Building Safety Bill

Lord Shipley Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I agree very strongly with what the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, said. First, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I welcome the Bill strongly. I think I will be happier if it includes, in addition to residential buildings over 18 metres, all high-risk buildings, and I hope we will take that further in Committee.

The disaster at Grenfell represents one of the biggest failures of public policy in recent decades. The report of Dame Judith Hackitt in May 2018 said that the current system was not fit for purpose, so it is vital that this new system works. This Bill represents a fundamental reform of the building safety system. It may have taken four years to get to this point—which is a long time—but it seems to me that it is four years well spent. Of course, even the best systems for securing safety will depend on the people who carry out the new processes. I will say something more about that in a moment.

But first, I want to approach the Bill from the perspective of a new occupant of a high-rise residential block. I would want to feel confident that I knew the following before I moved in: is there more than one lift and more than one staircase? Are there secure emergency exits? What are the evacuation rules? Have they been tested and does everyone know what they are—or do we stay put in a fire? Are there high-quality fire doors in common areas that are kept closed, and high-quality fire doors as part of my own property, such as my front door? Are there sprinklers—and if not, why not? Have the building materials been tested properly and are they safe? Who is responsible for safety? Is there a named person monitoring my block to whom I can go with concerns? Are there regular residents’ meetings to raise issues of concern? Are the results of fire safety inspections public for residents to read? Is it clear what I have to do myself to maintain safety, and what penalties might there be for non-participation? Are there regular electrical safety checks, and who undertakes and registers these?

We will explore many of these issues in Committee, and some, of course, lie in the Fire Safety Act 2021. But the success of this Bill will all depend on the people carrying it out: their training, competence and understanding of their role, and the golden thread of information held in one place, which is a such an important part of the procedures in the Bill. In the end, of course, it is everybody’s responsibility to make sure that Grenfell can never happen again.

As the Minister said in his letter of 20 January, this is a complex and technical Bill. Importantly, there are a lot of new roles in it, and they all seem to be necessary. There are responsible persons, accountable persons, principal accountable persons, duty-holders, clients—who will have to approve the competence of the principal designer and the principal contractor—other designers and contractors, building safety managers, registered building inspectors, building owners, insurers, and the new homes ombudsman. And there will be others, not least the national regulator for construction projects. It will be vital that everybody knows who is responsible for what exactly, and that there is a regular review of them undertaken through the building safety regulator and the Government.

The crucial role will be that of the new building safety regulator within the Health and Safety Executive, who will have the key role in bringing together the fire and rescue services and local authority experts, including the building control staff, to make regulatory decisions. It will be critical that the regulator drives ahead with improving competence within the sector and within the unified building control profession common to the public and private sectors. This system will work only if everyone working as part of it has the required set of knowledge and expertise.

Much will depend on the gateway structure—which I strongly welcome—so that the risks are evaluated at every stage of a new building’s design and construction. In particular, in terms of gateway 1, I would like to be clearer about what actions are being taken to improve training. It will matter because it relates in part to the planning system, both in terms of application and the permission itself. I submit that local government planning authorities will need to give some substantial thought to the training of councillors.

I wish the Bill well. It is really important and I commend all those involved in getting us to this position because it is a substantial achievement. I hope that the Minister may agree to some system of annual reporting to Parliament on the working of the new structure, that roles are clear and that the blame culture has been significantly reduced, if not eliminated. I hope he will give further thought, too, to how competence will be assessed and reported.

Perhaps I may raise one other issue, which relates to permitted development rights. Are the Government thinking of restricting those rights when office blocks are converted into residential flats of whatever height?

I hope it will not prove the case that too much is being left to secondary legislation. It would be helpful to see as much further information as can be brought forward in Committee and on Report as possible; otherwise there will be a great deal of work to do in assessing that secondary legislation. That said, I commend the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

It was the 1970s.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

The 1970s, okay. One of the things it taught you was to really distil your arguments down and to learn things over time. The noble Lord specifically asked whether we could review this on an ongoing basis. I take that suggestion as a very sensible one. Any Government—this Government in particular—need to do things and then see whether they work, review and reflect, and try to take that on board. I do not know whether I have overstepped the mark as a Minister, but I think that is a very sensible suggestion.

We will ensure that we improve competence. One of the things we must recognise is that, to improve competence, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, you need to establish what competence is. That is one of the things we are doing very carefully; it is being done by officials and the shadow building safety regulator. You then have to find out how the accreditation will work, and I know that UKAS and others want to step forward and do that. That will all happen as a result of this Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, gave a really thoughtful speech on something that was new to me, so I appreciate his contribution on cash retention. The Government continue to work with industry on the future of retention payments in the construction industry. However, I am told that there is not a clear consensus as to what may replace the practice, so there is more work to be done. I thank the noble Lord for raising an important issue.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, raised Part 5 and the duty on landlords, and asked whether we were going to cause litigation by setting unreasonable demands on landlords. He also came up with a solution. I really appreciate him raising that issue; leaseholders need as much protection as possible. We are requiring landlords to seek claims only where reasonable, but we note the noble and learned Lord’s suggestions for the guidance, and we will take them on board as we continue with the passage of the Bill.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Jolly and Lady Young of Old Scone, the noble Lord, Lord Jordan, and my noble friends Lady Eaton and Lord Naseby all mentioned the Safer Stairs campaign. As someone who has an elderly father—sadly, my mother did not survive the first wave of Covid—I worry. The thing I worry most about, as someone gets frailer, is staircases. I almost have to declare a personal interest. It is important that we look at staircase standards and recognise how best to achieve that end point, so that new builds have the right level of minimum standard. That does not mean it has to be enshrined as a maximum standard, but we have to work out what we would be proud of as a minimum standard in regulations. I thank noble Lords for raising this issue.

I think it is ironic that one of the sponsors of this campaign is Berkeley homes, because Richmond House, which someone mentioned, is of course a Berkeley build, as is Worcester Park, which really was a shoddy building, although luckily there was no loss of life there. Some developers who normally build good stuff have built things that they should be ashamed of. It is ironic that Berkeley is sponsoring what is a very noble campaign—none the less, I support it.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster, raised electrical safety. I am sure we will work through some of his suggestions—along with pretty much everything else he is interested in—in Committee. I have the briefing and I understand the issue; it is something that we have debated many times.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, raised building safety managers, and I have the note that was prepared by ARMA and IRPM on this. I hear the concerns about cost, and we take those concerns extremely seriously. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and if you are not prescribing how you do it, we do not see why you cannot have a property manager continue to discharge the functions of a building safety manager, going to the expertise only when it is needed. Think of the equivalent in healthcare: you typically go to a GP but see the specialist only when required. I have some sympathy with the issue, but I think that we are not being prescriptive about it, and so it should not be used as an excuse by managing agents to whack up the prices for leaseholders.

I welcome the clear cross-party support from so many noble Lords. There is broad support for the principles set out in a Statement by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State in the other place, on 10 January. We will continue to work with your Lordships —even the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy—and by working together we will ensure that homes are safe for future generations. It is a worthy ambition. I commend the Bill to the House.

Building Safety Bill

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 21st February 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I support both amendments in this group so helpfully introduced by my noble friend Lord Stunell. We heard in our debate on the previous group of amendments about the wide range of safety concerns, from fire and flood to methods of construction and fitting out, which mean that some buildings are at risk. I should declare my interest as the vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group, and I thank the many Fire Ministers who have appeared before it, including the current Minister and indeed a previous Minister, who spoke just now.

I support the ideas about the golden thread as outlined by my noble friend Lord Stunell. Amendment 3 does that. Frankly, I thank him for owning up to the fact that he did not do this when he was a Minister. The all-party group has, over the years, argued for this policy to be part of the fire safety protocol.

The amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and supported by my noble friend Lady Pinnock, have a key safety issue: the power to prevent a developer’s ability to pick their own regulator. It is right that it is the public building regulator, the Local Authority Building Control, that is the sole regulator.

The bonfire of regulations just over a decade ago has meant that this field has become murky and filled with a lot of organisations that may indeed have close relationships. There was one day when the all-party group heard from a whistleblower who told us that, in the past, there has been unacceptable practice when the developer or owner of a building has had the ability to pick and choose the inspector, in this case, but it could have been a regulator. Fire safety inspectors were booked to come and check the fire safety doors—the front doors of flats and those on the stairwells—and that they were still the right ones that would manage the 40-minute fire safety tests. The managing agents for the building asked for a delay of a week, which was granted. The whistleblower said that it had been noticed by a number of residents that a series of doors were removed and replaced with other doors during that week—which of course passed all the tests—and, the week after the inspection, all the old doors were put back.

There has to be a mechanism for a regulator to start picking up on, and being concerned, when organisations are not playing by the rules. Those alarm bells can best be raised by the independent Local Authority Building Control.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 135 in my name, which was referred to a moment ago by my noble friend Lord Stunell, and which I intend as a probing amendment. I should say that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I raised this issue at Second Reading, as the Minister will recall, and the question of whether permitted development rights would continue as now when this Bill is enacted, in respect of the conversion of office blocks to residential accommodation of any height. Amendment 135 seeks to clarify the matter. It says that

“Nothing in the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 … permits development which would convert offices to residential accommodation if such development is contrary to the provisions of this Act.”


I am grateful to the Public Bill Office for the help in drafting those words.

I simply say to the Minister that I hope he will clarify that this is government policy. If it is, that fact should be in the Bill to avoid any doubt. I look forward to the Minister’s assurance, because it would be inappropriate—as my noble friend Lord Stunell said—if a different set of rules were to apply to a conversion from office to residential than would apply to a residential block always designated as that. This amendment aims to clarify that the permitted development route cannot be used where it would be contrary to the provisions of this Act. I hope the Minister will agree that this is a very important issue.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I will look briefly first at Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. As we know, the proposed building safety regulator will be responsible for implementing and enforcing the new regime and will monitor the safety and performance of all buildings, with the aims of securing the safety of people in or about buildings and improving standards. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, went into a lot of detail and clearly laid out all the reasons behind his amendment, so I will not go over the ground that he has covered.

I just make the point that amendments have been made to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act to reflect this, so the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, would also bring those necessary powers contained in the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act into this Bill and would, as the noble Lord said, be in accordance with the recommendations of the Hackitt report. This seems a practical and sensible approach.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in his Amendment 135, raises the issue of office to residential conversions, which are being actively encouraged by the Government. We need to consider any associated building safety issues with that policy. The noble Lord asked the Minister for clarification on this, and I think that this clarification is important so that we all know exactly what implications there will be. I will be interested in the Minister’s response to that.

I have a number of amendments in this group. I will first speak to Amendments 11 and 43 in my name—I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for her support on them. Combined, they will ensure that the more stringent building safety framework applies not just to buildings over 18 metres but to those under that, where they are multiple occupancy dwellings. We believe the Building Safety Bill, in its original draft and as amended in Committee in the other place, fails robustly to confirm whether the gateway system will apply to buildings under 18 metres where there are multiple occupancy dwellings. This will create a two-tier system where buildings below 18 metres will face less rigorous safety regulations than those over 18 metres.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

Can the Minister give us clarification on Amendment 135? He said that new homes and buildings are covered by existing legislation and will be covered by this Bill when it becomes an Act, but does the wording “new homes and buildings” include the conversion of offices, which are old buildings, to residential? I understand that this is a complex area but I wonder whether the Minister is willing to write on this point so that it is on the record.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving me that get-out. He is absolutely right that this is a complicated matter. You often have an old office building from which you create a new residential dwelling. We will check whether that is included in the purview of this Bill, and I will write to the noble Lord on that matter.