Building Safety Bill

Debate between Earl of Lytton and Lord Greenhalgh

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

I, too, commend the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, on this amendment. Given the circumstances of the Bill, the number of variations in it and the sheer number of moving parts involved, a review is essential for precisely the reasons she said, and I support the amendment.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, and my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe for this insightful debate.

Amendment 26 from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, would require a review of the financial impact of the new regime. I reassure the noble Baroness that a review is already required by Clause 152, which provides that:

“The Secretary of State must appoint an independent person to carry out a review of”


the system of regulation of building safety and standards and the system of regulation for construction products. Importantly, the reviewer is not limited and may choose to review connected matters, including the matters mentioned in the noble Baronesses’ amendments.

Similarly, Amendment 246A in the name my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe would require a review of the impact of the Act. I apologise for the mix-up that resulted in my addressing this amendment in an earlier group. I will repeat for the record that we believe that this further replicates Clause 152 in the Bill and therefore we believe this is unnecessary.

What I do say to my noble friend is that the Secretary of State has to appoint someone to carry out the review within five years, so that is a long-stop date. I am very happy to meet my noble friend to ensure that we get going with this review at the very earliest opportunity to make sure that that long-stop date is comfortably met. We also need to make sure that this review is substantive and learns the lessons of a new regime in the broadest possible sense and addresses the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, as well those raised by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, who has had tremendous Front-Bench experience as well as experience as a distinguished civil servant.

With those explanations, I kindly ask the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, to withdraw her amendment and my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe not to press her amendment.

Building Safety Bill

Debate between Earl of Lytton and Lord Greenhalgh

Committee stage
Monday 28th February 2022 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

The Minister answered a query I raised in connection with Amendment 72; I apologise for jumping a group. It was to do with commercial developers. I think I used the term “commercial developers”, but I intended to say “developers of commercial property”—that is, as opposed to commercial developers of residential property.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

Oh, I see. You said commercial developers?

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

I said commercial developers, but I meant to say “developers of commercial property”. However, I will leave that point for the next debate.

Building Safety

Debate between Earl of Lytton and Lord Greenhalgh

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

Not today. But we are well aware of the practice, which goes beyond just whether they are domiciled, of using special purpose vehicles. We are looking at how we deal that issue, where the developer is known, creates an entity over there, away from the rest of the business, does the development in isolation using the funding, and then wraps it up at the end of the development. We are looking at all these issues, through law and tax. Whatever levers the Secretary of State has, he is looking to deploy them to make sure that the polluter, in the broadest sense, will pay.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the Minister on his untiring work here. The Statement made in another place yesterday is certainly extremely welcome. As a practising chartered surveyor and valuer, I am particularly determined to ensure that the regime where the purveyors of shoddy buildings have not been properly held to account must stop, but I understand the immense complexity, raised by other noble Lords, to do with insurance and other matters downstream from the immediate problem.

My first and last concern is the point made, in particular, by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock: namely, that innocent people have devoted their life savings and invested their homemaking, their very being and their work/life balances in properties which have been found to be not constructed to safe standards. This is an appalling social and mercantile evil—let us make no bones about it.

I request that the Minister confirm that this cannot and must not be turned into a tax solution. The reasons for that will be self-evident. It would be both unfair and an unbelievably blunt instrument. It will almost certainly require hypothecation, and would merely serve to collectivise what should be an individually assessed liability; the Minister mentioned that it will be property by property.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, I fear that there will not be a great queue at the Minister’s door with open cheque books, and I suspect it will be necessary to move to plan B, because it is not just the cladding but an awful lot of other defects—

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

Does the Minister agree that the only remaining viable route that is coherent across the piece is, in effect, the polluter pays amendment, the draft of which had the scrutiny of top legal minds, such as Daniel Greenberg QC? Furthermore, does he agree that this is the only means whereby the perverse habits of what is known in the trade as value engineering will become something of the past, and in future that the inculcation of consistently good construction methods will be the lasting legacy of Grenfell?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

The noble Earl is right that this is a crisis of epic proportions that has affected hundreds of thousands of leaseholders and has been caused over many decades. I have probably visibly aged while holding this brief, because some of the stories from leaseholders are simply harrowing. That is one reason why I am delighted that the House collectively feels that we are making a big step in the right direction.

I also agree that we should challenge some of the practices that have led to this, such as value engineering, which is essentially a way of cutting corners and trying to inflate profits, often by compromising the integrity of the building. These practices simply must stop. Making the polluter pay and doing so at the individual building level is the way to ensure that the quality of the buildings in future will be far better than what we have seen in the past 30 years in this country.

Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Earl of Lytton and Lord Greenhalgh

3rd reading & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 24th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Lytton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to be invited to make some concluding remarks on the Bill on behalf of the Cross Benches, especially as I was not able to participate in the initial stages. We have covered a huge range of issues, such as those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, on electrical safety, and those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and others, focusing on safety assessments and the perils of the deregulatory approach under permitted development rights. We have ranged from fire doors to liability issues and, of course, as highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, the effect on the innocent who are blighted by the costs of remediating cladding systems.

As a technician, first and foremost, I am particularly grateful for how some of my own points were received. With Dame Judith Hackitt’s report ringing in our ears, even as we debated the Bill the ongoing inquiry under Sir Martin Moore-Bick reminded us of the construction culture that we need to address, along with the reputational challenges that have been the hallmark of what has come out post Grenfell. We must never forget the effect on those who were directly affected by that terrible tragedy. I pay tribute to the Labour Front Bench for constantly reminding us of the need for the Bill. I thank the Bill team and the Minister for keeping us on the critical path—expediting things at this stage is clearly an expression of our common wish.

Of course, some matters will now need to be reconsidered by the Commons, so it may not be the last we hear of this: the Bill needed improvements and I hope that, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, the Commons will take due regard of the careful and considered points that have been raised in this House. Given the legacy of issues that have got us here, it is a tough call, demanding courage and a firm steer from the Government, and I hope the Bill will underpin that process.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I genuinely thank all Members of this House for their positive engagement. The Cross Benches, the Liberal Democrats, the Opposition —at the end of the day everybody wants to see a better Bill, and I certainly understand that. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. I learned a lot from his contribution on behalf of the Cross Benches. It was incredibly thoughtful and practical, understanding that this requires a firm hand from the Government and that we need to have a coherent programme as we move forward.

I am well aware that the building safety Bill, which already has around 120 clauses, will be considerably longer, in its passage through Parliament, than this three-clause Bill. But I want to make the point that we have seen constructive and more opportunistic contributions, and I want to put them into three buckets. The very constructive contributions, as this returns to the other place, are around the competence and capacity of the professionals who will have to work with the system day to day. We not only want to have nice documents and a good fire risk assessment, we need to ensure that fire safety management works and that the people in the buildings know how to prevent these things from happening in the first place. The identification of a responsible person is also important. Accountability underpins all this, so that was very helpful, as was the discussion about the recording of fire risk assessments and their availability to occupants. Some of those points were incredibly constructive—there were more, but I put them in the “constructive and relevant” bucket.

Then we have the “constructive, but this is not the right legislative hook” bucket. Electrical safety is incredibly important, since its lack is the cause of many fires in dwellings. We recognise that we need to find the right vehicle, but this is not it and I think noble Lords accept that.

Then we had the more opportunistic comments. There is a real commitment to implement the phase 1 inquiry findings from this Government, from the Opposition Benches and from the Liberal Democrats, but we had to consult, and the fire safety consultation had more than 200 responses. We need to use that as the vehicle, through regulation, to ensure that the crisis that happened three and a half years ago never happens again. Although you can never say “never”, that is the purpose of these packages of reform and we stand by that commitment. We just want to find the most practical and proportionate ways of achieving that end point, by talking to the people who have to manage that system day to day.

Also more opportunistic were the comments around decades-long poor construction and poor quality. We are talking about decades of problems and, unfortunately, they are going to take a long time to resolve. The question of who pays for this remediation requires careful balance. We want building owners to be responsible for this. We want developers to build high-quality buildings, so that we do not have to remediate in the future to the extent that we do today, and that we face today with our future buildings. We want developers to pay, and they have paid. We have seen this with the ACM fund. However, the extent of how bad this is, beyond cladding, has not really been calculated. It has just been guesstimated, but it runs into many billions of pounds. Therefore, in wanting to have personal accountability but also appropriate action by the state, we have options.

Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Earl of Lytton and Lord Greenhalgh

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 14. In Committee I made a commitment to set out during today’s debate the Government’s position on how the Fire Safety Bill will be commenced. Your Lordships’ House is aware that the Home Office established an independent task and finish group, chaired jointly by the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Fire Sector Federation, which brought together interested parties from across the fire and housing sectors. Its role was to provide a recommendation on the optimal way to commence the Bill. The group advised that the Bill should be commenced at once for all buildings in scope. I have accepted this recommendation to commence the Fire Safety Bill at once for all buildings in scope on a single date.

The group also recommended that responsible persons under the fire safety order should use a risk-based approach to carrying out or reviewing fire risk assessments upon commencement by way of using a risk operating model, and that the Government issue statutory guidance to support this approach. I also agreed to this recommendation, which will support responsible persons to develop an effective prioritisation strategy for such assessments, which will be supported by a risk operating model currently being developed. The Home Office, with support from the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Fire Sector Federation, will also host this model once it has been finalised.

The government amendments tabled today intend to take forward the provision of statutory guidance to support this approach. These amendments ensure that the risk-based guidance which will be issued by the Secretary of State to support commencement of the Bill for all relevant buildings will have the legal status to incentivise compliance with it. It does this by stating explicitly that a court can consider whether a responsible person has complied with their duties under the fire safety order by compliance with the risk-based guidance. Equally, if a responsible person has failed to provide evidence that they have complied, it may be relied on by a court as tending to support non-compliance with the duties under the order.

The government amendment also creates a provision to allow the Secretary of State to withdraw the risk-based guidance, but this can be done only after consultation with relevant stakeholders and appropriate persons. Our rationale for inserting this provision is that we believe that a point will eventually be reached where, having followed a risk-based approach to prioritisation, responsible persons will have assessed all the fire safety risks for the external walls of their buildings in direct consequence of the commencement of the Bill. At that stage there may no longer be a need for the guidance to remain in place. I assure your Lordships’ House that the Government will commence the Bill at the same time as issuing the guidance. Amendment 14 achieves this effect.

I thank my noble friend Lord Porter of Spalding for his amendment in Committee, which would have placed a duty on the Secretary of State to issue an approved code of practice to support the commencement of the Bill. I had a very constructive discussion with my noble friend and officials from the Local Government Association last week, and I am pleased that he supports our approach and agrees that there should be no delay in commencing the Bill.

One of the issues that the task and finish group considered was how responsible persons will be able to update their fire risk assessment where there is limited capacity in the fire risk assessor sector, primarily fire engineers, to advise on external wall systems. This underlines the recommendation for a risk-based approach to an all-at-once commencement, on which we are acting. Our approach sends a signal to the fire risk assessor sector, mainly fire engineers, that their expertise should first be directed to where it is needed most: to the highest risk buildings.

I draw attention the statement of the Fire Sector Federation, which supports our approach to commencement. It said that

“the introduction of further new measures … using systematic risk- based guidance, will lead a prioritisation approach towards helping to identify the fire risk status for a … building such that those presenting the highest threat to life are afforded the highest priority”

for “remedial action.”

I thank all members of the task and finish group for their work in developing advice to the Home Office and my officials. I consider that the group has provided an optimal solution to commencing the Fire Safety Bill, allowing the Government to introduce the provisions at the earliest opportunity. It is important that we continue the good work undertaken with relevant stakeholders on the task and finish group, with a view regularly to monitoring the effectiveness of the risk-based guidance and risk-operating model. My amendments seek to take forward the recommendations from operational experts in the field of fire safety. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the proposed risk-based guidance set out in the amendment is extremely welcome, particularly if it means what I think it means: assessment not only by building type but in relation to the specifics. The risk-operating model is especially welcome in this respect, and I thank the Minister for tabling the amendment. When is the guidance likely to be finalised? It is linked to the Bill coming into force and it is important that it be done as soon as possible, subject to reasonable scrutiny. We need reasonable certainty and to calm financial, insurance and property market fears.

Knowing the limited scrutiny that secondary legislation receives, can the Minister give an assurance that the guidance will be unequivocal—in clear, jargon-free and plain English, capable of consistent application and not liable to misleading or alternative interpretations? I say that with some feeling, having had to deal with matters of regulation over many years. Can the Minister also say whether there will be consultation on the details —in the knowledge that, within reason, the sooner this measure is brought in, the better—and whether there will be parliamentary scrutiny of it?

I particularly welcome the Minister’s reference to the signal that will be given to the accreditation sector and the insistence on indicating priorities. Getting capacity will clearly be an issue and the person responsible for a building—as happens in some employment situations—does not necessarily need to be an externally trained professional.

I will raise one further issue. A member of my family, as I mentioned earlier, has a flat in a relatively low-rise block in a London borough. I spent a bit of time on the borough’s website looking for details of the 2006 planning consent that governed its construction. Unfortunately, all the information—bar the notice—was missing from the website. I was told that I could make an application; it is not clear whether or not I would have to pay for that.

The other aspect of this is the information that goes into building control, which should be the details of how the building is to be constructed. If people are to be able to make a reasoned assessment of the safety or otherwise of their building, having that constructional information is rather important. The standard approach, however, is that building regulation information is not readily accessible on demand and may involve copyright issues where plans are provided. This may be fair enough, but there is an overriding need to know. If the architect, or the approved inspector—or whoever might have this information, since it might not be in the local authority records—cannot be traced, the only solution, which may have to happen anyway to some extent, would be for someone to take intrusive steps to open up parts of the building for inspection.

That basic information, which at some stage must have gone into the public domain or been used for an approved building regulation inspection, needs to be rounded up. Can the Minister offer any comfort or reassurance that steps will be taken to make sure that this essential information is recovered and available to those who need it?