Building Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Aberdare and Lord Greenhalgh

Committee stage
Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

That is a really good way to end the debate. I will have to write to the noble Lord, because I do not know a lot about the Department for Education other that it is on the street near Marsham Street. I have been there maybe two or three times when I was a council leader. I will write to the noble Lord, but I think it is probably something, as he would well know, that I am not in a position to answer at the Dispatch Box right at this minute.

At this point, I am allowed to sit down. I have avoided a Latin phrase for the whole four hours of this debate, but the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, has provoked me: he responded to me saying that I would not resort to Latin by saying, “Id gratum esset”. I knew enough Latin to know that that means, “It would be appreciated”. Well, I have appreciated this debate, and I look forward to moving on to Report and taking this landlord Bill through this House.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response, which at least confirmed my prophetic abilities and had quite a bit of encouragement. I confirm that we are working on a letter to him along the lines that he described, and we will get that to him in due course—that is a bit pessimistic; we should say “shortly”. I thank him for the other comments that he has made, which I will study and act upon.

I was absolutely delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, was able to contribute to the debate. As she said, she was the Minister responsible when I first accidently got involved with retentions in 2015. For a glorious moment, I thought that she might prove to be the dragon-slayer, but I am delighted that she continues to support the cause. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, made a very important point about investment in training as well as the fact that government itself is not doing all that it could to bring this practice to an end.

As always, I depend heavily on the vast expertise of my noble friend Lord Lytton, whom I thank particularly for focusing on the impact on SMEs. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, also did so, again pointing out the issue of cash flow and its importance. Fortunately, my SME was never in the construction sector, so that is one problem that we did not have, although we certainly had plenty of cash-flow problems. Of course, I also thank the Minister.

Fixing this issue will be a key part of achieving the goal that the Minister is setting out to achieve: a productive, high-quality, collaborative, innovative, forward-looking and, above all, safe construction sector, providing the sorts of homes and other buildings that we can be truly proud of. I am not convinced that we should not come back to this issue on Report, but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.