(13 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I apologise to the Chair for taking my glasses off in order better to read my speech. I hope that the Bill and its amendment also will be live music to the Government’s ears, although I fear not.
The Government’s first duty is the safety and protection of its citizens. The Bill and its amendment today are a simple, good and effective measure. The title “Building Regulations” conceals the ambition for sprinklers to be inserted into new-build residences under 30 metres in height. I emphasise, though, that we are asking for better research to be produced so that we can make that claim and implement the hope and ambition of introducing sprinklers in this way.
This is not new legislation but an extension of existing legislation, as the measure is already in place for new buildings over 30 metres in height. What are the Minister’s concerns about the current legislation that is in full operation?
I believe that the Bill will save lives. We have computed that something like £7 billion is lost every year to fire, and of course lives are tragically lost. With regard to firefighters, and I think that all of us in this House have unstinting admiration for those who fight fires on the public’s behalf, the Bill would cut injuries not only to them but to the public, who can be maimed as a result of unexpected fire. It would save property; of the £7 billion that I said would be saved if the Bill were implemented, we may compute that one-third of that, £2.5 billion, is from the saving of property. This measure would also save the environment, since there is concern about excessive run-off water from appliances putting out fires that pollutes the drainage system and causes other environmental degradation.
It is right to give a bit of the narrative of the progress of the Bill. Some 15 months ago I had the pleasure of introducing a Bill that asked the Government to implement forthwith the application of sprinklers in new residences under 30 metres high. In the course of time and conversations, this changed and the emphasis moved to having secure and better research in this area. I am grateful to the former Minister, my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton, who responded to our desire to have a meeting with all those who had contributed to Second Reading. We got around the table; the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, was there from the Conservative side, while the noble Lord, Lord Best, who I see in his seat, contributed with his experience, and we had representation from the Liberal Democrats. We resolved to go forward with the idea of improving our knowledge and the research associated with the ambition to change, develop or extend the Bill in the way that we have accepted. It is this Bill that I have now brought back as a result of the change of Government, and it comes before us today with an amendment.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for introducing the Bill, particularly the amendment to which he has spoken. The Bill seeks a review. I note that the period that is sought is 30 months, as the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, said. Thirty months for carrying out a review is much better than 12 months. I was not a Member of this House when the original Bill was produced. I would love to say a lot more about it but I will keep my remarks short.
A lot of work needs to be done as regards fire suppression systems. However, wired-in smoke alarms have been a great boon. Of course, water sprinkler systems do not stop oil fires happening in kitchens. As the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, said, there is a Welsh dimension to the measure, as in the previous debate. On 16 February this year, the Welsh Assembly voted for it to become law in Wales that sprinklers be installed in all new residential buildings. In, say, 30 months—which is the period mentioned in the Bill—some worthwhile information will come from Wales on how effective sprinklers have been in dousing fires and saving lives, and on whether the cost of installation affected the level of new build in Wales; installing water systems does not mean just putting in a pipe and a sprinkler, it means putting in water tanks and providing a heavier structure in the buildings to carry them.
We have no objection to an increase from 12 months to 30 months, which is the point of the amendment, but I remain doubtful whether such a review is needed, at least until the results of what is happening in Wales is made known to us all. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for bringing this matter before us once more.
I support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Harrison and wish to pick up on a couple of his points.
Sadly, this yet another story of UK buildings and accommodation that are of a somewhat lower standard than in the best continental countries. In many of those countries not only water sprinklers are used, but fine-spray systems that are set off by smoke. One of the extraordinary things about the 9/11 event was that huge numbers of sprinklers did not operate, because those of a classical nature operate on temperature, not smoke. It is perfectly possible to install a system that starts to spray a low level of water when there is smoke and then a higher level of water when there is a high temperature.
It can be demonstrated in a lab. I was so appalled by the situation that I went to Holland, carried out some experiments and then tried to get companies involved. However, the UK is the old UK and that did not work. The Building Research Establishment does not seem to have produced this kind of adaptive technology. Perhaps if there is now an initial programme in Wales, although we should watch it, we should also, as my noble friend Lord Harrison said, make use of international research and, I hope, develop the capability in this country to install flexible systems.
Huge amounts of water such as those needed for classical sprinklers may well be unnecessary if there are smoke alarms, as now, and water spray systems. It may well be a cheaper and faster method that should certainly be looked at. I endorse the amendment.
My Lords, I support the amendment and the Bill. I declare my interest in the building of new homes for older people as the chairman of the Hanover Housing Association, which is the country’s largest builder of extra care apartments.
At previous stages of the Bill and in its previous incarnation, I congratulated the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, on his interest and expertise in this subject and strongly supported the idea of a comprehensive review of this aspect of the building regulations. I know that some of my colleagues in the housing world are concerned at the potential cost of fitting sprinkler systems in residential premises, and a full cost-benefit analysis should reveal whether or not those worries are well placed. Some of those colleagues have had non-financial concerns.
One chief executive of a major provider of new apartments told me that the policy of his organisation was that in the event of a fire alarm being set off, residents should stay put in their flats, each of which is secure against fire, for long enough to await the fire being put out—or, very exceptionally, for them to be rescued. He felt that sprinkler systems in the whole building would lead to residents vacating their flats, perhaps in a panic, and placing themselves at greater risk in the corridors and stairways outside. I am not at all sure that these fears are justified, and if a fire is started within a flat, as it so often is, it can be extinguished only inside that flat, which is where the sprinklers would be so valuable.
A positive reason for the installation of sprinkler systems in older people’s housing, one that appeals to me, is the possibilities that this opens up, apart from the potential for saving lives, of increased flexibility in the design of new buildings—the internal design. In other countries it has been possible to do without a lot of clumsy lobbies and internal walls which are required for fire protection but which can waste space and give a boxed-in feel to the environment. Sprinklers can liberate an open-plan design, sometimes with dividers to separate living, sleeping, cooking and eating areas, without enclosing and confining the whole space of the apartment. I think that sprinklers may have some spin-offs in terms of the design of apartments, some of which are in themselves a saving of the capital cost of those new homes.
Incidentally, I was pleased to note that fires started by cigarettes left burning, perhaps because a smoker falls asleep, are less likely in the future not only because fewer people smoke but because cigarettes will be required to no longer smoulder but to go out if left to their own devices.
All those considerations can be brought together in a review, and it seems entirely sensible for that to proceed now in the hope that it will shed light, and perhaps lead to important changes to the building regulations. On the basis that a review is more likely to be acceptable to government if the timescale is not too constrained, I support the noble Lord’s amendment and hope that the Government will accept that a review should proceed.
My Lords, I want, briefly, to reinforce the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Best. I do so as a former patron of the national fire sprinkler campaign and former chair of the Fire Safety Council. That was some years ago now and I do not currently have any interest in that area. When I was Schools Minister I ensured that the attitude towards sprinklers in schools was shifted significantly so that only the very lowest-risk schools in terms of fire would be exempt from installing sprinklers. That took a lot of ministerial heavy lifting when officials were giving contrary advice, so I urge the Minister to adopt such a policy if he is hearing all the reasons why not to do something when the case made by my noble friend Lord Harrison has been so strong in respect of the views of fire officers.
In the work that I have done over the years with fire officers—I pay tribute, in particular, to Peter Holland the chief fire officer at Lancashire—they have consistently said, “This is about saving lives for probably the cost of installing carpets in a building”. For that cost a huge amount is to be gained. Once you get into residential installations you are starting to achieve the sort of scale that can drive innovation. The noble Lord speaking from the Liberal Democrat Benches talked about the cost of tanking. Tanking systems are often but not necessarily used. If there is good enough water pressure—negotiation needs to be had with the water companies there—it is possible to go ahead with a small sprinkler system without using a tanking system.
Similarly, there may be other ways of scoring innovations. There has been some discussion about using the piping within a central heating system in a residential dwelling, and indeed using the water pump from the central heating system to supply a sprinkler system. Such innovations can be tested better, as they are in Wales, when we start to do residential systems. The comments of the noble Lord, Lord Best, about design freedom should be taken into account by the Department for Communities and Local Government—and not just design freedom within properties where some of the passive protections that can be quite frustrating to homeowners can be removed. Indeed, many of us have seen fire doors propped open which means that all the effectiveness of those passive measures is lost. There is also potential design freedom within new estates where the risk assessment from the fire authority is such that you might not need quite the same turning circles for large fire vehicles because the risk around fatalities in fires is so much reduced by having a sprinklered estate.
I urge the Minister to be sympathetic to my noble friend’s very modest proposal. I draw his attention to the first word of Clause 1—“Within”—and I hope that if he accepts the 30-month proposal, the drive is still on to get it as soon as possible. We should have in mind the story of the fire officer related by my noble friend Lord Harrison. As you wait an additional 18 months the lives of yet more fire officers and residents will be at risk.
Briefly, I support my noble friend's Bill and the amendment and pay tribute to his persistence and dedication on the issue of fire safety. I support the amendment with reluctance, because the Bill is perfectly adequate as it stands, but my noble friend has gone the extra mile by extending the time.
Given that extension, what assurance can the Minister give us on funding for ongoing community fire safety activity, which has been at the heart of driving down the number of deaths from fires in this country? Since we last debated this at Second Reading, we have had the CLG publication, Future Changes to the Buildings Regulations—Next Steps. In Part B, on fire safety, it states about the consultation:
“However, this exercise has not produced any significant new evidence on the health and safety benefits of greater sprinkler provision that would alter the cost/benefit analysis and the basis of the current approach. The Department will not, therefore, be considering this as part of next year’s programme of work”.
It seems an odd position to take that the Government do not want to engage in or encourage new research but are happy to rely on current research, which has been a bone of contention—we debated the BRE research previously under the Bill—as the benchmark to say that there is no new evidence. That is a rather perverse way to proceed.
On the summary of work to be taken forward from the consultation exercise, I am certainly pleased to see that Part P, to do with electrical safety, will be in next year's work programme, because there is interrelation with issues of fire safety. About 8,000 deaths in the home are caused by inadequate electrical work. I would hope that that will focus on greater use of competent person's schemes. Paragraph 3.4 states:
“Finally, there is also a third group of issues that we believe currently lack clear evidence to support regulation in 2013, but which we would not wish to definitively rule out. This includes whether to expand the provisions for radon gas protection and whether flood resilience/resistance should be incorporated into regulations”.
My second question for the Minister is: where does that leave the review of Part B? What is the programme for review in Part B, or will the Government continue to oppose the Bill and the research that it seeks and rely on the status quo of research, therefore closing their minds to further review of that important part of the building regulations to deal with fire safety?
I support my noble friend and his amendment, although I think that the Government should have been more encouraging and not have required him to seek this extension.
I support my noble friend Lord Harrison’s amendment and his Bill. At the Dispatch Box in our previous debate, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, referred to “Groundhog Day”. A number of us in the Chamber today feel the same sense that we have been here before. I pay enormous tribute to the tenacity and commitment of my noble friend Lord Harrison for the work that he has undertaken to drive this forward. He has not been prepared to let the issue drop. He wants to continue purely in the interests of public safety. The same goes for my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton, given his former role at the Dispatch Box and his commitment. My noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth will remember many discussions on the way forward on this when I was the fire Minister and he was an education Minister. As he said, I am pleased that we were able to make such progress.
I support the amendment—with some reservations, like my noble friend, Lord McKenzie; but it will get my support. I am not sure that it is necessary, but if the Minister thinks that it helps and if that is what it takes to move the issue forward, get the research and assessment we need, I am happy to support that. I am grateful to the Minister for the meeting between his officials and my noble friend Lord Harrison, because that is what led to him proposing the amendment.
My Lords, the Government recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, has in his amendment extended the period for commencement of a review, as prescribed in his Bill, from 12 to 30 months. However, our reservations remain the same as those I set out at Second Reading. We must focus on the priorities at hand, and it would be difficult to find any Government who would be willing to support a statutory commitment of their resources in the way that the Bill proposes. I must gently remind the Committee that the question it must consider is: for how long do the Government need to consider this review?
Therefore, I will not be drawn into some of the technical issues that I have recently studied. The noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, raised some of the plumbing issues, which I have discussed with the House Builders Federation. I did sanity-check some of the advice that I received. I asked, “Can you plumb sprinklers into the central heating system?”. I was advised that it was much more complicated than that. If you want a sprinkler system, you need a separate pressure supply that bypasses the house’s water meter. I also challenged why it costs £3,000 to £5,000 to install a sprinkler system.
We recognise that work is in hand, sponsored by industry, to refine and update the available evidence base that exists on the costs and benefits of sprinkler protection in residential premises. Clearly, we would need to consider any new information as and when it becomes available. Indeed, I have personally undertaken to read and understand the report currently being prepared by the Building Research Establishment for the Chief Fire Officers Association. I do not know how big that report will be.
I am grateful for the comments of many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, who made a very useful contribution, and those of the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Best. The noble Lord, Lord Best, talked about design problems and design flexibility. The building regulations already include the facility to vary the design of buildings where sprinklers are provided.
The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, asked me what I was worried about with regard to extending sprinklers to all houses. We are not aware of any problems with this provision, and the recent review of building regulations concluded that the excellent provisions for fire safety did not need to be changed. I am advised that the cost of carrying out a detailed review, as set out in the Bill, would be in the order of £250,000 and that it would divert departmental resources away from other government priorities. If you keep spending £100,000 here and £100,000 there on every single problem, eventually you run out of money, and that is more or less what has happened.
The noble Lord asked me what items under paragraphs (a) to (i) of Clause 1(1) caused me anxiety. I cite as an example paragraph (f), which refers to,
“the evidence for and experience of automatic fire suppression systems already available both in the UK and internationally”.
I am sure that my officials would enjoy going round the world looking at the international experience of fire suppression sprinkler systems, because that is what they would have to do.
Just before Christmas, my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the department, Andrew Stunell, published his plans for taking forward the outcome of a recent review of building regulations. The review included looking at any changes that might be necessary to ensure that the regulations continued to operate effectively in the future. During the review, a number of respondents called for the introduction of regulation to increase the provision of sprinklers in buildings. However, the review did not produce any significant new evidence of the benefits of greater sprinkler provision.
Sprinkler protection is recognised as a highly effective measure, and provisions for its use have been in place in building regulations for many years for buildings where the fire risk is high. However, when you consider that all new homes are already provided with hard-wired smoke alarms, it is difficult to justify further increasing the regulatory burden with a measure that will impact only on new buildings.
The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, and perhaps others asked about the recent vote in the Welsh Assembly. Parliament has given the Welsh Assembly the power to adopt such a measure if it chooses to do so. By the end of the year, it will also have the necessary powers to set its own building regulations. However, this debate is about England, and what the Welsh Assembly does is a matter for the Assembly.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about the review of Part B, relating to the fire safety building regulations. We have made no plans to review the fire safety aspects of building regulations. No doubt they will be reviewed at some point when it is considered to be necessary.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, mentioned reducing spending on the fire service, suggesting that sprinklers could help. However, if building regulations changed tomorrow, only homes built after that point would be affected, and it would take decades for this to have a meaningful effect on the building stock. If there was a real concern that the service was under-resourced, I think that a more rapid solution would need to be found.
The noble Lord, Lord Knight, made several interesting comments, some of them relating to technical matters. I should have liked to engage on them if I had known that he was going to ask those questions. He suggested that Ministers and policy are controlled by officials, but I assure the noble Lord that Ministers determine the policy with advice from officials, not the other way round.
Prevention is much better than cure and an example of a more effective and innovative approach is the introduction of fire-safer cigarettes, a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Best. We have actively supported the European Commission’s efforts in developing a safety standard for reduced-ignition cigarettes. We estimate that this standard, once introduced, will save with almost immediate effect between 25 and 64 lives per year in England alone, not just in new buildings but across the board.
The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, asked why the Conservative Party has changed its policy now that it is in government. I gently remind the Committee that I answer for Her Majesty’s Government, not for the previous Opposition. Where noble Lords have raised wider issues, I will write if I have something valuable to add to my comments.
In summary, while we agree with the desire to answer the questions set out in the Bill, we must express strong reservations about the provisions in it for a statutory commitment for the Government.
My Lords, that was a lame reply to all the contributions that have been made to the debate this afternoon. I know that colleagues who have been here today to support the Bill have other urgent things to do so, in thanking them, I take the opportunity to say to the Minister that we will return to this issue; we will write to him and point out where we believe the deficiencies are in his reply. I still hope that we can make some changes but, in the interim, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.