Fire Safety Bill

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 1st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, first, we remember the 72 people who lost their lives in Grenfell Tower in the fire on the night of 14 June 2017. I pay tribute to the firefighters, and to other emergency services, who acted so bravely on the night of the fire, as well as other contractors, civil servants, local government officials and the wider civil society, including the faith communities who came together with the local community after that terrible night. I join the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, in paying tribute to the work that firefighters and other emergency services have done in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

I draw the attention of the House to my relevant interests as follows. I am vice-president of the Local Government Association, chair of the Heart of Medway Housing Association and non-executive director of MHS Homes.

At the start of my contribution this afternoon, I want to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Herbert of South Downs, on his excellent maiden speech. I never served in the other place, but I was able to get a photograph taken here, with the instruction of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, including myself as Lord Kennedy of Southwark from the Labour Benches, the noble Baroness, Lady Perry of Southwark, from the Conservative Benches, and the noble Lord, Lord Palumbo of Southwark, from the Lib Dem benches. The local paper reported, “Southwark’s got all benches covered”.

The noble Lord brings a wealth of experience to the House with his time as a Home Office Minister in the other place and his career outside Parliament, which will prove to be invaluable in our deliberations on this Bill and many other measures. I agree with the noble Lord’s comments about the conditions some people have to live in and the need to tackle that social injustice. I welcome the noble Lord to the House, and I look forward to getting to know him in the coming weeks and months and to his further contributions to our debates.

I want to place on record my thanks to several organisations for their briefings, which have proved so helpful to me in preparing for this Second Reading debate. These include the Fire Brigades Union, the Local Government Association, the National Housing Federation, Electrical Safety First, the Association of British Insurers and the House of Lords Library.

I also want to make clear, at the start, that the Official Opposition are supportive of this Bill. Our only issues are that we should be going further with greater speed, as the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, made reference to, and that since the fire at Grenfell Tower over three years ago this is the only legislative action that has been taken so far, as my noble friend Lord Whitty pointed out in his contribution. The pace of change in relation to the enormity of the challenge is disappointing. As we seek to make changes to the procedures and the mechanisms in place, a quicker pace is needed.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson of Welton, asked important questions about the timing of much-needed changes. When are they going to be introduced? She also recognised the frustration of many with the pace of change. Professionalism and being properly qualified, certified and accredited to the job have to be themes running through the new regime being put in place. These are not matters that can be done on the cheap or by unqualified or inexperienced people. Those are points I have been making consistently since that terrible night, and I will continue to do so.

We also need a complete change to the attention given by the authorities when residents, tenants and leaseholders raise concerns about safety, so that they are not ignored, as they often are, and as they were by Kensington and Chelsea Council when Grenfell residents raised many times their safety fears. When we get to Committee, I, and other colleagues on these Benches, will propose amendments that we think will make improvements and strengthen the good intention of the Bill.

When the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, responds to the debate, can he please tell me how he sees the Bill, the fire safety order and the building safety Bill all working together effectively to improve building safety when both Bills are Acts of Parliament? We want clarity with respect to roles, responsibilities, duties, liabilities and enforcement, because without that we have the risk of further problems and complications undermining the good intentions of the Government.

One example I would give the noble Lord is that there must be no confusion between the roles and responsibilities of the fire safety order’s responsible person, the new accountable person and the building safety manager, which the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, spoke about. Where we have confusion and a lack of clarity, we run the risk of buck-passing, a failure of process and procedure and a risk to people’s safety and their lives. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, is right about the need for a complete change of culture, to plug gaps and to be relentless in the pursuit of delivering a complete package of reforms, which are urgently needed.

Turning to the specifics of the Bill, Clause 1, as we have heard, amends article 6 of the fire safety order, and it will apply to premises where the building contains two or more domestic flats. This extension covers the structure and external walls, including doors and windows in those walls and anything attached to those walls, along the common parts of the building, and to the front doors of people’s properties. This is an important clarification, which I welcome.

Some concerns have been raised about when access is needed to inspect the front doors of residents’ properties, along with the windows or possibly balconies, and, when access is not given willingly, the power for the building owner to get access to the property. Will the only process to seek an order from the court? That can be lengthy. I am not convinced it gives the urgency needed for the inspection to take place. For example, you could have access to 50 flats in a block with no problem whatsoever. All the external walls and communal areas are inspected, but there are two flats where access is refused despite repeated requests, so the building cannot be regarded as compliant until a court-granted order is executed, the inspection takes place and everything passes. There must be a better, quicker way to deal with that problem.

This is also a problem for social landlords any type of landlord or building owner. The issue was raised in the other place by the honourable Members for Orpington and Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner. The Bill also provides for fire and rescue authorities to take enforcement action against responsible persons if they have failed to comply with their duties under the fire safety order, which risks getting bogged down if occupants in one or two properties are not being co-operative.

That also brings me back to a point that I mentioned at the start of my contribution today. Fire inspectors must be professional and properly qualified; there is no doing this role on the cheap. This is a key role in the compliance and enforcement of legal obligations for fire safety duties on responsible persons.

The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, is right about the need to keep records, so that liabilities are clearly established and it can be demonstrated who has and who has not done their job, and action can be taken to ensure that they do it. We want proper processes and procedures to ensure that residents, tenants and owners are properly aware of all matters with regard to their safety in their home.

The Bill will increase the workload of fire and rescue services. The impact assessment does not specify how many inspectors carry out fire audits and enforcement action in England, but in 2019-20 only 963 staff were competent to carry out full inspections, 706 to serve an enforcement notice and 546 to serve a prohibition notice contract—but we had 1,724 fire safety inspectors two decades ago, as my noble friend Lord Whitty referred to. Clearly, that is a great diminution in the number of people who are able to do this work.

My concern here is that, to bridge the gap between the resource we have at present and the resource we need to deliver the compliance and enforcement orders, corners will be cut and less-qualified or unqualified persons will be given roles that they are not competent to do, instead of proper investment and training to deliver competent officers. If would be good if the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, could assure me that that is not the intention, that only properly qualified people will be used, and that action will be taken to increase the number of qualified inspectors. Can he also assure me that he and his colleagues have a clear understanding of the complexity of the inspections that need to be undertaken?

I suggest that there should be a recruitment programme to increase the number of operational firefighters and fire safety officers in respect of premises covered by this order. There will be an additional cost for these additional inspections and these enforcement actions. Can the noble Lord in his reply to the debate confirm that these costs will be fully funded by the Government and there will not be any fudging on this? It would be wrong to place extra burdens but not fund them or expect the council taxpayer to pick up the costs through a precept levied on them.

Clause 2 provides for a delegated power whereby the Secretary of State in England and the relevant Welsh Minister can change or clarify the types of premises falling within the scope of the order. I am fine with that, and it is good to see that we will be using the affirmative resolution procedure to approve the regulations.

My one area of concern is Clause 2(5), which states that

“the relevant authority must consult anyone that appears to the relevant authority to be appropriate.”

Can the noble Lord give me an assurance that that will include all the fire authorities in England, bodies such as the National Housing Federation, the Local Government Association and relevant local authorities, and not just the National Fire Chiefs Council? I would also want the relevant Welsh Minister to consult with the fire authorities in Wales and bodies such as the Welsh Local Government Association.

My noble friend Lord Monks rightly raised the question of the consultation process and how the view of the Fire Brigades Union will be taken into account. They are the hero firefighters we all praise, so we should be asking them what they think. They are the people who run into Grenfell Tower and other burning buildings when everybody else is trying to get out. Can the noble Lord confirm when he responds to the debate that the FBU will be fully consulted by the Home Office when drafting the appropriate regulations?

My noble friend Lady McDonagh raised important questions about the scope, impact assessments, training and who will do the important work of these inspections, and, like other noble Lords, she raised the speed of the reforms which are needed. I also concur very much with the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, in that regard.

I have a few other issues to raise which I hope the noble Lord can respond to shortly but, if not, I hope he will be able to respond to the points in a letter to me and copy it to other Members of the House.

In the weeks after the Grenfell Tower fire, the Government conducted industry fire safety tests known as BS 8414 tests on external wall systems using ACM cladding of different levels of combustibility, in conjunction with different types of insulation. The tests were also conducted on glass-reinforced plastic composite fire doors following the discovery that those used in Grenfell Tower were not fit for purpose. While some of the test information has been made public, the Government have not published the full test reports. If testing programmes are to continue, they need to be published so that everyone can see the full reports. In that way, the building owners will be able to see and quickly identify defective doors and take remedial action much more quickly and cost effectively. Can the noble Lord agree to look at that issue and come back to me?

In 2013, Wales was the first country in the world to require sprinklers in all new-build homes from October 2013, and in January 2016 it further upgraded that to include all new care homes, sheltered housing and other rooms for residential purposes. My noble friend Lady Wilcox of Newport set out how urgent action was taken in the aftermath of the Grenfell tower fire in Newport, whose council she led. The work done there was to the credit of the council, Newport City Homes, the Welsh Government and Senedd Cymru. The Government are making moves in the right direction in respect of sprinklers, which is to be very much welcomed, but they should seek to do what has been done in Wales and introduce sprinklers in all new buildings that are built in England.

It is a fact that very few people have ever died in a fully sprinklered building. When looking at fires, Home Office data confirm that almost half of the accidental fires in England are due to electrical accidents and incidents, and that those who lose their lives are disproportionally the elderly and the vulnerable. In Committee we should therefore spend some time looking at what can be done to improve the regulations in this respect, as the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, said in his contribution.

As the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, said, Sir David Amess, the Member for Southend West, raised this issue and proposed amendments in the other place. We should examine these issues in detail and see whether we can make sensible, proportionate improvements that improve the safety for residents in high-rise blocks. It would be very welcome, and I associate myself very much with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, in that regard.

We should also consider whether it is appropriate to have gas into high-rise residential buildings. I remember that, when my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley was a local councillor in Lewisham, there was a serious gas leak under a tower block in Brockley, which she represented. Thankfully, it was dealt with by the London Fire Brigade and British Gas, but the whole block had to be evacuated and urgent work done to remove the build-up of gas under the building. An explosion would have been devastating.

In conclusion, this has been a good debate, with lots of agreement and a genuine desire on the part of all noble Lords who spoke to improve safety, protect people and property and to get this right. I suspect that we will have a few differences of opinion, but I really want to improve the Bill, as do all other noble Lords in the House. I look forward to the noble Lord’s response.