Localism Bill

Debate between Baroness Eaton and Baroness Smith of Basildon

Monday 31st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 2. I have tabled these probing amendments in order to request clarity from my noble friend the Minister. This is an amendment to allow fire and rescue services to charge for calls regarding persistent false fire calls. False fire calls from faulty alarms in non-domestic premises are a significant burden for fire and rescue authorities. Around a third of all fire brigade attendances are to false or faulty alarms. In London alone, there are 30,000 attendances each year as a result of calls from automated fire alarms. Of those, only 3 per cent of the calls were to actual fires and in just 1 per cent to fires was a hose needed to put them out. Clause 10 is intended to allow fire authorities to charge those building owners who persistently generate such calls, thereby giving them an additional power to reduce the number of calls and the associated disruption, cost and increased risk to the public.

However, there is an established consensus from the sector that the current wording of the Bill, which addresses only malfunctioning and “misinstalled” alarms, covers less than one-fifth of the total issue. For example, of the 6,002 recorded calls from these alarms in Lancashire in 2009 and 2010, only 16 per cent were recorded as having been set off by faulty alarm systems.

I understand that organisations from across the sector, including those representing the businesses that install and monitor these alarms, have appealed to the department to look again at this drafting, but without success. For clarity, when I say “the sector”, I am referring to the Local Government Association, of which I am a former chairman, the Chief Fire Officers Association, the London Fire Brigade, the Fire Industry Association, the British Security Industry Association, and fire services across the country. All these bodies and authorities have, I understand, appealed that the current wording does not address the issue and have warned the department that the legislation as it stands could mean much confusion and many arguments over the definitions currently in the Bill, and that clarity will probably only be reached following decisions from the courts.

I do not pretend to be an expert on this issue but I am sure that few of us would say the same about the bodies I have just cited. I would welcome clarity from the Minister on this subject. I beg to move.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton. I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

Before this legislation, I had never come across or heard the word “misinstalled”—it is a curious turn of phrase—but clearly if an alarm is misinstalled the idea of it being maintained at relatively regular intervals is of course the responsibility of the business holder in that company. That has to be undertaken. That is why this is a reasonable amendment.

The only question I have on that concerns the evidential burden. If the business owners had taken all reasonable steps to ensure that the alarm system was properly maintained, would any action be taken against the company which had failed to do so or would it be a matter for the business? There is a slight legal quagmire here, and although I am in no haste to make extra work for lawyers, I broadly support the amendment. It is entirely reasonable.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, for tabling this amendment and I hope that she will not be too offended when I say that I am not going to accept it.

The fire and rescue services often raise the issue of the number of mobilisations to faulty fire alarms, perfectly reasonably, at non-domestic properties. We agree that this is a significant issue and we have addressed it in the Bill by proposing that, following local consultation, fire and rescue authorities will be able to recover their costs in cases of persistent false alarms in non-domestic premises where fire alarms have malfunctioned or have been misinstalled—I believe that is the word.

It is certainly true that some fire representatives support the amendment—indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, laid out who they were—and want to widen the scope of the clause to cover a wider range of incidents. However, on the other side of the coin, there are others who do not agree with the amendment and are concerned that it is confusing and will lead to additional burdens.

It is vital that we keep charging provisions as straightforward as possible and do not create uncertainty for businesses or fire and rescue authorities which seek to recover their costs. If we were to widen the scope of the clause in this way, it would mean that the fire and rescue authority would have to provide evidence that a business had not properly maintained a piece of equipment. Going down this route could only open up a significant potential for challenge that would benefit neither businesses nor the fire and rescue sector. The Bill already allows for authorities to charge under a wide range of scenarios that can lead to malfunctions and the amendment would not add anything to that.

On that basis, I am not persuaded the amendment helps. It would not achieve its intended purpose in significantly widening the number of scenarios under which an authority could charge. Instead, it could unhelpfully complicate the Bill’s provisions as drafted and leave those extra provisions open to legal challenge. I hope with that explanation the noble Baroness will be willing to withdraw her amendment.