Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015

Debate between Baroness O'Cathain and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

Monday 7th September 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness O'Cathain (Con)]

My Lords, I too am indebted to my noble friend Lord Marlesford for alerting me to this. I am absolutely horrified—particularly in light of the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff—about the real problems behind carbon monoxide poisoning. I take it that this regulation relates to smoke alarms and to alarms that will identify carbon monoxide. They are two separate things.

My mind then begins to race ahead and I think, “Wait a minute—does anybody know that we should have these alarms?”. Surely every house and flat in the country should have them. If the situation is as serious as we are led to believe, and I am sure that it is, this is important. I live in a purchased flat in a block of flats and last year there was a fire in one of the flats. The whole flat was burned out. There was no alarm—or rather there was a smoke alarm in the flat, but it did not matter. I have a smoke alarm in my flat that goes off when I burn the toast, which happens quite frequently. I go down to say that I am terribly sorry for the alarm, but actually it does not ring outside my flat. I could be burned to a cinder along with the toast. Only when it is eventually noticed from outside that there is a fire, or smoke coming out, will an alarm be sounded throughout the whole building. It is so haphazard. The fact that this is being looked at today will benefit somebody—all of us could benefit from it—if people begin to think about the issue in depth.

I also found the report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee upsetting, even where in the first paragraph it says that these regulations could not be scrutinised until our first meetings in the new session were convened in May, when we came back. This is really unacceptable, particularly when I go round saying how wonderful for scrutiny the House of Lords is. We all agree that we are the ones who scrutinise the legislation. Nobody else does it as well as we do. No other Parliament in the world does it as well as we do. Yet we do not do it. This is crazy.

My other point is about press notices. I draw the Grand Committee’s attention to paragraph 7.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which states:

“Given the diminishing returns from public information campaigns, it is therefore necessary to supplement them with regulations”.

I really think that the regulations should make it absolutely imperative that smoke alarms and anti-carbon monoxide alarms are installed and regularly checked. There are tenancies that last for five years or 10 years. Some last for 12 months. What is being said here is that the alarm has to be sure to be working only at the beginning of the tenancy. That is stupid. There must surely be some form of measure to ensure that alarms are investigated or assessed annually, or maybe even triennially.

If you have a car that is more than three years old, it has an MOT every year. This kind of check is just as important. Dangers do not stem just from these wonderful combustion systems. The fire in our block of flats was actually caused by the overheating of a computer charger. The whole thing more or less blew up. The benefit now is that we have been alerted to the danger. I was certainly never alerted to it. Instead of taking pride in the fact that we scrutinise everything, we can say that with the diminishing returns from public information campaigns we are alerting people to the need for checks and assessments. Surely people need them anyway.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate so far. I declare my interest as patron of CO-Gas Safety and adviser to Consumer Safety International. I welcome the regulations as far as they go. I will mainly focus on the issue of carbon monoxide but, in the light of our debate so far, I should like to put a couple of other questions to the Minister. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, and other colleagues for asking about the guidance. Will the Minister confirm that the guidance was issued only on Friday? That being so, why has it not been made available to Members of your Lordships’ House? It does not appear to be in the Public Bills Office, nor is it laid on the Table. It is rather an abuse of parliamentary process that when we are debating the regulations the guidance has not been made available. If it has and I have missed it, I will certainly apologise to the Minister, but I should like to know.

Secondly, the department said that it had done its best to use a variety of methods to publicise the regulations. Is the Minister seriously saying that all that has happened is that various stakeholders have been told about it and a press notice issued? I acknowledge that her department’s press notices are renowned for the elegance of their language and the persuasiveness of their argument, but simply issuing a press notice is clearly insufficient.

My third point is that I thought that the Minister said in her opening remarks that the Government are now going to amend the regulations. Can she confirm that? She referred to advice from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. I may have misheard what she said, but can she confirm it and the timetable for those amendments?

My fourth point relates to a briefing that I have just received from Electrical Safety First, a charity. It does not concern the specific terms of the order, but the charity makes the point that electricity causes more than 20,000 house fires a year, with many people injured and killed. I understand that Electrical Safety First’s policy is that people in the private rented sector are protected by mandatory five-year checks on electrical installations. Will her department respond to that point?

I turn to the subject of carbon monoxide. I welcome the regulations—they are a small step forward—but, like the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, I very much doubt that the figure that she cited of 40 deaths per year from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning is accurate. As CO-Gas Safety has pointed out, for carbon monoxide poisoning to be suspected, there has to be a test. At the moment, even in the event of unexplained deaths, there is no test. The noble Baroness has already referred to her work recommending that the Government should ensure routine post-mortem testing under the auspices of coroners. If the research now being carried out by the Gas Safety Trust proves that it is practical and effective to do so, will the Government accept the noble Baroness’s recommendation? She is both co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Carbon Monoxide Group and a past president of the British Medical Association, so she speaks with great authority on the issue, which is why I tend to agree that the estimate of 40 deaths is a gross underestimate.

Secondly, the impact assessment states that the department intends to pursue non-regulatory solutions in order to encourage uptake in all households which do not yet have a carbon monoxide alarm installed. How is that to be done? I assume that it will not just be through another departmental press notice. I know that some campaigners believe that it should be through prime-time TV warnings.

Does the Minister accept that although CO alarms are a useful back-up precaution, they cannot be a substitute for the proper installation and maintenance of gas safety equipment by a registered gas safety engineer? Is she aware that this regulation covers only a small percentage of households in the UK? Indeed, work by CO-Gas Safety going back to 1995 shows that far more deaths occur in owner-occupied homes than in the private rented sector. What is going to happen in relation to owner-occupied homes? Is the Minister aware that respected experts, including Mr Harry Rogers and Mr Stephen Hadley, through Consumer Safety International, have raised concerns about the accuracy of these CO alarms? Is she satisfied that the alarms are constructed to a reliable and accurate standard, wherein the sensor’s function and accuracy levels can be tested?

I want to ask the Minister about government policy in relation to these issues when it comes to Europe as a whole. She will know of the tragic deaths of Christianne and Robert Shepherd from Horbury near Wakefield, who were just seven and six years old when they died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty boiler on a Thomas Cook holiday in Corfu in October 2006. My honourable friend Mary Creagh MP raised this on 14 July in an Adjournment debate in the Commons and described how the family were forced to wait years, until 2010, before a criminal trial was held in Greece, at considerable emotional and financial stress to the family. The court in Corfu found three hotel workers, including the hotel’s general manager, guilty of manslaughter by negligence. In February 2014, eight years after Christi and Bobby’s deaths, the inquest into their deaths reopened in Wakefield. In May the inquest jury concluded that the children had been unlawfully killed and that Thomas Cook had breached its duty of care.

In paying tribute to the brave and determined efforts of the family, I would like to put a couple of points to the Minister. First, research by Mary Creagh’s office revealed that at least 40 holidaymakers have died of carbon monoxide poisoning in Europe in the years since Christi and Bobby died. Does the Minister agree with that assessment? Secondly, in November last year the European Commission launched a Green Paper on the safety of tourism accommodation services. Work commissioned by ABTA from John Gregory, a CORGI gas safety expert, showed why European action was so necessary. He found a lack of legislative consistency throughout Europe and that there is no Europe-wide statistical database of serious incidents caused by carbon monoxide poisoning, meaning that in essence the extent of the problem is as unknown on mainland Europe as it is in the UK. He also raised concerns that the competence, training and knowledge of the operatives undertaking servicing and maintenance of gas appliances across the EU are of a lesser standard than that required in the United Kingdom.

I raise this because, in contrast to ABTA’s responsible approach, the Government have opposed the introduction of a European safety regulation which would have dealt with these problems. My understanding is that opposition from the UK and some other member states has meant that the European Commission is not now taking its Green Paper forward. I ask the Government to think again and to encourage the Commission to continue work to assess how EU regulations could be put in place. If not, we are left with no specific EU-level regulation which sets out minimum safety standards for tourist accommodation safety.

Just as concerning is another brief I have received from ABTA about the prospects of an adequate revision to the EU directive on the safety of appliances burning gaseous fuels. Amendments have been proposed in the European Parliament which would extend the safety regime across the whole of Europe by implementing rules on installation, maintenance and servicing. Again, I understand that the UK Government are opposed to this and because of this opposition it is likely that these measures will not receive agreement within the EU. Again, I hope that the Minister will reconsider the Government’s opposition to this.

Overall, the regulations, as far as they go, are welcome, but I accept that it is right that landlords should be given appropriate time and proper publicity to ensure that they understand the duty that falls on them. In that regard, I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to all these issues, particularly to consider whether, even at this late stage, the Government need to reflect on what publicity is to be given on these regulations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness O'Cathain]

For clarification, does that mean that this will go back to the Chamber?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

As far as I understand it, that is the case—I have seen this happen before—although I do not wish to pre-empt the view of the Chairman. The Grand Committee cannot approve a Motion if a noble Lord decides that he is not prepared to say “Content”. It simply reverts to the Chamber and will probably appear on the Order Paper within a short time. My understanding is that it is open for debate on the Floor of the House.