/22 to allow councils to focus on meeting the immediate public health challenge posed by the pandemic.
• council tax and precept increases are regressive forms of taxation which impact the poorest and lowest paid within our communities the most.

Therefore, this council calls on HM Government to:

• urgently increase the overall funding provided by the government to all councils in England from the government’s £292.7 million in the core spending power calculations to allow councils in England to mitigate the impact(s) on local council tax payers.
• urgently resolve the adult social care funding crisis and bring forward proposals to mitigate the impact(s) on local council tax payers.
• make progress with the fair funding review, ensuring that differentials with regards to poverty and inequality and council tax payer’s ability to pay are effectively factored into any future methodology for determining central government grant. 

This council notes that:

• the latest published figure for unbuilt dwellings with planning permission in Salford was 20,512 dwellings;
• the delivery of significantly more dwellings in each of the last four years in Salford than the target - 3,344 in last published data, 92% of which are on brownfield sites;
• the conscientious approach to ensuring future housing land supply through the local plan process.
• the securing of £26.6 million through s106 agreements to invest in making development more acceptable;
• the delivery of 2,028 affordable homes - 18% of the Greater Manchester total and the second highest in the conurbation.

This council recognises that:

• the underlying assumption of the Government White Paper Planning for the Future is the housing shortage is due to the failure of the planning system is demonstrably wrong;
• the White Paper’s ‘zoning, proposals will remove power from communities and local people to influence individual developments;
• the White Paper’s proposal to introduce a national Infrastructure Levy will benefit wealthier parts of the country and remove the link between a development and the necessary physical and social infrastructure that mitigates its impact(s);
• the White Paper is silent on how it will tackle the current viability system, which often allows developers to negotiate away their commitments to affordable housing and seemingly offers nothing to mandate that affordable housing should be a non-negotiable requirement that impacts how land is valued and sold, favouring that the national infrastructure levy on developers be discounted if affordable homes are delivered.  

Therefore, this council calls on the Government to:

• withdraw the undemocratic proposals which remove citizens’ rights to influence individual developments;
• address the market failure in housing through a sustained programme of significant public investment in affordable social-rented homes;
• ensure that landowners and developers are no longer able to avoid obligations by limiting the uplift in value that goes to private profit rather than public benefit.

To be proposed by Paul Dennett, City Mayor and seconded by Councillor Bill Hinds.

This council notes:

• Local government has endured central government funding cuts of nearly 50% since 2010. Between 2010 and 2020, councils will have lost 60p out of every £1 they have received from central government.
• The 2019 LGA survey of council finances found that 1 in 3 councils fear they will run out of funding to provide even their statutory, legal duties by 2022/23. This number rises to almost two thirds of councils by 2024/2025 or later.
• The LGA estimates councils will face a funding gap of £8 billion by 2025.
• Faced with these cuts from central government, the local government workforce has endured years of pay restraint with the majority of pay points losing 22 per cent of their value since 2009/10.
• At the same time as seeing their pay go down in real terms, workers experience ever increasing workloads and persistent job insecurity. Across the UK, an estimated 876,000 jobs have been lost in local government since June 2010, a reduction of 30 per cent. Local government has arguably been hit by more severe job losses than any other part of the public sector.
• There has been a disproportionate impact on women, with women making up more than three quarters of the local government workforce.

This council believes:

• Local government workers provide an invaluable safety net for people and communities across the country and without the professionalism and dedication of our staff, the council services residents rely on would not be deliverable.
• Government funding has been cut to the extent that a proper pay rise could result in a reduction in local government services.
• The government needs to take responsibility and fully fund increases in pay; it should not put the burden on local authorities whose funding has been cut to the bone.

This council resolves to:

• Write to the Chancellor and Secretary of State in support of the pay claim submitted by GMB, UNISON and Unite on behalf of council and school workers for a £10 per hour minimum wage and a 10 per cent uplift across all other pay points in 2020/21 - calling for this increase to be fully funded with new money from central government.
• Call on the Local Government Association to make urgent representations to central government to fund the NJC pay claim.
• Meet with local NJC union representatives to convey support for the pay claim.
• Encourage all local government workers to join a union.

To be moved by Councillor Kate Lewis and seconded by Councillor Sharmina August.

Salford City Council notes the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report ‘Global warming of 1.5°C’ published on 8 October 2018, in particular:

• That human activities are estimated to have already caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels
• That if we continue at the current rate, we are likely to surpass the Paris Agreement target of 1.5°C as early as 2030
• That at the current level of commitments, the world is on course for 3°C of warming with irreversible and catastrophic consequences for humans and the natural world

The city council believes that:

• That the impacts of global temperature rise above 1.5°C, are so severe that governments at all levels must work together and make this their top priority.
• As well as large-scale improvements in health and wellbeing around the world, bold climate action can deliver economic benefits in terms of new jobs, economic savings and market opportunities.

Therefore, Salford City Council agrees:

• To declare a ‘climate emergency’
• To establish a new task and finish group, with a remit to:
  
  • Seek advice from experts to develop a 5 year carbon budget and set a challenging target date of 2038 for carbon neutrality in Salford
  • Consider systematically the climate change impact of each area of the council’s activities
  • Make recommendations and set an ambitious timescale for reducing these impacts
  • To assess the feasibility of requiring all risk and procurement assessments to include Carbon Emission Appraisals, including presenting alternative approaches which reduce emissions wherever possible
  • Report to full council with the actions the council needs to take to address this emergency
• To task a Director level officer with responsibility for reducing as rapidly as possible, the carbon emissions resulting from the council’s activities
• To equip all our staff with an awareness of the CO2 costs and impacts of everyday activities, and the ability and motivation to reduce emissions through widespread carbon literacy
• To produce a report to the next full council on the level of investment in the fossil fuel industry that our pensions plan and other investments have
• That the City Mayor will write to the Prime Minister to inform them that Salford City Council has declared a climate emergency and ask her to provide the resources and powers necessary to deal with it

This council notes:

• The Banyamulenge people, are ethnic Tutsi people, many of whom live on the High Plateau of South Kivu, in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, close to the Burundi-Congo-Rwanda border
• Banyamulenge means “those from Mulenge”. Mulenge is a hill near Lemera in the east of DRC. .
• The Banyamulenge have been a persecuted people. Since colonial times Banyamulenge have undergone discrimination and exclusion and over the last few decades thousands upon thousands have been murdered and massacred
• On 13 August 2004 there was a massacre at the Gatumba refugee camp in Burundi where 166 people were massacred. All victims were from a minority Banyamulenge tribe
• All were defenceless and slaughtered with machetes and burned alive with gasoline
• The attack was carried out by a force of armed combatants, many of them members of the Forces for National Liberation (FNL). The FNL is a predominantly Hutu rebel movement known for its hostility to Tutsi people
• Banyamulenge Refugees are now settled around the world. 60 or so Banyamulenge refugees are now settled in Salford and many more across Britain
• We welcome them to the safety of our community and value the positive contribution they are making to the culture and life in our city
• The perpetrators of the massacre still haven’t been brought to justice, many still live free. The current Deputy Speaker of the Burundian Parliament Agathon Rwasa is widely suspected to have been one of the leading perpetrators of the massacre. Agathon Rwasa is the leader of FNL
• The FNL is believed to have been behind a series of other attacks, including the December 28th, 2000 Titanic Express massacre
• The Titanic Express massacre was an event in which 21 people were killed in an attack on a Titanic Express bus, close to the Burundian capital Bujumbura
• The passengers, who had travelled from Kigali in Rwanda, were robbed of their valuables and then separated according to their ethnicity. Hutus and most Congolese were released unharmed. The Tutsis on board, and one British woman, Charlotte Wilson, who was traveling with her Burundian fiancé, were forced to lie face down on the ground and then shot
• In May 2001, the International Crisis Group attributed the Titanic Express attack to "troops under the order of Agathon Rwasa"
• In January 2004, the Sunday Times announced the discovery of a document which appears to be an FNL report, signed by a senior commander, detailing how the Titanic Express massacre was carried out.
• In June 2006, detailed eyewitness accounts of the attack were published in the book Titanic Express: Finding Answers in the Aftermath of Terror, by Richard Wilson, the brother of Charlotte Wilson.
• During the civil war, FNL was linked to the killing of Monsignor Michael Courtney, the Catholic Church's chief representative in Burundi
• The Most Reverend Michael Courtney (5 February 1945 – 29 December 2003) was the Apostolic Nuncio to Burundi and TitularArchbishop of Eanach Dúin
• In December 2003 gunmen fired at his car, Archbishop Courtney suffered gunshot wounds to the head, shoulder and leg and died from haemorrhaging during surgery. He was 58 years old
• Archbishop Courtney had been instrumental in the previous month's signing of a peace agreement between the Burundian government and the main opposition Hutu group which at the time was rejected by the FNL

This council resolves:

• To welcome and support our Banyamulenge community in Salford
• To support the annual commemorations that take place to remember the crimes committed at Gatumba and to support the survivors, their families and a community that has been under attack
• We support the Banyamulenge Community’s call for justice. The criminal perpetrators need to be arrested and brought to justice
• In particular, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has to undertake an inquiry and issue warrants of arrest for those people involved in the massacres at Gatumba against the Banyamulenge and against all other attacks that the community has been subjected to including the Titanic Express massacre and the murder of Archbishop Michael Courtney
• Rwasa needs to be held accountable for what he's done and prosecuted as a war criminal
• To call upon the British Government and the European Union to put pressure upon the Government of Burundi to fully cooperate with the International Community to ensure that the Banyamulenge community receive justice

Dear Home Secretary,
I am writing to advise you at the meeting of Salford City Council held on 21 November 2018 the following motion was approved and adopted:

This council notes that, killers who withhold the location of their victims’ bodies, create significant distress and suffering for the relatives of the deceased. Ian Simms is serving a life sentence for the murder of Marie McCourt’s daughter Helen in February 1988, in Billinge, Merseyside. For almost three decades, Simms has refused to reveal the whereabouts of Helen’s body, denying her mother and family the chance to grant her the dignity of a funeral and resting place. Marie has campaigned for the introduction of “Helen’s Law”, seeking Parliament to make changes to current legislation and prevent convicted murderers, who do not reveal the location of their victim’s bodies, being granted parole.

The introduction of “Helen’s Law”, would represent a significant deterrent to killers, who may otherwise withhold details of where their victims bodies have been hidden and is in the best interests of the public and help other grieving relatives, like Marie McCourt, who are enduring a similar torment, to find peace by giving their loved ones a proper funeral. ‘Helen’s Law’, officially known as the Unlawful Killing (Recovery of Remains) Bill, was scheduled for its the second reading in the House of Commons in May 2017, but was deferred by H.M. Government due to the calling of a General Election. This deferment and its subsequent omission from the Queen’s Speech, detailing the bills that will be brought forward, has been detrimental.

Salford City Council is asked to actively support the introduction of Helen’s Law, through writing to H.M. Government requesting that, the Unlawful Killing (Recovery of Remains) Bill be re-listed for debate in Parliament as soon as possible.

I would be grateful if you could give consideration to the points identified in the motion, particularly the request for the Unlawful Killing (Recovery of Remains) Bill to be re-listed for debate in Parliament as soon as possible.

I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely

Paul Dennett
City Mayor
Salford City Council