Fire Safety Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 29th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I, too, declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. We all share the object of improving the safety of residents and protecting them from the hazards of fire. The Bill is a most welcome contribution to this aim, and provides much-needed clarity about the responsibilities and duties of building owners.

My noble friend’s amendment has been tabled with the best of intentions. On Second Reading I mentioned my concern about the potential for fire hazards from white goods, as did others. I therefore looked with great interest at my noble friend’s amendment. Although I share the concern behind the two amendments regarding fire hazard posed by faulty electrical appliances, this amendment would transfer the responsibility for that issue away from the manufacturers and owners of such appliances, to the responsible person and the fire and rescue service.

The requirement for the responsible person to keep a register of electrical appliances and to check whether they are subject to a recall notice would be completely impractical, particularly in social housing, where the responsibility of the local authority or housing association has significant implications, especially in relation to keeping a register of all electrical appliances.

Surely the responsibility for the safety of electrical goods should sit with the manufacturers. Recent legislation created a national regulator, the Office for Product Safety and Standards, to lead and co-ordinate the product safety system, and respond to safety incidents and recalls. The Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016 place strict legal obligations on manufacturers to ensure that electrical equipment is safe before it enters the marketplace. An added concern was gaining the co-operation of occupiers and to private properties. There are potential problems of access rights, and ECHR issues.

Clause 86 of the draft building safety Bill imposes duties on residents regarding maintenance of electrical equipment, and I feel it would be better if the aims of the amendment were seen in relation to general electrical safety checks, and were part of that Bill’s safety case provision.

Fire statistics show that 34% of accidental dwelling fires in 2019-20 were caused by misuse of equipment or appliances, with a further 15% due to faulty leads. However, faulty electrical goods, although unacceptable, are not the primary source of fire fatalities: 23% of fire fatalities are linked to smokers. However, even if it were possible to fulfil all the obligations created by my noble friend’s amendment, we would always need to recognise that fires often start in kitchens—and Amendments 1 and 24 will not negate fire danger in kitchens.

[Lord Best (CB) [V]]

My Lords, this important Bill commands extensive cross-party support. The amendment, with leadership from the noble lord, Lord Bourne, also has backing from all parties, and I can now add support from the Cross Benches. I think we have all been helped by input from the Electrical Safety First charity, from whose excellent briefing I note that the failure of electrical appliances is the underlying cause of some 57% of the fires in homes, as with the Grenfell Tower tragedy, in which a fridge-freezer caused the fire.

Although electrical product companies endeavour to alert customers when they need to recall appliances—as with the more than 500,000 white goods subject to recalls from Hotpoint and Indesit alone—there are many reasons why the message does not get through: people move and take appliances with them; recall notices get lost; people buy second-hand goods, and so on. There are a lot of electrical products out there with the potential to start new fires at any time.

Amendment 1, in combination with the proposed new schedule, provides two levels of assurance, both of which seem eminently suitable and practical for high-rise buildings in particular. These involve, as explained by the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, keeping a register of electrical appliances and having a five-yearly electrical safety inspection of all flats, not just those that are privately rented.

We need to consider possible criticisms, and I shall take up one or two of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton. Would these measures, however necessary, be expensive to administer? Would they be costly for residents? Would they be intrusive into people’s private space? Adding the task of maintaining a register of residents’ appliances would increase the workload of the responsible person with fire safety duties, but the increased workload should be modest, and a tiny supplement to service charges should cover this.

I stress that the amendment would not add to the duties or responsibilities of the fire and rescue service; rather, it would assist the service by reducing fires. Local authorities would have oversight of the requirement for inspections, but they already have enforcement duties in respect of privately rented flats. Moreover, the work involved should not be onerous, as the apartment block’s managers, and the responsible person, in particular, will want to retain oversight of the building’s electrical safety.

As for the quinquennial inspection, I gather from managing agents in the private rented sector, who are already dealing with electrical safety inspections, that costs can be much lower than the £200 we have heard about for a five-year certification. There will be economies of scale in covering flats in a tower block, compared with costs for a check-up and certificate for a one-off private property. The inspection requires a qualified electrician but not a fully fledged surveyor or electrical engineer. I think £50 per unit, equivalent to £10 per annum, could be achieved in due course. Such a payment may be more than helpful in alerting the occupier to any potential hazards and providing peace of mind derived from the knowledge that one’s neighbours are much less likely, unwittingly, to cause a disastrous fire.

Some have argued that applying this obligation to home owners is a step too far. There is little objection to social landlords being required to meet standards demanded of private landlords, and the Regulator of Social Housing will not only insist on comparable standards but will ensure they are enforced. But there are sensitivities about placing the same obligations on home owners—leaseholders and shared owners—in these apartment blocks. However, this represents a free checking service for the resident to ensure that they are not harbouring an unsafe appliance that was the subject of a recall. The key point is that the actions of each resident, whether a tenant or an owner, affect all the other occupiers in the same building. While I am a firm supporter of mixed tenure development, as I know the Minister also is—it seems essential that these safety measures cover all apartments in a mixed block, irrespective of the tenure of the residents therein.

In conclusion, I strongly support the amendment—and I am delighted that we have a Minister responsible for the Bill who has the knowledge and the skills to take this forward, noting its support from all parts of your Lordships’ House.

[Baroness Couttie (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I want to speak against this amendment. I remind the House of my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I know that everyone in this Chamber is concerned about fire safety and united in their desire to ensure that tenants are safe in their homes. As other noble Lords have said, the terrible tragedy at Grenfell Tower and other significant fires in multi-occupied blocks were caused by faults with electrical devices. Naturally, we all want to make sure that such disasters can never happen again.

As the ex-leader of Westminster City Council, I know at first hand that local authorities and the housing associations they work with are entirely at one with us on this goal. However, I also know at first hand what practical and financial challenges the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Bourne would have. I agree with the comments made by my noble friend Lady Eaton.