Building Regulations &c. (Amendment) Regulations 2012
Debate between Baroness Smith of Basildon and Baroness Tonge
Baroness Tonge
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for bringing this Motion forward. It was delayed four weeks ago and we waited a long time for it, but now, thanks to her, it has been brought forward. I wish I could provide a little light entertainment for noble Lords while they wait for this hugely momentous Motion, Statement or whatever it is that is going to be coming later this evening, but sadly this is not light entertainment. In a lot of people’s opinions, electrical safety in the home is as important, if not more important, than regulation of the press—but maybe that is a personal view.
In placing this Motion of Regret before the House, first, I declare an interest. Nearly nine years ago my daughter was electrocuted in her own kitchen in front of two small boys aged two and four, with no one else in the house. We discovered that this had happened because of dangerous electrical work carried out when her kitchen was extended and refitted four years previously. I will not go into detail; the full story remains on the Electrical Safety Council website alongside other tragic stories of electrical accidents, including another young mother—also with two little children, also alone at the time—electrocuted in the bath of a rented holiday cottage because of faulty wiring in the bathroom. These stories remain as a warning to householders about the danger of electricity in the home and to people doing electrical work without proper training.
I was amazed at that time to find out that electricians were required to work only to guidelines and that there were no statutory regulations controlling their work. When I approached the Labour Minister at the time, Phil Hope, I discovered to my delight that his department was aware of this problem and was working on additions to the building regulations. These additions are now known as Part P, and required electrical work to be done or inspected by a registered electrician and notification to be sent to the building regulations department of the local council, to ensure that the work was done properly. I was invited to help with the campaign to introduce Part P and to publicise the new regime, which of course I did willingly. I have since become a patron of the Electrical Safety Council.
Part P regulations have been protecting us since 2005. The introduction of residual current detectors—RCDs—has been a great safety measure but, again, there is a question about how many homes are covered and whether the devices they have are adequate. A poll of 4,000 registered installers in 2011 found that 53% believed that the standard of electrical installation work had improved under Part P.
In 2012, to my dismay, the coalition Government decided in their bonfire of the regulations that Part P must go and with it the regulations for electrical installations in the home. Can the Minister tell us what pressure the Government were under to scrap Part P? Was it pressure from a few disgruntled, unqualified cowboys who did not want to be registered or have their work inspected? Some of them certainly wrote to me. Why was the decision made on Part P in particular? No one has suggested scrapping the regulations for gas fitters. They are equally dangerous, why the electricians?
After protest from safety campaigners, the Department for Communities and Local Government agreed to go out to consultation and announced last December that minor electrical work undertaken in kitchens, in bathrooms, more than 0.6 of a metre away from water, and outdoors should no longer be notifiable or subject to inspection. Work done in the very places in the home where electricity and water can be close together—and dangerously so—the Government have decided needs no regulation. Why?
Although statistics are sketchy, the impact assessment published by the department in December showed that since the introduction of Part P regulations, 2.3 deaths per year from electrocution alone have been prevented and, in addition, there have been up to a 30% reduction of mains wiring incidents. In terms of electrical fires, they are estimated to have prevented 2.6 deaths a year and cut by 15% the number of domestic incidents due to faulty electrical equipment. Twenty-seven thousand contractors have had their work inspected for safety on an annual basis in the past nine years and sales of electrical safety testing equipment have gone up by over 100%. I hope, too, that the skills and expertise required by a good electrician are now being valued more as more and more of them seek registration from an approved body so that their work does not have to be inspected. This is all a result of the Part P regulations.
Since the proposed changes to Part P were announced last December, several electrical contractors concerned have contacted the Electrical Safety Council to say that electrical alteration work undertaken by kitchen fitters, in particular, will once again go under the radar and not be inspected.
The department, in its wisdom, has concluded that it is not possible to say whether Part P has delivered health and safety benefits, and yet the Minister, Don Foster, in the Westminster Hall debate last September said that the Government do not want changes to Part P unduly to diminish safety. At an extra session of the Select Committee for Communities and Local Government two days ago, the same confused message came over, with the additional nugget of information that scrapping the regulations would save £14 million. We were also told that the building regulations challenge panel would oversee what was going on in the industry. How much will that panel cost and will it challenge shoddy electrical work? Where does the figure of £14 million come from? It all sounds a bit confused to me.
The consultation undertaken by the department, we are told, showed that of the 158 respondents, 65% supported making more electrical work non-notifiable, but that was the response to an open question. When asked about electrical work in kitchens, specifically, and low-risk areas of bathrooms, a much higher percentage opposed scrapping the regulations. It is also worth noting that although electrical contractors supported the proposals to scrap Part P, building control bodies were not supportive of reductions to notifiable work and the Which? organisation and the Trading Standards Institute were also opposed.
The House of Lords Secondary Legislation Committee has also expressed reservations about the consultation. Its report notes:
“In his Statement, Mr Foster said that the new Part P of the Regulations sought to ‘achieve a reasonable balance of risk’. The House may wish to note that the detail given in the Department’s consultation summary indicates that large numbers of interested parties may not be persuaded that this is the case”.
Can the Minister tell us how many consumer organisations, beyond those mentioned, were against reducing the scope of Part P?
This all leaves great cause for concern. Refitting kitchens is big business and very popular with householders. It often requires adjustment to electrical wiring, as happened in my daughter’s kitchen. In 2004, the year she died, an impact assessment carried out by the Department for Communities and Local Government showed that some of the worst electrical work at that time had been carried out by kitchen fitters. Recent statistics for 2010-11 on electrical fires originating in the kitchen listed 14,700 incidents. The kitchen is a dangerous area and surely electrical work there should remain notifiable, as it should in the bathroom and outdoors where water and electricity are also in close contact. There is no requirement, either, for do-it-yourself outlets, such as Homebase and B&Q, to insist or even recommend that their products should be installed by a registered and qualified electrician. I ask the Minister: why not? How do the Government intend to monitor these changes over the two-year period of the review that they have announced? Will she promise that Part P regulations can be restored if necessary?
The Select Committee for Communities and Local Government has spent a great deal of time on this issue and I thank the committee and its chair, Clive Betts MP, for its hard work and recommendations. I close by reminding noble Lords that regulations are an irritant, a nuisance and sometimes cost money, but when a much loved person is killed because of a lack of regulations, they all become worth while. I beg the department to reconsider.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, for giving the House the opportunity to debate these regulations. Her own appallingly tragic experience brings home to us how important they are.
I must admit that I gave little thought to broader regulations and the impact they have until 2006, when I moved from the Northern Ireland Office to become Minister at the DCLG and was told that I was responsible for, among other things, building regulations. If I am honest, I was not exactly overjoyed at the thought, yet my view quickly changed because it is through building regulations that we set standards. Their purpose is not rules and regulations for their own sake but for reasons of health, safety, practicality, equality in ensuring good access to public buildings and, more recently, the environment. Those are sound, practical reasons for regulations, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, said.
Regulations also create a level playing field for the building and associated industries. I clearly recall small, medium and some large companies, and individuals, telling me why good regulation was important to them and their business. It sets standards and prevents good companies and individuals being undercut by cowboys reducing standards. It is important to get the right balance and to be proportionate, providing regulations which offer protection to consumers and businesses but which, at the same time, do not impose unreasonable or unsustainable costs. Whenever building regulations are introduced, that is the guiding principle, as it was in the debates leading to the introduction of Part P regulations in 2005 that are the focus of today’s debate.
My understanding is that negotiations on this regulation of electrical installation started in 1995 following a recommendation from the construction industry deregulation taskforce. That led eventually to the Part P regulations. It would be helpful, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, asked, if the Minister could clarify the reason for reviewing Part P now to make the changes that we are seeing. On page 18 of the impact assessment, there is a summary of costs and benefits of the current operation of Part P that appears to show a significant net benefit of more than £75 million. The analysis also suggests that these benefits would build up over time, although that cannot be accurately measured. The Minister, Don Foster, told the House of Commons in a Written Statement that,
“we do recognise that there is scope to streamline the requirements by removing the requirement to notify smaller-scale, lower-risk electrical work to a building control body”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/12/12; col. 83WS].
Is the Minister confident that the Government have got it exactly right where they have drawn the line between what is described in the Statement as “lower-risk electrical work” that will no longer be notifiable and electrical work that should remain notifiable? What exactly is “smaller-scale, lower-risk”?
I understand that the Government consulted on this, and in the Minister’s statement in the Explanatory Memorandum considerable support is drawn from that consultation. Indeed, following the consultation, the Government announced why they were proceeding with that rationalisation of Parts K, M and N of the building regulations. In the Explanatory Memorandum, the Government relied significantly on the consultation responses as the justification for change, saying:
“65% of respondents supported making more electrical work non-notifiable (with 27% opposed). Of those that were opposed, many had concerns that the proposed changes might undermine electrical safety. Others disagreed because they believed these areas of work were not actually lower-risk and were therefore not appropriate to make non-notifiable”.
The situation seems very clear-cut when seeing those figures. However, I am grateful to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, for a more detailed analysis of those figures. When consultees were asked about specific areas of work, the consultation was far more balanced in its responses and there was not such a clear-cut divide as is implied in the Explanatory Memorandum. The scrutiny committee made it clear that:
“Of the 132 responses relating to whether electrical alteration work in kitchens should be made non-notifiable, 51% supported the proposal, while 43% opposed it. Of the 133 responses dealing with alteration work outdoors, 49% of respondents supported the proposal … with 41% opposed. Of the 133 responses”,
to lower-risk work in bathrooms,
“54% supported the proposal while 39% opposed it”.
The committee further said that,
“large numbers of interested parties may not be persuaded”,
that the regulations achieve,
“a reasonable balance of risk”.
I appreciate that the information that the Government give in their Explanatory Memorandum makes a greater case for change than does the scrutiny committee’s analysis of the results. However, it has to be accepted that there are significant concerns about the Government’s approach that the Explanatory Memorandum glosses over and does not indicate as correctly as it should. Can the Minister confirm that the consultation responses specifically on making more work non-notifiable are significantly less supportive of the Government’s position than outlined in the Explanatory Memorandum and that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee is correct in concluding that,
“large numbers of interested parties may not be persuaded”,
that these regulations,
“achieve a reasonable balance of risk”?
The scrutiny committee got it right.
One difficulty is that if there are any significant problems with the Government’s approach, they may not emerge for some time. As the Government admit in their economic assessment:
“Part P is thought to have raised the average competence of domestic electrical installers”,
and the statistics bear that out. Since Part P was introduced, more than 27,000 additional contractors have had their work inspected for safety annually, sales of testing equipment, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, said, has increased by over 100%, and the coverage of life-saving residual current devices—RCDs—in homes has risen significantly. In 2009, 62% of homes had RCDs, but prior to Part P coming into effect in 2001, only 40% had them. It is that device that prevents most electrical shocks that can be fatal.
It is difficult to get accurate figures on whether that has contributed to a fall in the number of accidents, injuries and electrical fire-related incidents, because the way in which data are collected is not comprehensive and has changed over time. However, in the absence of that information, the Government’s own impact assessment says that Part P has prevented more than 2.5 deaths each year from electrical shocks, 30% of mains wiring incidents and 15% of portable appliance incidents. With that number of deaths and that number of incidents being prevented, it is a very serious matter that the Government wish to remove that protection.
Among the areas that raise the most concern is electrical work being undertaken in the kitchen, as borne out by the detail in the consultation responses. Kitchen fitters who undertake electrical works currently have notifiable work checked, but that is going to change under this order.