Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 23rd October 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I have an interest in both the items that we are considering in this group. For the avoidance of doubt, I declare my involvement as a practising but nearly completely retired chartered surveyor with a knowledge of the leasehold and construction sectors.

The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, deserves the full appreciation of the House for what I can only describe as a progressive defenestration of the fuzzy edges that have surrounded the question of the building safety regulator. He has whittled it down to the last elements, as to whether this is a proposal for a like-for-like transfer from one jurisdiction, if I can term departments in that sense, to another—or whether, as he had previously identified, some other morphing process was going on behind the scenes. I supported him previously in this, and I support him again in his endeavours here. This really boils down to the last element, as to whether there is a change.

One could be forgiven for suspending a certain amount of belief here. If there is going to be the process of transferring a body from the Health and Safety Executive to some other framework, known or unknown, why would one run the risk of the delays, disruption and everything else that would be involved with that if it were not for the fact that some other factor was involved? Motion X1 as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, is a significant litmus test of what is involved. I encourage the Minister to consider very carefully whether the Government mean what they say in saying that it is a like-for-like transfer from one authority to another, or whether in reality it conceals some other paradigm shift. That is very important.

I turn to the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. I apologise for the fact that his colleague has had to use my comments from a previous stage in this debate to tell him that his approach is no good. Of course, my comments were made in the context of saying that it has a technical deficiency. I was not in any way intending to suggest that the direction of travel in which he was engaged was faulty or in any other way imbued with anything other than the highest principles. He and I share a great deal of what has happened here.

Again, the noble Lord is absolutely right in proposing Motion ZC1—and I was pleased that he referred, obiter as it were, to the problem with the exceptions. What has happened here is a sort of drawbridge approach to the liability and scope of the Building Safety Act, and it is that which creates these cliff-edge approaches to who is qualified, whether their funding qualifies or excludes them, and so on and so forth. That is what has been dogging everybody all the way along the line. In reality, that delineation of the protections under the Building Safety Act is pernicious, because they are protections that any Government should apply in response to a serious and systemic failure in the home building industry to deliver adequate quality in building safety terms—and, may I say, presided over by nearly 40 years of ineffective regulatory control of building standards.

To expand a little, the Government’s resistance to anything beyond the straitjacket of parameters relating to the scope of leasehold protections seems to be governed by an entirely arbitrary approach and unwillingness even to collect data, understand implications or assess risk—I refer specially to those non-qualified leaseholders to which the noble Lord referred. My aim in all this has been to approach the matter on a much broader spectrum. The noble Lord and I shared an amendment to the Building Safety Act 18 months ago, and I think he has felt obliged to whittle it down evermore to try to get to something that he can achieve here. I absolutely applaud his persistence—but I am forced to suggest that, in the absence of any risk assessment, any government response to what may come down the road will be blindsided and ineffective. Hearing or speaking no evil does not prevent evils occurring—in this case, to hundreds of thousands of innocent lease payers, to market sectors, to valuation, to lending, to regeneration of urban areas and to new homes targets generally. I have said all this before, and I apologise for repeating it.

The noble Lord has been assiduous in his campaigning. With regard to Motion ZC1, I do not know how many leaseholders might be affected by this, but I suspect that it is actually quite a small cohort, and the Government should accept it and not allow this exclusion process or drawbridge approach to cut them off. Of course, I tried to address the whole thing on a much wider scope, but to no avail, which is why, when my words are used as a reason for denying the noble Lord the fruits of his endeavours, I have to bear in mind that I seem to have been assiduously ignored throughout this, up until today, when my words are used by the Minister against his own Back-Bencher. There is something faintly quizzical about that whole arrangement.

I hope that the Minister will at least indicate that the Government are cognisant of the serious, ongoing and growing problems arising here—to finance, to a whole sector, to hundreds of thousands, a very large number, of excluded leaseholders, and much more besides. If the Government do not recognise that, we are in for very serious problems indeed.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the very fact that these two issues remain for this Bill demonstrates that the Building Safety Act is, sadly, unfinished business. Although the matters will not be concluded today, I can be sure that they will be raised in future legislation in this House, because they need to be resolved. Having said that, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, said about non-qualifying leaseholders. It is a large group which deserves not to be neglected, and I support my noble friend’s valiant efforts in getting the regulation appropriate to the need.