Building Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Lord Naseby

3rd reading
Monday 4th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, simply look at the Bill that came from the other place, then take a look at what we are sending back. It has changed beyond all recognition. I pay tribute to my noble friend the Minister and his boss, my right honourable friend Michael Gove, for that extraordinary transformation. I also thank my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and noble Lords and noble Baronesses on all sides of the House, and the right reverend Prelate, for the many amendments they have made, many of which have been accepted by the Government. We are sending back some important amendments that the Government might not quite like as much as we would like them to. However, I appeal to the other place to accept them and not to remove them, especially the zero amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock.

The Government, apparently, have had legal advice on the dangers of breaking the ECHR if we changed the cap figures, but we heard, I submit, even better legal advice that that is not so. In any case, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, said, some developers will challenge the figure in court no matter what level the Government set.

We also need to do more on enfranchised leaseholders. They were encouraged to purchase their freeholds, and they must not be treated like rapacious landlords. Nevertheless, this Bill now gives leaseholders infinitely better protection. With a few further tweaks it could give them full protection. When I see the contribution my noble friends have made to the Bill, I am reminded of the words of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, or almost his words:

“Antonius! … Yond”


noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham,

“has a lean and hungry look … Let me have men about me that are fat”.

I commend this Bill and hope the other place will improve it further.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, as one who has been involved in housing policy for over 50 years, I pay tribute to my noble friend for his time, care and effort, and his listening qualities, which have not always been a feature of those on either Front Bench. I offer sincere thanks to my noble friend.

Building Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Lord Naseby

Committee stage
Monday 28th February 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 65, which would modify the major statement in government Amendment 64. I was greatly encouraged when my noble friend the Minister sent the letter on 14 February. I thought, “Ah, here’s a good letter”, because it says clearly:

“The key principles that I outlined were a more proportionate approach to building safety risk”,


and

“the need to protect leaseholders”.

That is in the first paragraph. The second paragraph even starts:

“I committed to protect leaseholders”.


So I thought, “Oh, good, we’ve got there now”. But then, of course, I looked at the letter in more detail—and what is proposed in new subsection (2)(d) proposed by government Amendment 64 will have a major adverse effect on buy to let.

I remind my noble friend, who has been in housing for many years, as I have—I first got elected to the London Borough of Islington in 1968—that it was in 1993, under the Major Government, that the whole concept of buy to let was produced. That was at a time when, as all of us who were involved in housing would have known, there was a terrible situation for private tenants. They were basically exploited. We remember Rachman, De Lusignan and the others at that time. Here, it was not launched with trumpets or anything; nevertheless, it started in 1993 and it built up, because it offered good-quality housing for people to rent in the private sector. We now have a situation today, which I find really amazing, having done a bit of donkey work on this, where there are more than 2 million buy-to-let properties that are mortgaged and successful.

I will not take much of the Committee’s time, but I will just highlight that over the past 25 years, landlords have made a tangible improvement to the whole rented sector, so now we have a situation where millions of tenants today are proud of their home, although they have it on a buy-to-let basis. That is all fine and dandy, except that when you look at what is actually proposed at the moment, the net result is that, basically, buy-to-let landlords, or some of them, will not qualify for the remit of the cladding scheme that was announced in January. If they rent out no more than one flat in a block, they are okay, but if they have any more, they are in trouble. I have had strong representations, of course, from the National Residential Landlords Association, which states:

“We still fail to see why the Government is making it so difficult for buy-to-let landlords who are leaseholders to access the same level of support as all other types of leaseholders.”


The reality is, if you are a buy-to-let landlord renting out however many flats, or an owner-occupier leaseholder, you have been treated unfairly by the developers that installed dangerous cladding on blocks of flats. What Her Majesty’s Government are doing, as matters stand in Amendment 64, is introducing a very dangerous principle, basically stating that there are worthy and unworthy victims of the cladding crisis. I ask my noble friend to reflect that the Government should make it clear that any and all leaseholders should be treated the same. That is why I have tabled this amendment. I have not sought any publicity on this at all, but people have read the Bill, thankfully, and I have just brought a small sample of the huge number of emails I have received. Each is an indication of a case. The first is from a retired solicitor—so this is a perfect gentleman—who had a flat on buy to let. His wife bought one as well, and they now have two flats and are facing a problem. He says it is vital that all leaseholders are treated equally, and I do not think I can disagree with that.

Another one comes from a lady who was affected. She had a one-bedroom flat, which she bought in St Albans when her mother died, and then they bought one more, yet they are caught again. Then there is one from a lady called Katherine Wilde in Croydon. A single-parent family, two sisters, bought a flat jointly, then another flat jointly, then another flat jointly. They are caught. I could go on, although I have not brought many. It is clear. This is from a gentleman called Paul Bullock. It is clear that all these people are victims of this national scandal. As further evidence from the Grenfell inquiry comes to light, it is obvious that many parties have played a role in creating this crisis, the only innocent party being the leaseholders who purchased the flats after being guaranteed that everything was in order, only to find out that this was not true. There are moving words at the end of this email:

“Personally, I am caught up in this mess. I can’t even start to explain the toll of the past two years on my physical and mental health”.


I will not read the rest, but I will say to my noble friend that there is a problem here and I hope that he will have another look at it. I think that when he was introducing the letter of 14 February, he said that some of it had been done in a bit of a rush—so I think there ought to be an opportunity to have another look at this issue.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 59 is concerned with the first two lines of paragraph 5 of Schedule 8, which begins:

“Building safety costs may be taken into account in determining the … building safety charge payable by a relevant tenant”.


You can bet your life they will be. Leaseholders know that every other week a notice comes from the managing agents to say that the freeholder or landlord has decided that the corridor lighting needs updating, new lines need to be painted in the car park, the entry phone system needs replacing and so on, ad nauseam. This schedule gives them another excuse for possibly unnecessary, gold-plated, so-called safety improvements and contracts let to their favourite contractors. That is why my amendment seeks to add these words at the end of the sentence I have just quoted:

“only if they are below a maximum as specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State”.

It is another plea for the Government to take a permissive power so that, if it proves to be the case that service or safety charges have been jacked up, they can use a regulation to put a control on it.

These regulations may not be necessary—I hope they are not—but the power should be there just in case it is needed. If your Lordships just google “leasehold scandals”, up will pop names such as McCarthy & Stone and Peverel, now calling itself FirstPort—I can assure your Lordships that Mr Tchenguiz has not made his millions by being nice to leaseholders.

My Amendment 66A adds to the definition of “relevant defect” in new subsection (2) in Amendment 66. At the moment it says:

“‘Relevant defect’ means a defect as regards a building that … arises as a result of anything done (or not done), including anything used (or not used), in connection with relevant works, and … causes a building safety risk.”


I propose to add at the end:

“which may relate to but is not limited to … external cladding … internal walls and the materials contained inside any walls … fire doors … balconies … a lack of sprinklers, fire detection and control systems … inadequate escape routes.”

Quite simply, I believe that builders should pay for all fire safety remedial work and not just external cladding. But I also hope that common sense can prevail and the Government can lay down the law that wooden decking on a steel balcony is not a fire risk, and that potentially flammable materials sandwiched inside non-combustible inner and outer walls do not need to be removed. There are a lot of excessive suggestions on fire risk materials going round at the moment, and that needs to be stamped on.

My Amendment 86 seeks to insert a new clause to prevent managing agents charging excessive amounts for undertaking fire risk assessments or preparing applications for assistance. In particular, I suggest that the regulations may include—again I stress “may”:

“setting limits on the charges managing agents may impose for fire risk assessments … setting limits on the charges managing agents may impose for making applications to the Building Safety Fund or any other source of funding for fire risk remedial works … setting limits on the charges managing agents may impose for inviting tenders for fire risk remedial works … preventing service charges being inflated by fire risk remedial works.”

I suggest that these are all reasonable. My noble friend the Minister knows what managing agents are like. If we are not careful, this Bill will be a licence for them to print money: charging for the work of the accountable person and for drawing up the strategy, coming into all our homes to look for safety dangers, and a host of other things they will be able, quite legitimately, to charge leaseholders for. While they can do so, I suspect that the charges will be excessively high. Thus, the backstop of a regulatory power is essential.

I commend Amendment 131 from my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. He made a compelling case for a short, sharp inquiry into the charges for fire safety work which leaseholders have had to pay and which are not covered by this Bill. That is eminently sensible stuff.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Lord Naseby

Committee stage & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 23rd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby [V]]

My Lords, I have a different point of view. I was brought up in Bedfordshire for much of my life. At one point I was a consultant to Fison’s Agrochemicals. We are not just talking about the generic term “pesticide”, which conjures up images of locusts doing this, that and the other, we are talking about insecticides, fungicides, herbicides or weed killers, and we need to differentiate between them.

I want to make two points to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. First, nobody should be spraying in windy conditions so that children in a back garden are somehow drenched. That particular farmer is way outside the code of conduct and he would not be doing any good for his employer because the spray would not be going on to the crops it was designed for. Secondly, if you live in a village—I live on the edge of one—you know that most people have gardens and use some form of pesticide for the various problems in a garden. Ordinary consumers are reasonably well briefed. They read the instructions on the container. They know they may or may not have to mix, and it is fairly rare to mix two chemicals. In most cases, you pour 20 millilitres, or whatever it may be, into 2 litres of water. You make sure that the container is clean and that the sprayer is working properly. Quite frankly, the idea that people living in rural villages have no idea about pesticides is a myth.

We have only to go back to the 1960s when the British Agricultural Association had a code of conduct; I have the old booklet here somewhere. Over time, that code has been improved immeasurably. Furthermore, the scientific work that is done on agrochemicals is every bit as thorough as that done on medicines, medical trials and so on. If there is a failure in the use of spraying somewhere in the UK, that farmer should be jumped on, but most of the farmers I know are careful.

I live next door to the RSPB. It and others have done a wonderful job of restoring birds in the countryside in co-operation with British farmers. Spraying is altered to suit particular bird species. Along with granddaughter I have been to RSPB briefings recently and you cannot help but be impressed by the way the industry is working with those who are trying to look after our wild birds. I say to my noble friend that this is all very nice. If pesticides are used properly, I do not think that people are dying. I do not think that any harm is being done to them. Further, let us not forget that this is not the year in which to make dramatic changes to any sector of agriculture. This is the year of transition. It is a year where we need to move forward smoothly to ensure that our dear farmers can take on board changes that are being forced on them without having to muck about with whether less herbicide x or fungicide y should be used here or there.

I shall say to my noble friend on the Front Bench that he may not be 100% popular but, for my money, he should strongly resist both these amendments.

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Naseby, especially since I agree with so much of what he has said. On this occasion, however, I regret that I have to disagree with my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge. I shall be brief because I am conscious that I must leave time for those colleagues who wish to speak on every single amendment. Where I take issue with my noble friend Lord Randall is on the words, “application” and “any pesticide”. I have made this point previously so I need not go into the detail, but we must not demonise all pesticides if they are no threat to humans, animals and wildlife, and if they are applied properly, as my noble friend Lord Naseby has just said. I agree with my noble friend Lord Randall that I do not want to see clouds of aerosol spray wafting across fields and settling on people, animals and buildings outside the intended zone, even if that spray is just soapy water, and I agree completely with what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said in his moving introduction to this amendment. It is just not acceptable for people anywhere to be sprayed with any substance, no matter how harmless, from agricultural activities.

As a former MP for a rural constituency with lots of villages, I deplored incomers who would complain about cowpats on the road, but everyone is entitled to a pesticide spray-free environment. However, we are now getting the technology that can permit the micro-application of tiny amounts of pesticide. The chemical is not sprayed over everything, but is applied to the individual weed. I used to use Roundup in the garden because it was an excellent pesticide, but latterly I applied it by touching just one leaf of the weed with a tiny bit of it on a sponge attached to the end of a cane. That is the poor man’s garden method of micro-application. Farmers cannot do that over vast acreages, but I do not want to see a blanket ban on all pesticides, however safe and however applied, as the amendment suggests. The technology is coming onstream to permit the safe application of small amounts of pesticide directly on to weeds. They are of crucial importance and they cause no harm to people, food or the environment.