Building Safety Defects

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

Sorry; that is north London. Someone who has served in local government will have experience, obviously, of public housing. I was leader of Hammersmith and Fulham for six years and a councillor there for 16 years. Of course, when it comes to public housing or social housing, there are things that you can do, but this is something that goes right across the built environment—both private housing and public housing. We will look at measures, obviously driven through local government, but that will not solve this crisis in the round. Noble Lords have to await the announcement from my right honourable friend in the other place.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, do the Government not agree that the arbitrary line of 18 metres has led to much of this confusion and the fact that people feel they have been trapped? Can the Government please give us an assurance that they will not make that sort of arbitrary line in future?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

It is not arbitrary; it is well established that 18 metres is the cut-off point for a high-rise building. It helps us to categorise buildings. We do it in storeys as well. We have had The Cube, which I think was 17.5 metres in height rather than 18 metres, so it is anything above six storeys. But it helps us to understand the scale of the problem. The reality is that the scale of the problem is far greater in high-rise buildings; you cannot get ladders up tall buildings. As many will know, when it comes to firefighting— I happen to be the Fire Minister as well—it is much harder to help evacuate high-rise buildings than medium or low-rise ones. Therefore, I think it is right to have this line. But we will have something called a PAS 9980 that will help to risk assess the problem, irrespective of height, and that will be introduced shortly.