Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th March 2023 Lords Chamber

The notice to oppose Clause 32 standing part of the bill would remove provisions allowing chief constables to exercise certain fire and rescue functions.

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

My Lords, I begin by declaring my policing interests, which are set out in the register. The stand part propositions on Clauses 32 to 38 all highlight to your Lordships the ridiculous state that North Yorkshire will be in should these clauses remain in the Bill. For the sake of the Deputy Chairman of Committees, I say that at this point I will not be pressing these propositions.

At Second Reading, I raised the question of the split of responsibilities between the mayor and the chief constable. I have done a bit of digging since then. I was concerned that the chief constables would be given responsibility for the fire and rescue service, alongside their duty to manage their forces. I am very grateful to the Minister for addressing this in her letter to us of 27 January. However, I wonder whether the Government have fully understood or considered the dilemma that the police, fire and crime commissioner will have if the single-employer model is used in North Yorkshire, which is destined to become a unique—as far as I am aware—mayoral combined authority or MCA.

The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, in which the policing protocol sets out the independent direction and control of a chief constable, would be in conflict with the employee status of the current fire chief model. How do the Government propose to change this to have the same independent direction and control if this model is chosen?

The staff of the fire service are employees, employed in an entirely different way from police officers, who are servants of the Crown. Police staff are employed on different terms and conditions of work again, albeit under the direction and control of the chief constable. Of course, fire staff have different pay structures and a completely different pay negotiation mechanism. I leave to your Lordships’ imagination the chaos that would be caused should these two entirely different organisations be merged into one. There would be equal-pay concerns and pay rise inequality unless the staff were transferred into one organisation, which would have to be done if you used the single-employer model, in order to resolve these complexities.

However, in such a model, the legislation would still have to afford independent direction and control of the fire service to the chief officer for it to be viable for the practical, day-to-day delivery of the service. The outcry from police officers, who may be offered a meagre pay rise when fire officers are offered more, because of the different way their employment models are constructed even though they work alongside each other, will be a recipe for disaster.

At Second Reading, I was anxious to point out that the chief constable, certainly in North Yorkshire, will have this unique MCA and should not have to take on the responsibility of all the fire officers and staff—around 900 persons. This is not what chief police officers are about. In reality, it would fall to the chief constable, as the chief officer. What a conundrum for her; I am not sure that she has the capacity to do that. I am not sure that the chief constable—any chief constable—faced with the single-employer model would want to be responsible for that.

Unfortunately, when the first of our three PCCs in North Yorkshire decided to take on to herself the responsibilities for overseeing the fire service as well as the police, she cannot possibly have envisioned the mess that would ensue if a combined authority—now a mayoral combined authority—were to come under a mayor’s jurisdiction. Nor do I think that any incoming mayor in my county would relish being immediately responsible for 900 fire personnel. What a muddle.

There are significant problems too with data protection and vetting standards when sharing IT systems, which would have to be overcome. We have already seen in our recent North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service’s HMICFRS report that there are concerns surrounding a shared support function that is in place in North Yorkshire. HMICFRS commented that:

“It needs to make sure collaboration activities, such as those with police”


are effective and “provide value for money”. It currently shares some business services with North Yorkshire police and the office of the police, fire and crime commissioner, but there is little evidence to show its benefits to the service.

These problems were well highlighted by both the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the National Fire Chiefs Council back in 2018, when it was proposed that PCCs could take on the responsibilities of fire authorities too. The PCC for North Yorkshire at that time decided to grow her empire and take on the task. It was proved to be wrong then and it is certainly being proved to be wrong now. In the recent HMICFRS report cited above, the inspectorate stated that the fire and rescue service in North Yorkshire had actually deteriorated during this time. I do not know how many other PCCs have taken on the role—most, I believe, just stick to their policing role—but we still have this problem in North Yorkshire.

These problems have not been thought through properly at all, which is why I was so keen at Second Reading to address them. There are enough problems in policing today without them having to take on fire services as well. A number of forces apart from the Met are in special measures, so how would they be able to take on the added responsibility of the fire service? This needs to be clarified, and quickly, before even more of a mess is allowed to get into legislation around policing.

I think that we need to take out the whole section of the Bill about chief constables being responsible for fire authorities, certainly unless and until this quirk in the proposed legislation would see the North Yorkshire problem solved. As I said at the beginning, I will not press for their removal at this stage, but I will listen intently to what the Minister has to say about them. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

No, it is a power for the Secretary of State.

The amendment seeks to remove the power of the Secretary of State to make consequential amendments to such legislation. The effect would be that the Secretary of State could still apply police and crime commissioner legislation in relation to a combined county authority mayor or chief constable but could not make any necessary consequential amendments to reflect a change of circumstances. This limitation is undesirable and would result in flawed and inconsistent legislation in this area.

Finally, I will address the issues raised by the noble Baroness on Clause 38. This clause allows the Secretary of State to make regulations applying legislation that relates to a police and crime commissioner to a combined county authority mayor or a chief constable where the combined county authority mayor has adopted the single-employer model. Removing the clause would hinder the effective full implementation of the single-employer model because it would mean that the Secretary of State could not make further regulations applying local policing enactments or new corresponding provisions in relation to mayors of combined county authorities who have implemented the model.

I hope that my explanation will reassure the noble Baroness and the noble Lord of the importance of this group of clauses to the effective conferral of fire and rescue functions on combined county authority mayors, specifically on those opting to use the single-employer model to exercise these functions, and will therefore enable her to withdraw her opposition to them standing part of the Bill.

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

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comments. All the clauses stand together, so I need to read Hansard carefully and go through her comments on each clause. I believe there was some contradiction in what she said, so it is important that I am quite clear going forward that I have understood absolutely what has been said this afternoon. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken. I will withdraw my opposition at this point to the clauses standing part, but we will come back to this on Report.

Clause 32 agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

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

The noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, is taking part remotely. I invite her to speak.

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

I agree with everything that my noble friend Lady Pinnock has just said. I put my name to her amendment because in my rapidly disappearing district council of Richmondshire a motion was almost unanimously agreed to support a system of voting proportionately. It was proposed and seconded by two of my colleagues on that council, Councillors Richard Good and Clive World. It is almost unheard of to have a council in Richmondshire vote together on an issue as contentious as this, so I was delighted when they agreed to forward a letter to the Government requesting a move away from the first past the post system to a fairer and more representative way of voting.

As it was, only two Conservative councillors voted against the motion. The motion they presented was as follows:

“First Past the Post (FPTP) originated when land-owning aristocrats dominated parliament and voting was restricted to property-owning men … In Europe”,


as we have heard,

“only the UK and authoritarian Belarus still use archaic single-round FPTP for general elections. Meanwhile, internationally, Proportional Representation (PR) is used to elect parliaments in more than 80 countries. Those countries tend to be more equal, freer and greener … PR ensures all votes count, have equal value, and those seats won match votes cast. Under PR, MPs and Parliaments better reflect the age, gender and protected characteristics of local communities and the nation. MPs better reflecting their communities leads to improved decision-making, wider participation and increased levels of ownership of decisions taken … PR would also end minority rule. In 2019, 43.6% of the vote produced a government with 56.2% of the seats and 100% of the power. PR also prevents ‘wrong winner’ elections such as occurred in 1951 and February 1974 … PR is already used to elect the parliaments and assemblies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. So why not Westminster? … Council therefore resolves to write to H.M. Government calling for a change in our outdated electoral laws to enable Proportional Representation to be used for general, local and mayoral elections.”

I could not have put it any better myself. I fully support my noble friend’s amendment and hope that the Government will consider it seriously before Report.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Harris of Richmond. I will really restrain myself and not make general comments about PR but speak only about a specific element of democracy.

I am tempted to make a one-sentence contribution, which is, “Democracy: it would be a good idea, wouldn’t it, if we had it?” We are talking about a local area deciding how to elect its own representatives. The amendment does not say, “You have to have proportional representation —the system that we know means that the number of councillors matches the number of votes and that the council or the Parliament reflects the views of the people, and that we know produces a better quality of governance.” It does not say any of those things. It merely says that each local area should be able to decide the system under which it governs itself.

Of course, I have to make some reference to the better quality of governance which is demonstrably the result of proportional electoral systems, and indeed to look at the other side of this, which is what has just been happening in Plymouth City Council, where a Tory council has gone out in the middle of the night to cut down more than 100 mature trees in the city centre, despite significant local resistance. That, of course, is a replay; they seem not to have learned at all from what happened a few years ago in Sheffield, where a Labour council, again in a one party state-type set-up, did the same thing, sneaking around the streets in the early hours of the morning to try to ensure that it could cut down trees against the will of residents. So we have there a case study, which is not even slanted in any particular political direction, of our current system not working.

Again, I stress that the amendment does not say that it will force the change on anyone; it simply says that people should be able to decide for themselves. In the previous group of amendments, we focused on the lack of power in local government because of its lack of resources. Well, take back control: that was crucial and remains a very strong, passionate feeling among the British people. This amendment gives a chance to take back control at the local level, which is clearly urgently needed.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, is taking part remotely. I invite her to speak.

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

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. I will speak specifically to Amendment 163.

I should first declare an interest that I am the high steward of Ripon Cathedral, and although Ripon is technically a city because of its cathedral, the cathedral is also regarded by many as its parish church. The crypt is the oldest built fabric of any English cathedral, and worship there has been continuous since 672. Ripon was the first place in England where the Benedictine rule was lived out. It is a grade 1 listed building. The surrounding lands are a scheduled ancient monument. However, although it is a place to encourage pilgrimage and sanctuary, it is also a space to encourage imagination, exploration and debate. It is used extensively to promote local innovation and many events, and is a space for the community of Ripon to come together. However, it needs urgent support if it is to flourish for the next 1,350 years or so.

All churches and cathedrals have a really desperate job not just trying to stay open but, in these straitened times, to be heated. They try to raise whatever money they can but tend to be fighting a losing battle, as the maintenance costs of caring for such large buildings is astronomic.

It is a complete anomaly that parish councils cannot help to support their local church or religious building if they so wish. Almost certainly it will not be a huge grant: parish councils are as bereft of money as our churches are. As we have already heard from my noble friend, the two conflicting bits of legislation pertaining here—Section 8 of the Local Government Act 1894 and Section 137(3) of the Local Government Act 1972—give rise to concerns that parishes can, if they want, grant the local church some much-needed money. What should have happened of course is that, when Section 137(3) came in, the Government of the day could have struck down Section 8, which, as we have heard, says that funds cannot be given to churches, whereas Section 137(3) says that they can. Unfortunately, this was probably overlooked at the time and now we have an opportunity for the Government to accept this wholly reasonable amendment, which will clarify matters.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, perhaps the Minister would have wished that this was my valedictory speech. I thank her in advance for her kind words about me.

I want to speak about rural mayors and specifically about my large rural area of North Yorkshire, the largest single county area in England, with a combined population, including the City of York Council, of around 838,000 people.

When single-authority status was agreed in 2021-22, combined capital plans were around £220 million. We were told that the region would gain £540 million over 30 years—that is, about £18 million per year—35% of which would be spent on capital plans and 65% on revenue. If this is equated to the population of York and North Yorkshire, it comes out at roughly £21.50 per person. I wonder whether this small amount of extra funding for local government is really going to be worth all the hassle.

I have looked carefully at the Bill but cannot find the split of responsibilities between the proposed mayor and our two councils. It is simply not defined. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten me.

I certainly applaud devolution, but this is not devolution as I would characterise it, because the Secretary of State has almost infinite powers to meddle in its construct. From making provisions to making regulations, there is precious little that anyone entwined in this legislation can do off their own bat. That does not sound like a good deal to me.

I am concerned about the split of responsibilities between the mayor and the chief constable—or the deputy or, indeed, anyone else the mayor deems capable of doing the job. It appears, from the Bill, that chief constables could have responsibility for the fire and rescue service. Does the Minister not think that they have enough to do? Admittedly, in my county area, the police and crime commissioner has taken over that responsibility—but will every combined county authority wish to do that?

I will also ask about the functions that the CCA has, and, especially, how they relate to the present status in my area, which has two leaders and two authorities. How will that work with the mayor being in charge? Does the mayor single-handedly run the combined authorities? How will the money from central government be apportioned, and to whom?

I would also like to know the extent of the mayoral reach. For instance, how will she or he work with the proposed four local councillors, two each from North Yorkshire Council and the City of York Council? It will be called a mayoral combined authority, but does this differ from a county combined authority? As I understand it, an MCA will be chaired by the mayor, with the local enterprise partnership having a business voice but no vote—but where does the voice of the community come in all this? There is so little detail in the Bill and I hope that the Minister will help me understand how all this will work for the people of North Yorkshire and the City of York, because I was struck, while reading the debate introducing the Bill in the other place, by just how many Conservative Members —let alone those from the Opposition—were concerned about local communities being given the opportunity to decide what is right for their area. Where will mayors place local communities in their decision-making? Who, ultimately, will make these local decisions? Confusion will reign about who is responsible for what, just as it does now.

Mayors may have their place in large cities and urban areas, but I am far from being persuaded that they are right for huge rural areas. We are not going to be better off than we are now, and we will be adding an unnecessary extra level of local government on top of what we already have. I am not at all sure how the North Yorkshire and City of York communities will take to that.

Building Safety Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Grand Committee

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

My Lords, the noble Baronesses, Lady Harris of Richmond and Lady Brinton, are taking part remotely. I invite the noble Baroness to speak.

[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.

Building Safety Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th February 2022 Grand Committee

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

My Lords, we will also hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond.

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

My Lords, I will be brief and I, too, wish to speak to the amendments in the names of my noble friends Lady Pinnock and Lord Stunell. I strongly support them.

At Second Reading, I commented on the large number of people who are going to be accountable for the safety of buildings when the new regime comes into force. My main concern was around the person described as the “principal accountable person” because I felt that that person had just about everything to do with the safety of buildings and that that responsibility would rest on that person’s shoulders. I was interested in the comments of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the Chartered Institute of Building, which stated that the industry did not yet have qualified individuals who could undertake such incredibly important and probably statutory duties that the position would necessitate. Perhaps I may therefore ask the Minister what the Government are going to do to help the industry find those people and how they propose to go about training them with the necessary skills that will be required.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I obviously support what my noble friend Lady Pinnock said in relation to the training and independence of building inspectors. That is perhaps the most obvious of the necessities which we now know exist, as far as plugging the gaps in the current regime is concerned.

I want to focus my remarks on Amendments 116 and 119A, where mine is the lead name and which deal with fire risk assessors. We have never had before, in capital letters, something called “Fire Risk Assessors”. There is no such profession and this will clearly be a significant gap, which has to be filled very quickly if we are to achieve the aims of the Bill. We know that, right across the industry, there are shortages of skills, qualifications and competence. Above all, there is a shortage of capacity. One problem that I know the Minister has had to confront is that it has been difficult to get effective surveys of high-risk buildings because the people have not been available to do them. There are no such people, or at least insufficient people, with the right competences, skills and so on to do so.

I do not know whether the Committee will have seen the reports of the fire risk assessment that was done in advance of the Grenfell fire. The housing association had a fire risk assessor and he made a fire risk assessment. It turned out that he was a firefighter but not qualified in fire risk assessment. In order to secure the job, he had manufactured a set of initials which were accepted by the housing association as proof of his skill and capacity to assess fire risks. This is reported in the public evidence sessions of the Grenfell inquiry. It was further revealed that he was commissioned not just to assess the Grenfell Tower; he was commissioned by the housing association to be its risk assessor for the whole of the housing stock of that organisation.

That is where the importance of having a register becomes immediately apparent. You need a register of qualified people for two reasons, which overlap: first, you are not allowed to practise as an assessor unless you are on that register; secondly, as a purchaser of the skills of fire assessment, for instance a housing association, you need to be sure that the person who offers you a cheap deal to do some quick fire assessment work is somebody who is qualified, prepared and competent to do so. Amendment 116 is trying to establish clearly in the Minister’s mind the need to make this process of regulation transparent, with a publicly published register. We are obviously probing at this point, but I hope the Minister can give us some satisfaction that, if not in the Bill then in parallel with it, these matters will be dealt with.

What I have said about fire assessors may be the most dramatic and acute of the problems, but the building control function was of course also exposed as woefully insufficient in the case of the Grenfell Tower. Bearing in mind that it was a local authority building control function being exercised, it is also true that the person who was the responsible officer did not once visit that tower to make an inspection. It was purely from a desk study of drawings which had been provided to him. There is clearly a tremendous gap. Even when somebody is appointed to do a job, they may not have either the skills or competences, or they may not have the attention span or the time, to give effective service to the cause of fire safety. I hope very much to hear from the Minister that he takes these matters to heart and has in mind finding a way of establishing how this can be put right.

Our Amendment 119A is about training of fire assessors on the same basis as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, moved on the training of building inspectors. Every one of the professionals engaged in this fire safety regime needs to be a qualified and competent person. That is so obvious that it hardly needs to be said, but at the moment we are woefully short of the number of people we need. Indeed, it has already been referenced that the RICS and others have pointed out that, at the moment, there are not enough people with the competencies to step forward if the Bill comes into force as the Minister intends.

Building Safety Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, never again must we be faced with the shocking sight of a tower-block of flats being consumed by raging flames. We watched in horror those devastating scenes, and later listened to the harrowing stories from the survivors of that awful conflagration. Their stories are seared in my memory, and I echo many noble Lords’ comments on this.

This Bill proposes welcome improvements to regulations, which should have been foreseen long ago and acted on. It is to our shame that it has taken the loss of the lives of 72 people for us to see what a terrible dereliction of duty the whole building establishment had allowed to occur over many years. We watch today, almost five years on from the appalling Grenfell tragedy, cladding that was known at the time to be lethal still having to be removed from high-rise buildings, because only now are the Government facing up to their responsibilities and offering help in the shape of a £5 billion fund for those living in the most vulnerable or, as the Bill puts it, higher-risk buildings.

It also proposes revising the regulatory framework for construction products, I therefore hope that we will never see the likes of Kingspan, which provided much of the insulation in the cladding on Grenfell Tower, being a chosen business. That insulation, Kooltherm K15, was known to be lethal and Kingspan’s employees knew it too, as the inquiry found out. Another company, Celotex, used hidden, non-combustible boards to make sure that it got through safety checks—and so it goes on. We can only hope that the Bill will prevent rogue companies such as these getting any building contracts for this type of work ever again. Can the Minister assure me that the new building regulations will root out those contractors long before they can be allowed to build again?

The current Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the right honourable Michael Gove, has finally woken up to the fact that the Government’s proposed loan scheme for all the remediation work was a complete non-starter, and stated that no householder living in their own flat would have to pay a penny to fix unsafe cladding. He gave the building industry, as we have heard from the Minister, two months to agree to a financial contribution scheme, but only for buildings between 11 and 18 metres in height. Has the industry agreed a suitable financial contribution? What is going to happen to the thousands of leaseholders of flats that are less than 11 metres high, who also have to face the cost of removing their unsafe cladding? Will the Government ensure that they, too, are compensated, after years of trying to get housing associations and private landlords of these properties to take responsibility for the removal of the cladding? Those tenants have for far too long been ignored and vilified for asking too many questions and making a fuss.

Reading the Bill, it seems to me that there are large number of scrutineers of future building projects. I worry that it could be a case of too many cooks being able to mask rogue elements of the building trade, allowing them to slip through the regulatory net. As my noble friend Lord Shipley has stated, there are the Building Safety Regulator, registered building inspectors, the Building Regulations Advisory Committee, the Industry Competence Committee, authorised officers, the Health and Safety Executive, duty holders, principal accountable persons—who have to appoint building safety managers—all before we get to the Golden Thread through the gateway regime, which, as I understand it, is supposed to ensure compliance throughout the whole of a new build.

Clauses 80 to 84 explain this, and continuing clauses set out the responsibilities of the accountable persons. Those clauses are interesting to me, and I am concerned to know how they will work in practice. A great deal of responsibility will rest on the shoulders of these people, and I worry that this position could be used as a scapegoat in any future structural failings of a building. Clauses 100 to 103 set this out.

I share the concerns expressed by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors that the Bill may create a two-tier system of regulation—especially, as I mentioned earlier, given that no provision has yet been made for the risks in low-rise buildings. It goes on to emphasise that the industry does not yet have qualified individuals to undertake the onerous duties of the accountable person. What is the Government’s response to that? Where are they going to get those highly skilled people? The Chartered Institute of Building was equally concerned about these issues, which it believes will be crucial to the practical implementation of the Bill.

Overall, we must welcome this Bill as another step in the long journey of holding our building regulators and suppliers to account for past catastrophic failures, but it is in the implementation of all its proposals that we will be watching carefully and assessing whether this Government keep their word and ensure that the awful sight of the Grenfell Tower in flames will never happen again.

Council Tax: Second Homes

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My understanding is that we have introduced a stamp duty surcharge of some three percentage points on top of the standard rate for those who purchase additional properties. That covers all second home owners, so they are not getting off lightly when they are buying their homes, and the Treasury is doing very well out of that regime.

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

My Lords, I declare my interest as a second home owner. Can the Minister tell me what impact he thinks this will have on communities where second homes are prevalent?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, it is a hard one to answer; in some areas where tourism is incredibly important it is a great boost to the economy, and in others it can result in the hollowing out of a particular area. I cannot give a simple response to that question.