Building Safety Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

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

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I support all three amendments in this group. Amendment 111, which was laid by my noble friend Lord Foster and to which I have added my name, aims to protect consumers from items purchased online that are non-compliant with rules for purchasing the same products in shops. I thank him for his clear and detailed explanation of why it is needed.

The excellent analysis by Electrical Safety First of the Office for Product Safety and Standards demonstrates that there is a real safety issue. Nearly two-thirds of electrical products bought in an online marketplace are non-compliant and a shocking quarter is actively unsafe. Electrical Contracting News said that in 2020 faulty appliances caused 43 fires per week in England. Everyday household appliances caused 15,000 accidental fires in homes. We know that some serious and fatal fires in high-rise and medium-rise buildings were caused by faulty appliances. Some fires were due to household items being placed too close to the source of heat or to misuse of appliances, but a number were due to appliances that were found to be faulty.

If two-thirds of electrical products bought in online marketplaces are non-compliant and, worse, a quarter is unsafe, that is a recipe for danger. Perhaps it is not surprising that legislation is taking time to catch up with new ways of purchasing goods, yet the focus of this Bill is to ensure that buildings are safe, especially high-rise buildings. This amendment proposes a solution to the problem and I support it.

Briefly, I want also to add my support to Amendment 112 laid by my noble friend Lady Pinnock and Amendment 117 laid by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. The amendment of my noble friend Lady Pinnock also responds to evidence given at both the Grenfell inquiry and Dame Judith Hackitt’s review of the appalling habits of too many construction product companies of managing to soften or even blatantly breach the safety regulations. It is evident that the regulations are out of date and I hope that the Minister will be able to respond favourably to this, too.

Finally, the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, highlights the importance of the provision of CO detectors and alarms and seeks for the responsible person to ensure that they are provided. Too many times, people end up with unsafe equipment, whether an old gas fire or, worse, a new exterior gas fire being used inside through ignorance, which has resulted in the deaths of far too many people. We are used to having smoke alarms in buildings, especially high-rise ones. We should also have CO detectors and monitors as a matter of absolute routine for safety. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to speak to my Amendment 117 in this group— I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings heath, for supporting this amendment with me. I should declare my interest, as I co-chair the All-Party Parliamentary Carbon Monoxide Group and I chair the CO Research Trust.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, faulty appliances are often a source of carbon monoxide, but so are wood-burning stoves and oil central heating. Anything that burns a carbon-based fuel can produce carbon monoxide, which is colourless, tasteless and odourless and results from incomplete combustion of the fuel. The problem is that high levels kill you rapidly, within a few minutes, but the symptoms are that you just feel warm and sleepy. You think that you are comfortable and sleepy; the next thing you are dead. However, low levels also produce long-term damage and are thought to damage the developing foetus in pregnant women.

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[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 120 in the name of my noble friend Lady Jolly and other noble Lords and would just like to make a few comments.

At Second Reading, we heard how important it was to ensure that BS 5395-1 was accepted. I am disappointed that the Government have not yet made a concession on this. In fact, there is no mention at all of stair safety in the Bill. In the 2010 legislation, the standard was put in place only as a recommendation, as we have heard. It is now time to put it in this Bill as a requirement and ensure that all new buildings comply from 2024, as my noble friend Lady Jolly has indicated. We know that hundreds of lives may be saved every year—estimated at about 700 in England alone. If this standard were adopted for all buildings, we could prevent the hospitalisation of around 43,000 more people. Think what amount of money that would save in costs just to the NHS, never mind the trauma suffered by the families of those injured.

I ought to declare a small interest here, as I have increasing difficulty using the stairs in my own home, as they are both steep and deep. In fact, I am having to have another handrail put in so that I can use them safely.

It is vitally important that stairs in high-rise buildings, indeed any communal building, are of sufficient depth and width to allow numbers of people to use them simultaneously in an emergency. We know that the horrors of the Grenfell Tower disaster were exacerbated by totally impractical stairs in the building. I cannot believe that any building company or architect designing a new high-rise building would rely on just one staircase for multiple flats. That would be a complete dereliction of duty, in my opinion. In the event of an outbreak of fire in a high-rise building, there will inevitably be a rush to get out down the stairs, as lifts will be out of use. It is therefore inevitable that people will fall. BS 5395-1 should be put into law during the passage of this Bill and I urge the Minister to accept this immediately.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I have signed Amendments 122, 123 and 124 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and will come to them in a minute, but I wanted to start by supporting Amendment 120, laid by my noble friend Lady Jolly.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, has said, BS 5395-1 ensures that staircases in new-build homes have the best possible ratios between treads and risers. This is especially important as many new-build homes are built to fewer square metres than recommended, resulting in staircases being squeezed into narrower spaces. There is only one consequence of that: stairs become steeper, and too often even fail to have a handrail all the way up because of the narrowness of the stairs. That is a recipe for falls, whether for children, the elderly, or the disabled.

Let me tell noble Lords, it is extremely scary to have to come slowly and painfully down steep emergency exit stairs, holding a handrail, with a stick in your other hand, while others race past you. On one occasion, someone tripped on my stick as they tried to race past me, resulting in both of us falling—luckily, only a couple of steps. Had it been at the top of a run of 10 steps, not only would we both have hurt ourselves badly but others following would probably have fallen over us too. Building standards are there for a reason and should be a minimum for new builds. Building in safety is part of Hackitt’s golden thread.

Elderly and disabled people using a stick, or sticks, on a narrow and steep staircase, possibly with no handrail, will be at serious risk of falls. Special fracture clinics report that falls in the vulnerable often lead to life-changing injuries, serious muscle loss while they are in hospital, loss of confidence and, sadly, earlier deaths. So it does not just cost lives; it costs quality of life, and it also costs the NHS and social care millions every year in extra treatment and care support.

I now turn to the other three amendments in this group in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, to which I have added my name. One of the worrying aspects of fires in high and medium-rise residential blocks is the number caused by faulty or defective installation. Home Office data shows that this number is growing, whether from the cables themselves or from the shoddy work on party walls that breaches compartmentation, both of which are completely unacceptable. These amendments address that.

Amendment 122 requires leaseholders to ensure the safety of electrical installations in high-rise buildings. Amendment 123 specifies that leaseholders in mixed tenure high rises have to ensure the safety of their electrical installations. Amendment 124 places a specific responsibility on social landlords to do the same. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, spoke eloquently in the first group this afternoon about the problems of breached compartmentation and quoted from Dame Judith Hackitt’s report. The same applies here, but currently the same responsibility does not apply to different types of landlords and leaseholders, and this is an unacceptable loophole. The amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Foster, remedy that.

The requirements in these amendments make it clear that leaseholders and landlords have a duty to ensure that installation works must be safe. Surely, that is not too much to ask. Surely, all these various types of flat should have a current electrical installation condition report, which not only demonstrates that they, the landlords and leaseholders, have taken care to ensure the safety of residents and the buildings they live in but gives them the same protection as those of flats with private tenants. Dame Judith Hackitt’s golden thread does not just apply to the construction industry; it also applies to those with responsibilities for the buildings once they are lived in. Most tenants are not aware of the distinction between different types of landlord and leaseholder in building safety law. Surely, our law should be consistent.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I was delighted to see this amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly. As she pointed out, more than 700 people die each year from falls on the stairs. But in addition to this, 43,000 people are admitted to hospital. Falls are tragic and common, but they do not often make the news. Someone is estimated to fall on stairs every 90 seconds, and falls on stairs account for a quarter of all falls in the home. Obviously, when stairs have an inadequate guardrail, the trauma sustained is even worse, as it is when they are a long flight of stairs.

The most common injury is a fractured hip, but the most costly to the country is a spinal cord injury, which is absolutely devastating. The lifetime average cost of a spinal cord injury is £1.12 million, which works out at a total of £1.43 billion for all the accumulated spinal cord injuries. These are staggering figures, yet the British Standard, which has been referred to, is associated with a 60% reduction in falls. It has existed since 2010 and has been thoroughly tested, evidenced and assessed by industry and government. If we are to have homes that are built as homes for life, we need stairs in them that are safe. If workplaces are to be safe, they must have safe evacuation stairs as well.

As they grow older, many people need to install a stairlift in their home to enable them to go up and down stairs safely, particularly when they have items to carry. Many homes are still being built with stairs too narrow to safely install a stairlift on. In the long term, the British Standard is a very good investment for the nation.

I know that the Minister is aware of all of this and has been working with RoSPA to come to a solution. I look forward to hearing an update from him on this matter, because RoSPA and those of us who signed this amendment honestly believe that this one action could save more lives than anything else in the Bill.

Building Safety Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th February 2022 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

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

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I support all the amendments in this group in the names of my noble friends Lady Pinnock and Lord Stunell.

In his response to the previous group and to some groups on the first day of Committee, the Minister rightly said how shocking some of the revelations have been to him, to us and to many others as more systemic failures have been uncovered, and how far too many people were able to refuse to take responsibility for their role in the problems.

Along with other parliamentarians, I heard Dame Judith Hackitt speaking on a number of occasions during and after her review, and I have also read her Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety—both the interim and the final reports. Her foreword to the final report published in 2018, which she describes as a personal view, is extremely powerful as a summary to the cultural and regulatory structures in the built environment sector and explains exactly why the amendments in this group are so necessary.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

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

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I wish to speak briefly to the amendments in this group, particularly in relation to the issue of perpetrator pays for fire hazard remediation—work that must be carried out speedily to ensure the safety of the inhabitants of the building. Amendment 24 and others, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, sets out the removal or alteration of offending work that contravenes fire safety regulations. It is interesting to note that he joins a group of former Ministers who are now trying to remedy the problems that were around during their time as Ministers. I think we should thank them not just for their humility but for their acknowledgment, through their amendments, that change is needed even more urgently than ever.

The noble Lord is right that his and other non-government amendments in this group are critical to delivering what the Government want to achieve, despite their own proposals being inadequate. I echo his point that if the Government think that things can be done more effectively to achieve the objectives that he outlined, I suspect that the Grand Committee would want to hear them.

The Minister spoke earlier of his surprise about the mechanisms of current building work guarantees and the role of insurers and warranties. Insurers have, rightly, made it clear that they are not responsible for this crisis. Insurance is not eligible in the event of defective work, and insurers never sign off work; they rely on the assurances of the companies they are insuring that the work is safe. The practical problem is that too many companies have relied entirely on their insurers. In my former professional life as a Cambridge college senior bursar, I have been that client who has sat in the middle and watched arguments about who should pay for defective work on blocks of flats, including works on a fire hazard in a medium-rise building.

The problems we faced as a college, even though they were with student accommodation, were absolutely nothing compared to the problems that leaseholders and renters in blocks of flats face. Talk to any of the current leaseholders living in blocks known to be unsafe: even with waking watches overnight, families are constantly on edge, and too many face the threat of worthless homes that are unsaleable until the perpetrator pays principle is fully brought into effect. I think “perpetrator pays principle” will be one of the next speech therapist phrases that people have to articulate; it is quite difficult to get your mouth around. The current government proposals do not take into account too many leaseholders who, like those in high-rise cladding buildings, are also not responsible for the defective work done by others.

Amendment 118 makes it clear that those who should pay, in the event of a block of flats having fire hazards, are those who did the work itself. The Government’s current proposals do not go far enough and still leave too many loopholes for those living in unsafe flats. This is the moment that legislation can and should make it absolutely clear that the perpetrator is responsible and must effect the remediation work and pay for it. In the event of a gap between that work being necessary to be carried out and it being agreed that the perpetrator should pay, the Government should indeed step in to help out.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, before I get my bearings, it is always good to have a few Latin phrases. “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”—well, I am just going to say, “Res ipsa loquitur”.

This is the “PP” group of amendments: “polluter pays” if you are my noble friend Lord Young, or “perpetrator pays” if you are the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. Although I will respond formally at the end— I am now speaking to the government amendments—I honestly agree with the sentiment of working with noble Lords and that a pick-and-mix approach is the right way forward. I am very keen to do that between now and Report. That is not in my speaking notes. The important thing is that we need a practical approach. We need one that works in law and in practice, and of course we want the polluter to pay.

I have taken noble Lords’ amendments and sought external counsel opinion, off my own bat, from a leading QC who deals with these issues in the courts to get their opinion. While I know my noble friend has tremendous ministerial experience, he perhaps has not always been in the courts when these things go into dispute. I know the noble Earl has considerable professional experience, but, again, this has to work in law as well as in practice. As the Committee will all appreciate, any scheme that requires government funding is not just a matter for this department; it is a matter for the Government and, in particular, needs Treasury approval.

I have always accepted that, in order for the polluter to pay, we have to have something that establishes liability at the building level. It is not an either/or. That is not to say that the Government’s approach is wrong; I think the Government’s approach is right. We have to have a waterfall effect that goes down the list of the polluters but recognises that not all freeholders are equal—some are “more equal than others”, to quote George Orwell—and that perhaps assignment of liability can be varied in regulation to reflect that. But all that detail is something that happens at later stages of the Bill, as my noble friend will know. Perhaps we will tease out some of those points in due course.

Clearly, if you are a developer like Ballymore that retains its freeholds, it is very easy. But if you are a developer like Berkeley, which often sells off its freeholds to a freehold investor, it becomes slightly more complex. But the intention of the Government is certainly not to let the Berkeley Group off the hook because it took another £20 million or £30 million by selling its freeholds off to another group to manage. It is still in the frame for the buildings that it built. I mention those developers just as examples, because we are obviously talking about a crisis that affects all the major housebuilders, as they freely acknowledge—not just the large ones but the medium and small ones, which have all contributed to a crisis that has brewed up over decades.

Let us move to the government amendments. Following my 11 January repeat of a Statement to this House, we have been clear on our expectations that developers should commit to self-remediate all unsafe high and medium-rise buildings for which they are responsible. They should agree contributions to fund the remediation of all cladding on buildings of 11 to 18 metres. The department has been in discussions with industry leaders on this matter and is making good progress towards a solution. I have had discussions with the medium-rise developers and have been alongside the Secretary of State in all those substantive discussions. However, should we need to take action against those unwilling to make these commitments, amendments tabled in my name will make it possible to impose a solution in law and make sure that developers and manufacturers take responsibility for rectifying building safety defects. I will now outline these important government amendments.

The first measure we are proposing as part of our package to ensure that the burden of paying for fixing historical building safety defects does not fall on leaseholders or taxpayers is a group of amendments to the building safety levy. They are an important part of the solution as they allow the building safety levy to be imposed in relation to building work going through the building control process on all residential buildings, not just buildings over 18 metres or seven storeys. This will enable the Government to raise funds to remediate cladding should the industry fail to step up and pay for the problems it has caused. It is our intention to set out in secondary legislation the levy rates and the details of who the levy applies to. By then negotiations with industry should have been concluded.

I now turn back to the package of government amendments and outline the further amendments that we are proposing to ensure that developers and manufacturers take responsibility for rectifying building safety defects. This package of amendments addresses many of the concerns highlighted today. They introduce measures to allow us to distinguish between companies that commit to shouldering their share of the blame and those companies that do not. The measures will incentivise industry actors to take responsibility in resolving issues with unsafe buildings, through firms committing to remediate buildings with which they are associated, and to contribute towards the funding of remediation of other unsafe buildings.

The first two amendments in this package would give the Secretary of State a power to establish a scheme or schemes for the building industry. This would act as a means of identifying which industry actors, including developers, and cladding and insulation manufacturers, have done the right thing and committed to act responsibly. Regulations will set out which persons in the building industry may be members of the scheme. In the first instance, the Government are minded to focus this measure on major developers of residential buildings and manufacturers of cladding and insulation. We are keeping this under review as talks with industry continue. Industry actors will be considered “responsible” if they meet published membership criteria for a scheme for which they are eligible. The membership criteria for a scheme will be set out and will include a commitment to rectifying building safety defects. The distinction between responsible actors and actors who have failed to do the right thing will be taken into account by the Government and regulators in their interactions with firms that are eligible for inclusion in a scheme.

The third amendment would give the Secretary of State a power to block developers that have failed to act responsibly from carrying out development for which planning permission has been granted, and to make sure that any breach of this block would be subject to enforcement action. The amendment would also allow the Secretary of State through regulations to require a developer to serve a notification of proposed development commencement and to prevent the grant of certification of lawful development for affected developers, should they seek it.

The fourth amendment would give the Secretary of State the power to prevent developers that have not committed to act responsibly, as set out in regulations, obtaining building control sign-off on their developments. This will make selling developments difficult for these developers, as building control approval is in most cases a prerequisite to occupancy and sale. The building control prohibitions will be imposed by regulations that will also set out details such as prescribed documents.

These new measures will help to make sure that while responsible industry actors can go about their business freely and with confidence, others will face significant legal, commercial and reputational consequences. They align with two of the principles set out by the Secretary of State: that the industry must pay for remediation and that the burden should not fall on leaseholders or the taxpayers. These measures will ensure that the burden is shared among the relevant industry actors while protecting leaseholders and the taxpayer. We cannot continue to allow those who are unwilling to commit to resolve the building safety crisis to have a role in building homes of the future. These amendments are being tabled to ensure that we have the legislative provision to help us to do this. I beg to move.

Building Safety Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 21st February 2022 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely. I invite her to speak.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I shall speak to a number of amendments in this group, broadly divided into two areas. The first follows on from my noble friend Lord Foster’s introduction to the protection of property and the powers of the regulator. The second relates specifically to the safety of buildings and disabled people.

On the first issue, much of the focus among the public and in the debate in the run-up to the Bill coming to your Lordships’ House has been on cladding and the height of buildings. As was discussed specifically at Second Reading, a far wider range of safety, construction and adaptation issues have emerged as secondary issues, generally meaning that too many buildings are not complying with even the old building safety regulations. Life safety is not the only issue: far too many new buildings these days are being constructed in an unsafe way. The level of complaints against builders is the highest it has ever been, and my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath outlined that very clearly.

Secondly, I want to focus on the issues that disabled people face when they are asked to get out of a building, in the event of either a fire or a fire alarm. I am really looking forward to hearing the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, after her excellent speech at Second Reading.

I have not always used a wheelchair, but I still use a stick on various occasions, and I have to say that there is nothing more frightening than trying to leave even a low-level building coming downstairs with a stick with people racing past you. It was probably the second time I had to come out of a building for a fire alarm when I realised that I was as much a danger to the people trying to race past me as I was to myself, because of the risk of falling. Over the years, I have twice been in hotels where the fire alarm has gone off in the middle of the night—once, when I was trying to use my stick. The second time, because I was in my wheelchair, I had been told to report to the safety zone, which I did, and was told that someone from reception or the fire officers would come up, transfer me to the evac chair and take me downstairs. Twenty minutes later, I was still sitting there.

I have to say to noble Lords that this also happened to me in Portcullis House about five or six years ago. As a result—all credit to the House authorities—that was remedied and there is now a new arrangement. But when you are sitting there and you do not know whether it is a fire or a fire practice, and you cannot get out of your own accord, it is extremely alarming.

The use of PEEPs—personal evacuation emergency plans—is excellent, provided that they work. I have used them in workplaces, homes, hotels and guest houses. I was in charge of building some new disabled accommodation at Selwyn College when I was bursar there more than 20 years ago, and although they were not called PEEPs in those days, creating a confident document so that students, their friends around them and the college staff understood the needs of that particular disabled person was vital to them having confidence about being able to evacuate the building in the event of an emergency. The difficulty that we face today, highlighted especially by Grenfell, is that these documents are not in place.

Many disabled people are very concerned that the Home Office has appointed safety consultants CS Todd & Associates, who have been given a new contract worth over £200,000. This organisation was responsible for drafting and editing a fire safety guide for the LGA that said it was “usually unrealistic” to expect landlords to put arrangements in place for disabled people to evacuate blocks of flats in the event of an emergency. That is an interesting turn of phrase, because, as we know, there were a lot of disabled people in Grenfell and flats are increasingly being built, so evacuation for disabled people is vital.

I especially thank disabled campaigning group Claddag, a leaseholder action group led by disabled people who have decided that they will take the Home Secretary to court on this contract. They and the Disabled News Service are really highlighting this issue. It is important to note that, six years on from Todd’s advice, two-fifths of the disabled residents in Grenfell Tower lost their lives because there were no special arrangements in place to get them out safely. The fire service has recognised that the “stay put” advice for residents in high rise blocks must be changed, but there is no evidence from either the Government or from CS Todd & Associates that things have changed. In fact, a further set of advice has been published by Colin Todd on behalf of BSI that repeated this same arrangement.

That is why we need the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. There is an adage in the disabled world that says, “no decision about us without us”. This is fundamental to human safety and human life. It is vital that the specific needs of disabled people are taken into account in the Bill.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, wishes to take part remotely. I now invite the noble Baroness to speak.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I support both amendments in this group so helpfully introduced by my noble friend Lord Stunell. We heard in our debate on the previous group of amendments about the wide range of safety concerns, from fire and flood to methods of construction and fitting out, which mean that some buildings are at risk. I should declare my interest as the vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group, and I thank the many Fire Ministers who have appeared before it, including the current Minister and indeed a previous Minister, who spoke just now.

I support the ideas about the golden thread as outlined by my noble friend Lord Stunell. Amendment 3 does that. Frankly, I thank him for owning up to the fact that he did not do this when he was a Minister. The all-party group has, over the years, argued for this policy to be part of the fire safety protocol.

The amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and supported by my noble friend Lady Pinnock, have a key safety issue: the power to prevent a developer’s ability to pick their own regulator. It is right that it is the public building regulator, the Local Authority Building Control, that is the sole regulator.

The bonfire of regulations just over a decade ago has meant that this field has become murky and filled with a lot of organisations that may indeed have close relationships. There was one day when the all-party group heard from a whistleblower who told us that, in the past, there has been unacceptable practice when the developer or owner of a building has had the ability to pick and choose the inspector, in this case, but it could have been a regulator. Fire safety inspectors were booked to come and check the fire safety doors—the front doors of flats and those on the stairwells—and that they were still the right ones that would manage the 40-minute fire safety tests. The managing agents for the building asked for a delay of a week, which was granted. The whistleblower said that it had been noticed by a number of residents that a series of doors were removed and replaced with other doors during that week—which of course passed all the tests—and, the week after the inspection, all the old doors were put back.

There has to be a mechanism for a regulator to start picking up on, and being concerned, when organisations are not playing by the rules. Those alarm bells can best be raised by the independent Local Authority Building Control.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 135 in my name, which was referred to a moment ago by my noble friend Lord Stunell, and which I intend as a probing amendment. I should say that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I raised this issue at Second Reading, as the Minister will recall, and the question of whether permitted development rights would continue as now when this Bill is enacted, in respect of the conversion of office blocks to residential accommodation of any height. Amendment 135 seeks to clarify the matter. It says that

“Nothing in the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 … permits development which would convert offices to residential accommodation if such development is contrary to the provisions of this Act.”


I am grateful to the Public Bill Office for the help in drafting those words.

I simply say to the Minister that I hope he will clarify that this is government policy. If it is, that fact should be in the Bill to avoid any doubt. I look forward to the Minister’s assurance, because it would be inappropriate—as my noble friend Lord Stunell said—if a different set of rules were to apply to a conversion from office to residential than would apply to a residential block always designated as that. This amendment aims to clarify that the permitted development route cannot be used where it would be contrary to the provisions of this Act. I hope the Minister will agree that this is a very important issue.

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[The Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees (The Earl of Kinnoull) (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will be participating remotely, and I invite her to speak now.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, just before I speak to the two amendments in this group, I ask the Minister whether I might be copied into the answer about permitted development rights on the previous group. We had an interesting case in Watford three years ago, where a small industrial unit was converted under permitted development rights into 15 tiny flats, and not one of the upstairs flats had windows. At the time, the planning inspector, who overruled the borough council, commented that it was within the rules and that planning permission was not required. Even the size of the flats was outside of the scope: normally, the minimum should have been 39 square metres; the largest flat was 22 square metres and the smallest was 16 square metres. I would be grateful if I could see the Minister’s written response.

I support both Amendments 5 and 10 laid by my noble friend Lord Stunell and signed by my noble friend Lady Pinnock. Dame Judith Hackitt talked about the importance of absolute clarity on who is responsible for which element of safety and control. The mistake in recent years has been to allow a multitude of different arrangements that have enabled a culture where matters of safety are somebody else’s problem; hence Dame Judith Hackitt’s focus in her report on the golden thread.

My noble friend Lord Stunell has talked eloquently about the issues thrown up by self-certification. I will not repeat his points, other than to say that destroying compartmentation by remediation works much reduces all other safety features, if not makes them redundant. I echo his concerns about that, and I would welcome the Minister’s response in order to see whether that is covered by the new arrangements. If it is not, these amendments should be given serious consideration.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I will just say how important these amendments are. Although they are brief and innocuous on the surface, they are fundamental to building safety. In the Grenfell Tower inquiry, it became clear that the window replacement was not as satisfactory as one would hope and that the gaps between the window frames and structure of the building were filled with a flammable material. That is why the second amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Stunell is so important.

That is just one example. Electrical safety is also critical. Self-certification is all very well, but having oversight, as the Hackitt report points to, helps to create clarity and accountability and to ensure that there is proper documentation. I hope that the Minister will be able to put our minds at rest but, if not, it is certainly one of the areas that we will want to pursue at the next stage of this debate.

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[The Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees (The Earl of Kinnoull) (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is participating remotely, and I invite her to speak now.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak specifically to Amendment 6 but I endorse the others, for reasons that will become apparent. One thing we have all become aware of, post Grenfell and the Hackitt review, is concerns about repeat problems emerging, whether they are systemic ones to do with the way a building has been built or newly emerging issues. They happen time and again, and yet the industry, councils and Parliament do not seem to learn from them. I shall give one brief illustration to explain.

In my role as health spokesperson for my group in the Lords, I know that we are increasingly concerned about some of the mould and damp issues increasingly found in more recent 1960s buildings, to which landlords have been very slow to respond. There is clearly a public health issue where especially children and the clinically vulnerable remain at risk and become ill, and yet there does not seem to be a mechanism to provide a review to make sure that there is learning from this, especially since it is happening across the country.

The other amendments in this group set out a swathe of mechanisms to ensure transparency and accountability for the BS regulator, the Secretary of State and Parliament. Returning to Dame Hackitt’s review, these amendments would be a strategic element to push the culture change that she sought, to make sure that those who have some responsibility have to look at a higher level to make sure that buildings are safe and are dealt with, and that the costs, both in building and in human experience, are monitored.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Briefly, I support the idea of review clauses and of learning from mistakes. Obviously, I have not been a Minister in this area, but I was a Minister in other areas and I did agree, occasionally, to review clauses where people had concerns. I found that the reports that came along two years later—if one survived that long—were actually extremely useful, and ensured that the Civil Service system was behind the objectives of the Bill. Exactly what one would put in a review clause is another question. I would certainly want added some of the points I made earlier—which the Minister helpfully said were contained in a code of practice for regulators—bringing up the agenda the sort of good practice we have seen at some of our better regulators, such as the HSE. I hope the Minister will think about whether there is scope for a review clause to help on some of these issues.

We talked about sprinklers. As people know, I have run supermarkets, so I have had practical experience of all these different fire safety methods. Certainly, when sprinklers were put in, it took away a lot of headaches, provided you could secure the water supply. That sort of innovation—whatever the new ones are; AI or whatever—can form part of a review process two, four or six years later.

Building Safety Defects

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has indicated her wish to speak and this may be a convenient moment.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, while we all hope that the Government will hold developers and industry to account for paying for the remedial work, not just in due course but promptly, will that include and be backdated for waking watch payments that were and are required because of the unsafe cladding and other safety defects and which do not appear to be covered by the Secretary of State’s announcement of £27 million for fire alarms on 27 January?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I cannot give a guarantee around retrospective application, but through these measures we are ensuring that many hundreds of thousands of leaseholders do not face eye-watering bills. These measures are about ensuring that that does not happen.

Building Safety Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group. I look forward to hearing the valedictory speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester. He was formerly general secretary of the Church Mission Society. At that time, I remember an imaginative fundraiser when the then Reverend Graham Kings led a camel from Oxford to Cambridge to raise funds for rural Kenyan schools. I did the last day of that walk, and I have to say that the camel was mobbed as we finished it. Large amounts of funds were raised, and there was lots of media coverage—CMS objective achieved. I wish the right reverend Prelate well in his retirement.

It is worrying that, five years after Grenfell, the necessary cultural changes in the building industry have still not happened. We know that there are too many developers prepared to game the system, despite the Grenfell inquiry and Dame Judith Hackitt’s review. There still is not a level playing field to protect tenants and leaseholders, not only on who should pay the costs, so ably explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, but more broadly on the other deeply unsatisfactory breaches of safety, beyond cladding, which also make people’s homes unsafe. I also echo her comments about two staircase exits in high-rise buildings—that is absolutely vital.

Other breaches of building regulations are not covered, such as a lack of compartmentation and electrical standards still not being met, both of which are high-level risks for fire and the spread of smoke and fire. Without compartmentation, staying in your flat is worthless. Doors that do not meet fire safety standards have caused deaths in common parts, including on emergency exit stairwells. There was a fire in a block of flats in Tower Hamlets just two days ago, where smoke escaped into the stairwell and residents trying to get out were overcome. As with cladding, leaseholders are having to pay for all this work to be put right, even though developers have a clear responsibility for not building unsafe buildings, and refurbishment companies ignore the original fire and building regulations. This is totally unjust.

Over the last two years, the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group has responded in considerable detail to the plethora of government consultations on fire and building safety, and I am grateful to the Minister for attending our meetings on a fairly regular basis. Last year’s consultation from the DfE proposed to remove the requirement for sprinklers in all but a very small percentage of new schools. Twenty years ago, as a former chair of governors of my local primary school, I saw it burn to the ground. The disruption to the pupils’ education over the next two years cost Cambridgeshire County Council many times more than even the retrofitting of sprinklers would have cost. To not even put sprinklers into new schools is just unacceptable.

The case for sprinklers is compelling in high-rise blocks, as well as non-residential buildings. They save lives, they can save jobs and precious education, and they prevent damage to the environment by reducing the severity of fires. As a result of the multiple-fatality fire in 2009 following the refurbishment of Lakanal House, the London Fire Commissioner told the coroner that automatic fire sprinkler protection would have prevented the deaths of six residents. Subsequently, the coroner recommended to the then Secretary of State that he should encourage social housing providers in high-rise blocks of over 18 metres to consider retrofitting automatic sprinkler protection. Can the Minister say if the Government will now accept this recommendation?

Both the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group and the National Fire Chiefs Council in their previous responses to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 consultation said that there remains a fundamental disconnect between the non-worsening conditions of building regulations and the expectations of continuous improvements through the fire risk assessment process set out by the fire safety order. Regulation 4 of the Building Regulations 2010 states that, where the work did not previously comply with Schedule 1, the new work, when complete, should be

“no more unsatisfactory in relation to that requirement than before the work was carried out”—

meaning that the general fire precautions may never be improved to modern standards. This runs contrary to the principles of prevention outlined in the fire safety order—that premises’ risk assessments should adapt to technical progress and reduce the overall risk within buildings.

The all-party group also noted that Dame Judith Hackitt concluded that the construction industry’s prevalent culture was undermining building safety. She referred to procurement regimes that were not fit for purpose. In relation to building safety, she added that

“unhelpful behaviours such as contract terms and payment practices which prioritise speed and low cost solutions, exacerbate this situation.”

She concluded that poor procurement and payment practice

“provide poor value for money and poor building safety outcomes.”

She recommended that contracts’ payment terms and practices should be recorded as part of a proposed digital building safety file. Does the Minister agree with these conclusions?

I thank the Local Government Association for its briefings on the provision for duty holders to choose their building control regulator. It says:

“By requiring regulators to remain in competition with ‘approved inspectors’ for the majority of buildings, the Bill leaves in place one of the root causes of the current crisis.”


It absolutely does. It is quite extraordinary that it should be allowed to continue. The LGA goes on:

“Compliance with regulation cannot be a commodity and local authority building control should not be left to tackle non-compliance in buildings over 18m while simultaneously having to compete with private businesses for work in out of scope buildings, often owned by the same developers.”


My honourable friend Daisy Cooper MP has repeatedly asked, since the passage of the Fire Safety Act 2021, if the Government will consider the creation of an independent register of qualified fire risk assessors. At the time, she was told it was being considered, and withdrew an amendment from that Bill on that basis, but nothing has happened. Can the Minister say whether this register is now planned, as well as a register of safe building materials?

Finally, what will be in the regulations is critical. Some of the language used in the Bill is not exact enough; what will matter is the regulations that underpin this extremely complicated Bill, which will need to be ironed out before it becomes operational. I hope that during the passage of the Bill, the Minister will be able to clarify some of these key issues at the Dispatch Box to give your Lordships’ House confidence that we will finally see regulations that will protect lives, ensure accountability by those who have not followed the standards and protect buildings.

Leaseholders: Safety Remediation Costs

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest as vice-chair of the All-Party Group on Fire Safety and Rescue and as a vice-president of the LGA. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Stunell on securing this important debate.

I start by agreeing with him and my noble friend Lord Shipley about the need for affordable, safe and green housing. Homes built for lifetime occupation also need to be part of it, ones which can easily and cheaply be adapted for disabled and elderly residents. It says much about the current large property companies that they regularly refuse to build to these standards, although Habinteg tells us that average new-build costs are just a handful of thousands of pounds, whereas adaptations in later life can cost 10 times that amount, as well as the costs of people having to leave their beloved homes and move into care homes. This also says much about who is currently in the driving seat on standards and regulations: it is not the Government or local government, but the builders. There is now evidence of the system being abused, as outlined by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton.

The Grenfell Tower fire happened in June 2017. As we know, 72 people lost their lives. The very moving “Grenfell: The Untold Story” documentary on Channel 4 took us step by step through the concerns of residents during the obviously mismanaged updating works, the night of the fire, and the problems they have had since in other accommodation. For those who have never been present at a fire, it was pretty terrifying. I speak as someone who has been; as part of my job as a stage manager, I had to get an entire audience out of a theatre that caught fire. It is pretty frightening as the smoke rolls towards you.

Far too many blocks are excluded from government assistance, as outlined by a number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Stunell, despite the Government offering some billions of pounds to “end the cladding scandal”. Sitting behind the large growth in flats recently has been the need to increase the number of homes, especially in the greater south-east and around our larger cities and conurbations across the UK. Large numbers of flats and apartments, many high-rise, have been built over the last decade, which are essential. Many more are needed. But the financial structures, as outlined by noble Lords, have also exacerbated the problems of leaseholders facing large bills for cladding.

This Government’s obsession with home ownership has meant that, for many young people, finding that deposit and part ownership have enabled them to get on to the property ladder. But neither they nor their funders understood that these homes were being built to unsafe standards, signed off by a less than independent inspection process, which has now resulted in them facing extraordinarily large bills for remediation and, prior to remediation, the cost of 24-hour walking warden services.

I will spend a short time on the liabilities of the construction sector. The major builders say that, for those buildings completed after the standard 10-year structural defect warranty, they and their insurers can wash their hands of any liability. However, most structural defect warranties assume that the contractors have built to building standards and complied with the building inspection rules of the day. It is now evident, way beyond the chilling evidence at the Grenfell inquiry, that the short cuts that too many of these companies, and their contractors and suppliers, took have resulted in unsafe buildings with dangerous cladding never designed for these blocks, which act, in effect, as installed firelighters.

As a member of the All-Party Group for Fire Safety and Rescue, I have watched the evidence given by cladding manufacturers at the Grenfell inquiry. Managers of cladding firms, granted immunity under the terms of the inquiry, explained how they deliberately used the wrong cladding—and cladding certificates—for these buildings. Clerks of works at the site, at best, took their words at face value; in the worst cases, some inspectors clearly turned blind eyes. That immunity was a high price to pay but at least we are now getting to the real root of the problem: a broken building and inspection system.

Three years ago, the APPG even heard of one tower block, not in London, where all the non-fire-compliant front doors to the flats were removed and replaced with compliant doors for one week, to the utter bemusement of the residents. After the building was inspected, the old doors went up again. Whistleblowers have been saying for the past few years that many bad practices had already started since the relaxation of the inspection regime.

In any other industry, local government, the Government, construction and financial services industry bodies, and their insurers would have got together to talk through how to manage this crisis. Banks, building societies and housing associations will also need support if they are to find the resources to help them round their rules, so that they can help people who have mortgages or leases with them in these buildings with cladding.

In any other industry, freeholders would have sued the building companies and their insurers to protect the leaseholders. Instead, too many freeholders have turned to leaseholders to pay. Other noble Lords have talked about the “polluter pays” principle. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, that there will also need to be other structures for payment. I like the idea, as others have said, of an extra levy to provide for the £10-billion and £5-billion holes in the system.

In any other industry, those who falsified construction certificates, especially if relating to cladding, would have been interviewed by the police. Falsifying cladding safety certificates, and inspection works in this instance, have put hundreds of thousands of leaseholders and their families at high risk of fire, of damage to their properties and of their injury or death.

However, this is not any other industry. In 2019, property tycoons gave the Conservatives more than £11 million. There were questions about cash for access and a dinner at which the then Housing Secretary, Robert Jenrick, was sat next to a large potential donor. I know that he left, but the point is that it was very uncomfortable. Despite the Select Committee in the other place recommending that the Government do all they can to protect leaseholders from these costs, instead, the reality is that leaseholders are facing bills so large that some are higher than the value of the property they have bought. They cannot sell with that liability. Their mortgagors are equally stuck because their rules are also strict.

There are 500,000 homes facing a tornado of problems. It is time that the Government led a proper round of emergency discussions with all the parties and not just for high-rise buildings of over 12 metres. This arbitrary height definition has no place when cladding remains dangerous. However, what needs to happen first is that the building sector, especially large construction companies, must agree its share of the immediate payment of remediation costs. I hear the Minister saying, “But we’ve told freeholders not to pass charges on to leaseholders”. Until the Government own this issue and start to strong-arm the various bodies to take responsibility, this will not change; it should, but will not. If there is no change, will the Minister agree that a class action of leaseholders against the constructors should be funded by the public purse? In the meantime, will the Government take other actions to help resolve these issues?

Gypsies and Travellers

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I think that is what we have. We are working with local authorities and encouraging them to assess their local need. We have seen, through this policy, an increase in site provision and we feel that responsibility rests in local government. As someone who spent 20 years in local government, I do not think everything should be directed from Whitehall.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister has just said that there has been an increase in authorised encampment pitches. The reality is that there has been an overall 8.4% decrease of pitches on local authority Traveller sites over the last decade. There has been an increase in unauthorised encampment sites not run by local authorities. It seems extraordinary, at a time when this Government propose to criminalise Gypsy and Traveller families who cannot find authorised encampment pitches, that they are not doing more than “encourage” local authorities to fulfil their duties. Please will the Government reconsider that and ensure that local authorities provide enough sites for the community?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I can provide only the statistics that I have been given, which are that since 2010 there has been an increase of 1,291 new affordable permanent pitches, and in the January 2020 Traveller caravan count there were 354 transit pitches, of which 138 were vacant transit pitches. We recognise the need to increase supply, which is why we are providing the affordable homes grant that local authorities can bid into. I also point out that there is a very high bar for criminality—members of the community committing actual harm—before criminal proceedings begin.

Inclusive Society

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a recent former trustee of UNICEF UK.

I start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on securing this important debate and Members of your Lordships’ House on their excellent, wide-ranging contributions. The noble Baroness referred to the Beveridge report and the Sunday Times editorial. I always think that we should go back to John Stuart Mill and his liberal safety net, to which noble Lords have referred.

My noble friend Lord Beith reminded us that crises often last longer than we expect. He rightly focused on the use during the pandemic of powers that seem to be creeping into our lives afterwards, with an impact on our human rights. Freedom remains the right of all our citizens. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, also reminded us of the importance of that. I disagree with her views about LTNs and creating new ways of travel, but LTNs should not be made in isolation. We should also increase public transport, with buses and minibuses in those communities as well as wider pavements for pedestrians and wheelchair users.

My noble friend Lady Tyler reminded us that the World Bank has put us on notice to make our society more resilient in future from whatever shocks of whatever nature. The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, linked to the United Nations’ warning of the explosion of inequalities across the globe. She and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, reminded us of the difficulties facing the economy after needing to spend at such high levels to manage the crisis and that this is likely to continue. We say that austerity may look attractive to get the books back in order but, for all the reasons that most other speakers have given, balancing society is as important as balancing the economy and we may have to bear this for some time longer.

The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, rightly pointed out that we need a more joined-up government plan. Where is the big plan for children—a theme much repeated this afternoon? The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, was right to say that the pandemic is not a leveller but in fact has highlighted every weakness in our society. The noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, warned us that if we do not tackle social policies now, the current inequalities will grow rapidly. Virtually every speaker has made that point on an area that they feel strongly about. However, until we have a strategic overview that is grasped by government, it will not become a shared purpose for us as a nation.

The whole-life approach is absolutely a post-pandemic tool. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, reminded us of the Marmot review, which ran in parallel with Hurricane Maria. The effects of the pandemic on our society will still be emerging for some time. Issues such as the missing of serious, life-threatening illnesses because of disruption to the NHS for more than a year, with the subsequent mortality rates, will shock us all. My noble friend Lady Tyler said that the Lords Public Services Committee’s report needed a government strategy to be published. Can the Minister tell us when that will happen?

The treatment of paid and unpaid carers over the past year, during the pandemic, has highlighted a problem with social care. Many of our unpaid carers are saving the country billions, but at what cost to them, their safety and their families?

Much has been said about food banks, the cost of renting properties and cliff edges for those living in or on the edge of poverty. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, spoke of food rights for everyone. She talked about the need to provide a free, nutritious meal to all schoolchildren and said that these facilities should also be used for other services. There are some innovative projects going on, particularly in Cornwall, where this is beginning to happen, such as with the use of meals-on-wheels services in local school dining halls.

The universal credit £20 uplift must be made permanent. But perhaps now is the time we need to pilot a universal basic income, as happened in California, where local mayor Michael Tubbs, the then mayor of Stockton, introduced it in 2019 with astonishing results.

A child poverty strategy is definitely needed, and well beyond education. Youth services need to be restored. They have been cut for far too many years. Delays to access to children’s specialist health services, especially those such as speech and language therapy and child and adolescent mental health services, where there are often extremely long waiting lists, impact severely on all our children’s lives.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester rightly set out the important role that faith communities have played in this pandemic. They are key to helping to strengthen the third sector as we come out of the pandemic. As someone who normally sits in a church pew, I have been delighted with the streaming of services online and the many steps that different faith organisations have taken to bring their services and activities into people’s homes, such as talking to elderly people who have seen virtually no one face to face for months with telephone trees to make sure that that contact is made regularly. At one church, the audio-visual team copies the services on to discs and hand delivers them to the elderly members of the congregation for whom YouTube is a step too far.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, talked about nudge theory behavioural scientists and had some excellent proposals that we should learn from for the future. Let us use those techniques to reduce obesity and diabetes, as well as infectious diseases.

The noble Lord, Lord Pendry, talked about the loneliness of many, especially the elderly, during the pandemic. We humans are social beings and we have a stark reminder that each of us needs to reach out to those we know—and to those we may not know—who may be lonely.

The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, spoke movingly about the problems of young girls and boys and of the inappropriate and harmful websites that have also been another problem in lockdown. I am afraid that is cyberbullying, and that also needs to be tackled when we see the online harms Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, reminded us of the important link between literacy and lifespan. Lack of literacy equals exclusion. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, laid out very clearly why we should implement the UN charter on the rights of the child.

On the Sewell report, I am afraid I disagree with the noble Lords, Lord Dobbs and Lord Farmer. I understand where they are coming from but until every member of our society—particularly those who have protected characteristics—can say that they are not discriminated against, we as a society have to remove those barriers and keep working on it. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, that the data does not lie. The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, spoke movingly of what needs to happen, not just to shift that data but also the culture of those who are not equal, whether through gender, race, disability or social inequality.

The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, set out the importance of sport and physical activity as part of the recovery as well as mentioning the volunteering roles that sports and gym staff took during the pandemic.

Homelessness has become a real problem over the last year. We must find better mechanisms to get the homeless into accommodation, especially single, young, disadvantaged people and vulnerable single, young people coming from care. We have a national problem now with rent levels and lack of security in the rented sector. The Government need to act to make changes here.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, spoke of building back greener. Sustainable housing is absolutely essential, and it is not just about insulation and energy but also building for a lifetime. All that is needed is an extra £2,000 spent on a new build now with slightly wider doorways and the underlying plumbing to make it easier to turn to a bathroom into a wet room for somebody who cannot get into a bath later in life. When will those appear in the Part 3 planning regulations?

The noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, told us how disabled people have fared during the pandemic and how things for which they have fought for years are now normal for everyone, such as working from home. Let us learn those lessons and not just let them be a temporary issue during the pandemic.

The noble Baroness also spoke about long Covid, which at last is being taken seriously by the medical profession. For many of us with underlying conditions who have to live with chronic fatigue and other autoimmune disease problems, what people with long Covid are facing is not news, but a large number of new people stranded by long Covid and facing the medical and employment problems resulting from this serious condition might be helpful as it will provide the reset that we need in the way that we approach chronic illness. My noble friend Lady Jolly spoke movingly for those with learning disabilities living in supported accommodation and about the trials of being separated even further by the pandemic. The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, set out the problems faced by autistic people trying to get into work. It is not just autistic people; most disabled people find it very difficult to get into work. The care Green Paper is long overdue, and the Government must find mechanisms for funding it properly and imaginatively, because it is vital that these citizens deserve the standards that we just take for granted.

There has been considerable lack of support for disabled people in the pandemic in access to basic and essential services, PPE for them and their carers, and do not get me started on the do not resuscitate orders. Those wanting a children’s Minister need to know that there is real worry in the disabled community that the Minister for Disabled People, Justin Tomlinson MP, is totally invisible, so I warn that a title alone is not enough and there must be funding and support for any such Ministers, whether for disabled people or children, to deliver their roles.

My noble friend Lady Walmsley made a very important point about social workers working remotely regarding children at risk. It is vital that we get services back to normal, even if it is a new normal, as soon as possible. The most vulnerable children in our society deserve that risk assessment and support.

The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, talked about the importance of devolution with the local settlement and we agree with that, but I am looking forward to the Government delivering it. On business, my noble friend Lord Razzall supports more localism. The power and funding of local government has diminished over the past four decades, and that must be remedied. Tinkering with council areas, unitary bodies and elected mayors is not going to change services after cuts in front-line funding. As the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, outlined, public health and social care reforms are urgently needed. One part of the 2012 health reforms that worked is the vital role of local directors of public health. Let us learn the lesson of how that has worked and take it forward.

I shall end on a point about international aid. My noble friend Lord Bruce outlined the problems of the cuts. It is important that we listen to UNICEF and other organisations. UNICEF delivers the largest number of vaccines in the world year on year. The work it does will support the WHO, which tells us that not one country is safe until we are all safe. That is true for Covid-19, but it is also true for our worldwide society.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 1 Report

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety Rescue Group. Our APPG is very active and has been making recommendations and questioning Ministers—including the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, when he was Minister—since the Lakanal fire in 2009. I also co-chair the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Victims of Crime and I am a former trustee of UNICEF UK.

First, I pay tribute from the Liberal Democrat Benches to the Grenfell survivors and the bereaved families. Their determination to be heard and to achieve justice for those who died and whose lives have been changed forever by the Grenfell Tower disaster is humbling. I say to them that we too will not rest until changes are made that mean another disaster like Grenfell will not happen. We put the Minister and any future Government on notice that, while we welcome their acceptance of Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s recommendations in part one, we will push for action on the many parts that can happen swiftly, especially those that do not require primary or secondary legislation.

I also note that firefighters have been praised significantly for their individual behaviour—there were many acts of heroism. The systemic failures of the fire service must not take away from the exceptional performance of individual firefighters at the scene.

We also need to note that, once again, our media has behaved badly. Grenfell United, the group representing survivors and the bereaved, has rightly said that it was “unacceptable” that people learned findings through the media, without having the opportunity to first read the report. What on earth was the Daily Telegraph thinking? Shame on you.

I wish to focus on some of the specific fire service-related problems but will first briefly cover some of the other key failures that contributed to the deaths of so many people. First, in report after report over the decades, coroners and chairs of inquiries have talked about the inability of our public services to work together in an emergency. The inquiry reports that the fire commander, the Met Police commander and ambulance control all declared major incidents at different times and were not co-ordinated. Surely, at such an incident there should be one senior commander in charge of the entire incident, working together. We know that it can be done. In terrorist incidents such as the Westminster and London Bridge attacks, we have seen examples of good practice. Why did that not happen in this case? Sir Martin also comments that Kensington and Chelsea Council and the TMO were not prepared for any such emergency—and that is before we even get to the appalling issue of the lack of checks on the fire protection for the building. Fire doors that did not work and refurbishment works that destroyed compartmentation—which is absolutely key if any “stay put” policy is to work—meant that the key role of public services in supporting emergency services just did not happen. For disabled people having to wait in refuge areas, to have failing fire doors and no PEEPs—personal emergency evacuation plans—is very serious.

Secondly, the treatment of the survivors and bereaved families by the various bodies that should have been there to help was woeful. Reading the report of Inquest, the charity that provides expertise on state-related deaths, was absolutely grim. As a former trustee of UNICEF, I know that in major emergencies around the world NGOs come together to work together and respond, not just during the emergency but to support survivors long after. Through the UN and other bodies, the protocols for working in such emergencies are well known, well founded and followed. Each NGO knows what it is to do at each stage of the emergency and in the aftermath, and who leads at each stage. The UK Government fund many of these NGOs, yet Government after Government have failed to address our own problem here for our own disasters. This just is not good enough; the Government must take a lead in changing the attitude, not just through legislation but by leading by example.

On some of the specific fire service-related issues, it is just extraordinary that there was no LFS contingency plan for the evacuation of Grenfell Tower. Following the Lakanal House fire coroner’s inquest in 2013, our APPG was aware of exchanges of letters between the coroner, the Secretary of State and the London Fire Brigade, and this kind of issue was supposedly satisfactorily resolved. What follow-up and monitoring have taken place since 2013, and what is the role of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of fire services to ensure that such key plans are in place?

The LFB maintains an operational database and has a risk assessment policy, accessible by all firefighters at any such incident. However, the entry for Grenfell Tower contained almost no information of any use to an incident commander called to a fire, and some information was out of date as it did not take account of the refurbishment and was therefore wrong. In addition, what about the fire survival guidance calls being communicated to the incident commanders, arrangements relating to the internal spread of the fire, and deficiencies in command and control, where senior officers arrived but failed to give sufficient practical support or inform themselves quickly enough, given that the spread of the fire was so visible? All these issues had plans in place—or should have—which should have been inspected by the HMI of fire services in its yearly inspection for each service.

Finally, I mention automatic fire sprinkler protection. We now have five years of compelling evidence from real fires in the UK that automatic fire sprinkler protection controlled or extinguished fires where they operated on 100% of occasions in flats. A single fire death in a working sprinkler building designed for the purpose anywhere in the UK is an extremely rare occurrence. Multiple deaths are unheard of. We must implement sprinklers in high-rise residential buildings. As others have said repeatedly in this House, sprinklers in Grenfell would have changed everything.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

There is a lot of detail in what I want to say; I will come on to cladding. I also point out to the noble Lord that much of what we are doing must be regarded as part of a holistic approach so, on timetables, there may not be one particular date by which everything is done. It is a very complex process.

Soon after the fire, in July 2017, the Government commissioned Dame Judith Hackitt to conduct a review of building and fire safety. Noble Lords will recall that we have already agreed to take forward the recommendations of Dame Judith’s report in full as the basis for regulatory reforms in building and fire safety. Our comprehensive building safety programme, announced in the recent Queen’s Speech in the form of a Bill, will bring about a radically new building and fire safety system by: establishing a new regulatory framework; creating greater accountability and responsibility; issuing sanctions to tackle irresponsible behaviour by those responsible for buildings; and giving residents a stronger voice.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham referred to social housing. It is important that we improve quality and quantity, with a beneficial knock-on effect on health. We have committed to taking forward the social housing White Paper at pace. It will set out proposals for the standards that we set for social homes. We remain committed to increasing the supply of social housing, committing more than £9 billion as part of our affordable homes programme and delivering more than 250,000 homes by 2022.

Of course, we have had to take urgent steps in the interim to ensure that people are safe today. Much of this work has been around cladding. First, we have banned the use of combustible materials on high-rise homes and identified all buildings over 18 metres with unsafe ACM cladding.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, asked whether gas should no longer be used in high-rise buildings. It is an interesting point. I cannot answer her question easily today, but I can say that the Government have signalled their intention to prohibit the use of fossil fuels such as gas in new homes by 2025 for reasons of environmental protection.

Secondly, we have established a comprehensive programme to oversee the remediation of unsafe ACM cladding, providing £600 million of funding to support this work. My noble friend Lord Young and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, asked about the funding; it is beyond the £200 million that the Government are putting forward for private residential high-rise remediation. Both noble Lords asked what would happen if the costs go beyond this. I can confirm that the money set aside is an estimate and that plans are in place, should it become necessary, to revisit that estimate.

I am pleased that all social sector residential buildings with ACM cladding either have had the cladding removed, are undergoing work to remove it or, at the very least, have had such work scheduled. We have pushed on every front to ensure that the work is completed quickly, and today only a handful of building owners have yet to confirm their intention to remediate the ACM cladding on their buildings.

We have now completed remediation work on 61 buildings in the social sector, have begun work on a further 81 buildings and are working hard to ensure that remediation is completed on the remaining 16 buildings as soon as possible. My noble friend Lord Young asked about progress on this. As of October, only 10 of the 89 private sector buildings in scope of the fund have yet to engage. We will continue to put pressure on developers and building owners to get on with remediation. In response to a number of questions he raised, I will shortly provide a letter detailing the take-up of the private sector remediation fund and set out a fuller picture of the remediation figures, as well as the responsibilities of leaseholders and freeholders. As the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government made clear yesterday in the other place, there will be consequences for any building owners not making clear progress, including naming and shaming and enforcement action.

Thirdly, interim measures are in place in high-rise buildings with ACM cladding to ensure that all residents remain safe. We are working at pace to review different parts of the building safety regime. We have now completed testing on non-ACM cladding panels and are analysing the results, which will be released in the coming months.

We have recently launched a consultation on the use of sprinklers in all new residential buildings over 18 metres—a point that was raised in the debate. It also seeks responses on evacuation alert systems and improved signage, which was raised by my noble friend Lord Bourne and others. The consultation will close in November. My noble friend Lord Bourne also asked about fire doors. On the advice of the independent expert panel, the Government conducted an investigation and testing programme of glass reinforced plastic composite fire doors, leading to their withdrawal from the market. Following this, the Association of Composite Door Manufacturers has committed to deliver an industry- led remediation plan, which has our full support.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked about product safety, which was part of my old brief when I worked in the former BIS, now BEIS. In May 2018, an independent investigation into the Whirlpool fridge-freezer involved in Grenfell Tower confirmed that there was no need for further action, and BEIS supports its conclusion that no product recall other than corrective action is required. People who own that particular model can continue to use it as normal. The noble Lord also raised a point about electrical safety checks. Existing legislation already requires landlords to keep electrical installations in safe working order. However, the Government have reviewed the issue and have now committed to introducing mandatory five-yearly electrical safety inspections. I am confident that these steps will help us boost safety and transform the way we build in the future.

We have also been working across government to co-ordinate action on fire safety. First, the newly established fire protection board provides a bridge across the Home Office, my department, MHCLG, local government authorities and the National Fire Chiefs Council. The board will provide greater assurance that fire safety risks in high-rise residential buildings with ACM cladding are being identified, managed and properly recorded. It will oversee an increase in inspections and audits of high-risk buildings, and we have already signalled our commitment to getting this right by pledging £10 million a year. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said in September in the other place, he expects,

“all high-rise buildings to have been inspected or assured by the time the new building safety regime is in place, or no later than 2021”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/9/19; col. 373.]

Secondly, the Home Office has run a call for evidence, alongside MHCLG’s Building a Safer Future consultation, on the fire safety order. This consultation seeks to ensure that the order remains effective and works as a whole with the new regulatory regime and other existing legislation. The call for evidence closed on 31 July and we are now analysing the responses.

Thirdly, the Home Office has established an independent Fire Standards Board, which should not be confused with the FPB, and has provided £1.5 million of funding to support its work. The board is supported by the National Fire Chiefs Council’s Central Programme Office to support continuous improvement of fire and rescue services. The board will be responsible for the development of a high-quality useable framework of professional standards, aligned to the work of the National Fire Chiefs Council and its national initiatives. It is clear from the report’s findings that this Government need to be playing an active role in supporting the sector through the fire reform programme.

In July 2017, the then Home Secretary expanded the remit of HMIC to establish Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services. This move sought to highlight areas for continuous improvement of good practice for fire and rescue services and to increase transparency for the communities they serve. The inspectorate has now completed inspections of all 45 FRSs in England and has published reports on 30 of them. We expect reports on the remaining 15 to be published shortly, alongside the inspectorate’s first “state of fire” reports.

[Baroness Brinton]

Does that also include ensuring that all the points that I referred to that used to be covered by inspections are being covered by plans throughout every area of each fire service? It is one thing to do this at a superficial level, but part of the problem appears to be that inspections have not been as detailed as they used to be.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

Yes, I can reassure the noble Baroness on that front and reiterate the point I made earlier about greater joined-up thinking across different agencies and bodies.

Learning from the inspectorate’s reports and the creation of national standards based on the best operational practice will help the LFB and the fire and rescue service as a whole to respond to the issues that the inquiry identified. We expect the NFCC to support services faced with challenging reports to drive improvement and make sure that cross-service learning is happening, which helps to answer the noble Baroness’s question.  

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and my noble friend Lord Bourne asked about collaboration and co-ordination, and communication within the emergency services. An assurance programme was conducted in 2017 on joint interoperability with more than 100 police, fire and ambulance services. Findings showed that new processes are embedding, and the Home Office is continuing to drive work to embed this programme locally.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris, and others raised the issue of problems with communication between firefighters. Each fire and rescue authority, including the London Fire Brigade, must evaluate local risks and determine its priorities, policies and standards for fire protection and response, including equipment. It does this through an integrated risk management plan. It is for the Mayor of London to set the budget for the London Fire Brigade so that it has the equipment needed to do its work. The Government will work with the fire and rescue services to ensure that lessons are learned from this terrible tragedy.