Building Safety Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Foster of Bath]

1: Clause 3, page 2, line 13, at end insert—
“(aa) furthering the protection of property, and”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the building safety regulator to exercise its functions with a view to furthering the protection of property, which is intended to promote longer term protections for occupant safety and reducing fire damage and cost.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, even if no lives are lost, fires in any type of building—home, school, office, factory or other—can often have serious social, economic and environmental consequences. Property and equipment are lost, rebuilding costs are enormous, jobs can be lost and so on. Of course saving lives is the most important consideration, but my Amendments 1 and 16 suggest that we should be going beyond the current arrangements whereby we consider that building legislation and regulations are deemed a success if all occupants are evacuated safely. The amendments propose means by which consideration of property protection can be proportionately applied to the fire safety building regulations, measures that I believe will allow for buildings to be safer, more resilient and more sustainable than now.

At earlier stages of the Bill, I illustrated the need for such measures with reference to a large number of fires that had completely destroyed buildings. Sadly, to that list we can now add the fire just a couple of weeks ago that destroyed a self-storage warehouse in Cheadle along with the possessions of more than 650 people. Conversely, we know the benefits of applying property protection approaches. That was evidenced last week, for example, when a sprinkler system saved a large distribution warehouse in Leicestershire from being destroyed by fire. Over the past two months alone, sprinklers have prevented large, costly and potentially dangerous fires in schools in Ayrshire, in a retirement home in Bedfordshire, in high-rise blocks in Chester, Newport and Irvine and in a furniture warehouse in Sheffield.

In Committee, the Minister avoided addressing the crux of the proposition that I am making. I find that odd, particularly given that the Government have already commissioned research into property protection measures. It is disappointing that we have reached this stage of the passage of the Bill without seeing the results of that research, which would have been enormously helpful to him. It may be that the Government want to use it to determine future considerations for fire safety building regulations, but surely the most appropriate time to be doing that is now, while we have this Bill before us. We know how difficult it is to find legislative time to bring in further measures. It is particularly strange when the Minister has said categorically that the Bill before us is intended to deliver the biggest improvement in building safety in nearly 40 years.

The Government may well also say that they have the opportunity at a later stage to amend guidance in these matters. We must of course accept that there have already been changes to guidance on fire safety over recent years; indeed, there have been changes in relation to high-rise buildings as a result of the Grenfell fire. However, the sad truth is that placing something in guidance does not necessarily ensure that the actions that we want will happen. That was the case back in 2007, some years ago now, when Building Bulletin 100: Design for Fire Safety in Schools was introduced, with the suggestion that sprinklers should be installed. In the first few years that is exactly what happened, but over subsequent years the incidence of the introduction of sprinklers in new school buildings reduced dramatically as developers found ways around the guidance.

I mention that because we should be looking at changes not to guidance but to the actual regulations. After all, that was what was thought important when we made changes to the regulations in respect of cladding. That was not a change to guidance; it was a change to regulation. That is why my Amendments 1 and 16 would introduce into regulation measures to provide improvements to property protection. I say to the Minister, who I know is interested in this issue, that that would not be a particularly strange thing to do. After all, many other countries have thought it important to do this; for instance, Germany, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Japan and a number of others have already introduced such measures. I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to my proposals or, if he is not prepared to accept the amendments, give us an update on the research that is currently being done and what the Government’s plans are to make changes—in due course, sadly—to the regulations in this matter.

I have another amendment in this group, Amendment 8, which relates to the need for the regulator to

“within two years … carry out and publish an assessment of the benefits and costs of measures on improving the safety of people in or about buildings relating to … certification of electrical equipment and systems”—

that is the installations, not the equipment running off them. In Committee, I pointed out the inequality that exists whereby private landlords in high-rise buildings are required by law to have a valid electrical safety certificate, whereas social landlords are not. This is strange, as the Government want equality between the two. The social housing charter states unequivocally:

“Safety measures in the social sector should be in line with the legal protections afforded to private sector tenants. Responses to the social housing Green Paper showed overwhelming support for consistency in safety measures across social and private rented housing.”


The Minister said:

“The Bill is unapologetically ambitious, creating a world-class building safety regulatory regime that holds all”—


I emphasise “all”—

“to the same high standard.”—[Official Report, 2/2/22; col. 916.]

Yet elsewhere, the Minister appeared less committed, saying only that

“In the Social Housing White Paper we committed to consult on electrical safety requirements in the social sector”.


Commitment to consult is a far cry from a commitment to achieve the same regulatory standard. The Minister continued:

“We will consider whether the best way forward to protect social residents from harm is to mandate checks and bring parity with standards in the private rented sector.”—[Official Report, 2/3/22; col. GC 319.]


A commitment to consider mandatory checks is a far cry from the words in the social housing charter and the Minister’s own words at Second Reading.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, there is a wide range of amendments in this first group relating to the role and scope of the new building safety regulator, which will oversee the new safety regime not least for—but not exclusively for, as the amendments suggest—high-risk buildings. For instance, there is my amendment to further the protection of property through the introduction of measures such as sprinklers and compartmentation. There is also the important amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, to widen the definition of “safety” to include health and well-being because, as we have heard, a building can have a profound effect on a person’s physical and mental health. There is the important measure in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, related to addressing the safety risks that can—and do—arise from contractual arrangements. Then there is my noble friend Lord Stunell’s amendment, which aims to get the new regulator to look at and report on a range of issues of concern, from fire suppression systems to stairways, ramps, electrical equipment and measures to support people with disabilities.

The Minister’s response was to say that he welcomes these proposals and that they will be looked at over time but, of course, he does not want to burden the new regulator with additional responsibilities at this stage—notwithstanding the fact that he said that noble Lords were merely asking the regulator to do “a little bit more”. None the less, I am sure that those who have spoken to their own amendments will make a decision on what they wish to do at later stages of this Bill.

I was disturbed by the Minister suggesting that acceptance of my Amendments 1 and 16 would put the safety of the building on a par with the safety of its occupants. I must tell him that this absolutely misunderstands the importance of property protection measures. Often, the introduction of sprinklers and compartmentation, for example, gives the occupants of a building a longer period of time in which to escape and improves safety. Clearly the Minister has accepted that in terms of, for instance, reducing the height of tall buildings when it is expected, at least under guidance, that sprinklers will be introduced.

I acknowledge that the Minister has offered to have a further meeting with my noble friend and provide his not inconsiderable weight, as he described it, to move some measures forward. I hope that he will use his considerable weight to move the measures I have proposed forward in, as he suggested, the first statutory review of the work of the new regulator. Given that rather modest assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Brinton for summarising Amendment 254, which is in my name and supported by her. I shall speak to that and to Amendment 261. As my noble friend just said, there is a real concern about fires, particularly in high-rise buildings. Sadly, the statistics show that the number of fires in such buildings is rising year on year, with more than 350 having taken place in the last year for which figures are available.

We also know more generally that more than 50% of fires in such buildings and others are caused by electricity. In some cases, it is as a result of faulty electrical installations—which is why, earlier this morning, I moved an amendment to ensure that all such installations should have a safety check every five years—but sometimes they are caused by faulty electrical appliances. The Grenfell Tower fire, the great tragedy which led so much to the Bill before us, was caused by a faulty fridge-freezer; the Shepherds Court fire was caused by a faulty tumble-dryer and the Lakanal House fire by a faulty TV. It is vital that when customers purchase an electrical appliance, they know that it is safe.