Building Safety Bill

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

3rd reading
Monday 4th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to acquaint the House that they, having been informed of the purport of the Building Safety Bill, have consented to place their interests, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

My Lords, a significant number of the provisions in the Building Safety Bill apply to England and Wales and a number also apply to Scotland and/or Northern Ireland. Throughout the preparation and passage of the Bill we have been working closely with each of the devolved Administrations, and I pay tribute to officials and Ministers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for their constructive engagement and support.

There are provisions in the Bill which engage the legislative consent process in the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru and the Northern Ireland Assembly. I am pleased to report that the Senedd and the Scottish Parliament have granted legislative consent. However, the Northern Ireland Executive have not brought forward a legislative consent memorandum and the Assembly has therefore not voted on legislative consent. I reassure noble Lords that the Government will continue to engage with the Northern Ireland Executive.

Schedule 8: Remediation costs under qualifying leases etc

Amendment 1

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Greenhalgh]

That the Bill do now pass.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, the Grenfell Tower tragedy resulted in the largest loss of life in a residential fire since the Second World War. On 14 June 2017, 72 people died and 70 more were injured. This was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since Piper Alpha in 1988. The Government are determined to ensure that a tragedy such as this never happens again. The Building Safety Bill is the landmark Bill that delivers on that mission.

These are the biggest changes to building safety legislation in our history. The Bill not only addresses the total building safety regulatory system failure head-on but protects leaseholders who are the victims in a building safety crisis. This Bill helps to ensure that there is a more proportionate approach to building safety risk, introduces a cap on the historic building safety costs that leaseholders will have to pay and, finally, provides an extensive set of tools in law that will ensure that the polluter pays.

Fifteen of the 37 disabled residents living in Grenfell Tower died in the fire. That is more than 40% of the disabled residents. The Government are committed to supporting the fire safety of disabled and vulnerable residents. We are acutely aware of the need to ensure the safety of residents with mobility concerns. The Government ran a consultation on the issue of personal emergency evacuation plans—PEEPs—in July 2021. The consultation has made clear the substantial difficulties of mandating PEEPs in high-rise residential buildings around practicality, proportionality and safety. On practicality, how can you evacuate a mobility-impaired person from a tall building before the professionals from the fire and rescue service arrive? On proportionality, how much is it reasonable to spend to do this at the same time as we seek to protect residents and taxpayers from excessive costs? On safety, how can you ensure that an evacuation of mobility-impaired people is carried out in a way that does not hinder others in evacuating or the fire and service in fighting the fire?

Given these difficulties, the Government are committing to undertake a new consultation. While our response is still being finalised, this will include a proposal called “emergency evacuation information-sharing” or EEIS. The Government will publish our response to the PEEPs consultation and our new consultation on EEIS and commence the Fire Safety Act 2021 on the same day next month, which is as soon as practical after the pre-election period. I have discussed this at some length with the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Brinton. I confirm to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that the consultation will look to ensure as best we can that the golden thread exists between planning for the safe evacuation of a mobility-impaired person when needed and the response of fire and rescue services in the event that a building needs to be evacuated.

The Building Safety Bill leaves your Lordships’ House in a far better state than it arrived in. I welcome the clear cross-party support for the Bill. Both Opposition Benches have played hard but fair. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for using his considerable professional expertise and the noble Baronesses, Lady Jolly and Lady Finlay of Llandaff, for their redoubtable efforts with the Safer Stairs campaign. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, for ensuring that the new regime is as proportionate as possible. Finally, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for helping improve the Bill in the interests of leaseholders.

On the Government Benches, I thank my noble friend Lord Naseby for representing the interests of pensioners with pensions tied up in buy-to-let leasehold properties, my noble friend Lady Sanderson for ensuring that the voice of the Grenfell community is heard loud and clear, and last but by no means least, the dynamic duo of my noble friends Lord Young and Lord Blencathra, who have brought decades of parliamentary experience to ensure that leaseholders are protected. I also thank my long-suffering Whip, my noble friend Lady Scott, and her understudy briefly on Report, my noble friend Lady Bloomfield. My heartfelt thanks also go to Hannah Ellis in the Whips’ Office.

Finally, I thank the army of officials in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the Home Office and across government for their support and hard work over the last few months. I will name four who deserve special mention: the former Bill manager, Amy Payne, the current Bill manager, Catherine Canning, and the superb DHLUC government lawyers, Joanna Stewart and Katherine Bridges.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely. I invite the noble Baroness to speak.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the cladding and building safety campaigners who have been resolute and unremitting, since the Grenfell fire tragedy, in pursuing justice for leaseholders and tenants. Without them, this Bill would not be in the shape it is today. It has been transformed but not transformed enough, as we have heard from others. Across the House, people have worked together to make it a better Bill. I thank them for the way we have worked together to make improvements, but it is not yet enough.

I, too, urge the Government to accept the amendments that we accepted on Report. I, for one, am not giving way. I hope that the Government, at the other end, will say that the argument has been made for a nil cost to all leaseholders. That is where I shall firmly stand to the bitter end. Leaseholders are the innocent victims; they must not pay a penny.

I pass on my thanks to the Minister for being so free with his time, discussing the various amendments, and to the officials from various parts of the Government for explaining the detailed changes that had been proposed. Particularly, I thank Sarah Pughe in the Liberal Democrat Whips’ Office, and my noble friend Lord Stunell. Without their expertise, knowledge and experience, we would not have been able to do the job that, between us, we have done. I look forward to the Bill coming back, having been accepted by the Commons.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I beg the indulgence of noble Lords: as my noble friend Lord Young and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, asked pretty much the same question, I thought I would respond to that very briefly. They wanted to know what happens to orphan buildings, where there is no polluter to pay. I do not feel that this works in this setting, but I have this wonderful diagram that makes it pretty clear to me what happens. This is the so-called “non-cladding costs waterfall”, which I am going to try to have put on the Government’s website. Let us be very clear: we need to look at this in terms of cladding and non-cladding.

There is, of course, the £5.1 billion building safety fund for the remediation of cladding in high-rise residential buildings, which is open to orphan buildings. My department is seeking a further £4 billion voluntary contribution. In the first instance, it is a voluntary contribution from the developers for the remediation of unsafe cladding in medium-rise buildings, which is also open to orphan buildings. Then, we have this wonderful government waterfall for non-cladding costs: the developers must pay. In instances where the developer is not available to pay, the landlord must pay. The landlord or freeholders who pass the government test, which is a net worth of £2 million per building, become legally liable for all the costs. The landlords must comply with the law, as set out by Parliament. Freeholders or landlords must pursue those responsible, as well as any applicable grant schemes, before they can pass costs on.

Finally, as it says on this wonderful chart, which even I can read with my poor eyesight, costs are shared equitably between freeholders, lessees and leaseholders, subject to robust leaseholder protections detailed in the Bill—and sent back to the other place with some other parameters that perhaps the Government might not have wanted at this stage.

I want to make a final point about landlords. Sadly, some landlords are polluters. A number of large freeholders have appeared on the Government’s “name and shame” list for not remediating their buildings. Some freeholders or landlords have gone so far as to force leaseholders to take loans to remediate their buildings. As I said, we all agree that, in those instances, the polluter must pay.

Bill passed and returned to the Commons with amendments.