Social Housing

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, will the Minister also recognise that what is aggravating the lengthening waiting lists and undermining any future social housing target is a net loss of existing social housing stock, due to sales on the open market by certain social landlords; demolitions masquerading as regeneration, resulting in a net loss of social housing; and developers wriggling out of their commitment to social housing quotas? What are the Minister and the Government going to do about those factors?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I have set out our programme, which is designed to increase the amount of social rented homes. I also point out that, over the last decade, the number of social homes has remained broadly static at around 4 million households.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. I agree with almost every word of his speech. It is also a pleasure to welcome my noble friend Lord Coaker and his maiden speech, which was heartfelt and delivered against the background of a thunderbolt. He is very welcome in this House; it is just slightly alarming that I was already in this House when he was pointed out to me as a promising young new Labour MP, and now he has made it to the House of Lords—well done.

I also welcome the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Morse. To be honest, I had not worked out who he was until he spoke—I thought he might be a retired policeman—but, in practice, I now remember that his is the name at the end of a number of trenchant, important and constructive reports on the way in which the machinery of government works. He is also very welcome here.

I must register my disappointment at this legislative programme, particularly the absence of three important Bills and the inadequacy, as we understand it at the moment, of at least two of those that are on the list. First, there is no social care Bill. This Covid crisis has thrown up, and shown to the whole population, the inadequacy of present system of social care in this country, particularly for the elderly. We need a new plan, a new injection of money and a long-term move to a proper social insurance method of dealing with us in old age. That is absent, despite the promises.

Secondly, there is no employment Bill. The situation in the labour market post Covid is grim and made grimmer by the long-term undermining of the status, security and prospects of much of our labour force, with the disintegration of different parts of the labour market. We need a comprehensive employment Bill that provides employment rights and a major training and retraining programme.

Thirdly, I deplore the absence of an energy Bill. We have bits and pieces of what make up an energy strategy but not a full energy Bill, and I will come back to that in a moment.

Two Bills that are on the list that are inadequate in their present form or what is likely to be their form. I welcome the fact that the Environment Bill is coming back to us, but in many respects it is still an inadequate Bill. In particular, the structure of the institutions is not clear, which regulator has what powers is unclear and the clear commitment to deliver what is set out for us very clearly by the Climate Change Committee is not really made a responsibility for the totality of government. That Bill needs significant strengthening.

The other Bill, which does not yet exist but has been rumoured, is the planning Bill. What has been said about it suggests to me that we might be moving the planning system in entirely the wrong direction, in a way that not only does not deliver public support but does not deliver more environmentally sustainable housing and other buildings or the social demands for housing, which the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Kerslake, and others were talking about. It is a Bill to try to increase the amount of development, but it does not make it subject to either public accountability or the social need for housing for the poorest in our population, in particular.

I return to the energy side. We have a clear plan, put to us by the Climate Change Committee, for how we will reduce energy in our system. It is a combination of what we do in energy supply, transport, housing and other construction and industry. However, we need much more than that: we need the means to deliver it. We need new investment institutions for green investment and the manufacturing sector to support it. We need new planning processes that recognise net zero and put it centre stage. We need a new highly trained, high-status workforce to manage and operate our new green sectors. We need new sorts of regulators to deliver this, and we need investment in R&D to deliver new forms of green technologies and solutions. None of that is provided in the legislation promised in this gracious Speech. I hope that we can put some bones on it in the next few months, but, at the moment, I will be rather critical of what is before us.

Covid-19: Poverty and Mass Evictions

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bird, in his unique way of introducing this debate, has drawn to our attention the fact that many of the invisible victims of the pandemic are private sector renters. They have been hit badly. They are twice as likely to have lost their jobs; they are twice as likely to have reduced income, and most of them have never been in serious arrears before. He was right that this could become a new phenomenon if we do not prevent some of these evictions.

The Government of course recognised the plight of these people and introduced a block on evictions, but they did not block the deeply anxiety-inducing process of notice that can eventually lead to eviction. Generation Rent estimates that nearly 700,000 Section 21 processes have been started over this last terrible year. That means that, when the protection ends, a potentially huge number of people will for the first time in their lives face homelessness.

Of course many of the solutions mentioned today are necessary. We will need to extend the ban on evictions beyond the end of next month and to provide legislation which changes the ease with which people can be evicted. We also need to address the problem of their short-term and long-term security through our social security system.

However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, hinted, there is also a longer-term problem here, and that reflects the colossal strategic failure of housing policy in general over the past few decades. We have reverted to a situation which existed at the beginning of the last century, when a large proportion of the lowest-paid, lowest-income families lived in private rented accommodation. With the lack of access to owner-occupation and the loss of so much council housing, this is likely to increase. Unfortunately, though there are very good landlords and very good institutional landlords, there are also serious problems in respect of small landlords who do not really have the resources to provide decent homes and decent accommodation for those several hundred thousand people. The landlords face a problem themselves, in that they are operating at the economic edge brought about by this pandemic.

Unless we see this issue as part of a longer-term problem, the short-term fixes will not help. We need to restore the security of tenure that proper social housing used to provide, yet we have cut the net number of council homes and the net amount of social housing and reduced access to it. We need to address the immediate problems, but also to reverse the direction of much of the development of the wider housing market—and to do so now.

Planning: Net Zero Emissions Targets

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I will not be able to comment on a specific planning application for obvious reasons; that particular scheme has been called in by the Secretary of State. I will have to write to the noble Baroness on when the review will be published.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the construction sector, demolition and building use together account for about 40% of all carbon-equivalent emissions. Should not planning law and planning guidance require developers, planning authorities and, ultimately, the inspectorate, in all cases of major housing and office projects, to consider as first option retrofit and refurbishment to higher energy efficiency standards rather than, as is normally the case, opting for carbon-intensive demolition and rebuild?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, the Government recognise the benefits of retrofit ahead of demolition. Reuse and adaption of existing buildings can make an important contribution toward tackling climate change. The national planning policy framework already encourages this.

Inclusive Society

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, my apologies. I thank my noble friend Lady Lister for introducing this debate in such a comprehensive way and for pointing out that the multiple and self-reinforcing cumulative inequalities in our society have increased during this period of the pandemic. I would argue, contrary to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, that they have been increasing over a longer period.

Those inequalities have been spelt out by many of my colleagues. The noble Lord, Lord Best, spelled out the housing inequalities. There are inequalities of employment and income, inequalities of geographical space, and inequalities in educational attainment and access. As others—particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler—have emphasised, there is much more evidence now of both physical and mental health inequalities.

My noble friend Lady Drake has stolen the point I was going to make most forcibly—that, on top of this, the pandemic has revealed a serious digital and technological inequality. During this pandemic, many of us have come to rely increasingly on having access to the internet for conducting our shopping, dealing with our health problems and social relationships. Those who have no, or very limited, computer skills or access have lost out. But they lost out before the pandemic and, if we are not careful, they will lose out after the pandemic as well. As my noble friend Lady Drake said, it is a significant proportion of the population.

Some two years ago I conducted a consumer assessment of the customers of energy companies, which, by and large, insist on you going to their website to get complaints dealt with, and other satisfactions. Those who were unable to do that were unable to get satisfaction as consumers. Some 25% of over-60s do not have any access to the internet and another 25%, approximately, have only limited understanding of it. Often, they cannot find other means of communication because of deafness or other reasons, and so they are excluded from major aspects of our modern society and our modern economy.

During the pandemic, this exclusion has related not only to the elderly tranches of our society but to the very youngest. Access to education for our children has largely been through the internet during this period. Even in households where there may be some equipment, it is not necessarily available to all the children; for example, if there are two or three siblings and only one computer. If one or both parents are working from home on the computer, the children will not have access to it. The legacy of that for many of them is missing out on education during the pandemic. Therefore, at both ends of the age spectrum, particularly for the poorer sections of society, one of the legacies of the pandemic will be another form of division: the digital or technological divide. Put crudely, to minimise the divide, we must provide every child with a laptop and every non-computer-literate oldster also needs help and alternatives. We will not become a more inclusive society unless we do that.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, that while it may or may not be true that society in one sense has become more tolerant, tolerance does not deliver equality of esteem and equality of outcome, and frankly, in our society, tolerance of inequality is not a virtue.

National Planning Policy Statements: Climate Change

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Whitty]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review National Planning Policy Statements to assess whether they are aligned with the United Kingdom’s commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement and section 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

National policy statements set out the planning policy framework for nationally significant infrastructure, including energy and transport. It is for relevant Secretaries of State to review their national policy statements whenever they consider it appropriate to do so.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, that rather ignores the major problem facing us. The whole of the national planning statement needs to be revised in light of the commitment to net zero, and that applies to all sectors. Take construction, for example: the energy efficiency of much new-build housing is way below the Government’s own ambitions and what is needed. Does the Minister agree that planning needs to set out basic energy efficiency standards for new builds? Developers too often prefer demolition and rebuild to retrofit options, but should that preference not be reversed in planning guidance? When are the construction industry and developers going to be forced to recognise that one of our major commitments is to get on the path to net zero?

Fire Safety Bill

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th November 2020 Lords Chamber

I support these amendments wholeheartedly. I look forward very much to hearing the Minister’s response and commitment.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I fully support all the amendments put down by the noble Lord, Lord Bourne. Many of the points have been made by my cosignatories already.

On the last point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, clearly this does nothing to undermine the essential responsibility of the manufacturer—and to some extent the retailer—in the safety of appliances. Indeed, some of the liability rests with the user or householder if they use them irresponsibly or unsafely or do not return them when a recall has been issued. However, it is also the case that the owner or manager of the building is responsible for all the tenants, leaseholders and owner-occupiers who occupy that building. If there is a fire, differential tenure is hardly relevant; the rules should be the same for all forms of tenure. An electrical fault could arise anywhere and could affect any neighbour in the block, as we have tragically seen all too often. It is important that a high-rise block is covered, with responsibilities to the owner or manager, regular clear inspections and a list of equipment. Electrical systems are presently dealt with differently from gas; there is a requirement for gas inspections for everybody. We need to require the owner to take account of the potential damage to others within his or her building.

Obviously, we hope the Government will take this up as rapidly as possible. There are issues around who bears the cost and whether this is the appropriate Bill for these clauses. The latter seems odd to argue; this is the Fire Safety Bill. We are arguing that it should include provisions about the single most frequent cause of fire and measures that have already been identified in the Grenfell inquiry. These are most relevant here. I understand the Minister might prefer to see them in the forthcoming building safety Bill, but they are not there; the fact that the provisions in these amendments are not in the pre-legislative version of the Bill at the moment, although some aspects of electrical safety are, makes us doubt the speed with which these clauses would be brought into operation. It would be much better if they were in this Bill.

On cost, I am indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Best, who wanted to speak in this debate but was somehow precluded. He calculated that, even if inspection costs for carrying out the regular inspection were £100, that would be £20 a year over five years, or 20p a week per premise, which would go on the service charge to leaseholders and tenants in one way or another. That is a minimal cost for a major contribution towards everybody’s safety. It would not be logical for the requirement on the owner for inspection to be postponed until the building safety Bill comes through, but it would be better than nothing. If we can be given an absolute assurance, I will accept it as second best, but it really should be in this Bill to prevent fires starting now. I support all these amendments.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I first declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a chartered surveyor with some 45 years of experience in dealing with the management, maintenance and condition survey of properties, as well as matters of tenure. I apologise to the House for not having been able to participate directly on previous stages of the Bill. Many noble Lords will know that I have been following this extremely closely and have written to many of them, including the Minister.

Turning to the thrust of these amendments, I entirely agree with the purpose of the amendment on electrical systems: to make regular periodic tests and inspections of fixed electrical installations most desirable. However, with leases in long-leasehold tenure, the leaseholder is typically responsible for what is in the flat and is identifiably unit-specific to that bit of accommodation. Typically, that also applies to other conducting media and conduits such as drains, extraction ducts and water supplies. Some items are centrally operated, such as fire alarms and detection equipment, which may be within the flat and may be differently treated, but such provision does not always pertain to rack-rented letting. Straightaway, the legal obligations between different types of tenure, which are established in the case of long leasehold in their long leases, and therefore in their title, are not consistent across what I might call the flatted sector.

I also have concerns about the scrutiny and enforcement of the regulation, which in the past has sometimes been patchy. The issue is one of resources. The capacity, competence and finance are often insufficient or inadequate in the areas where the responsibility lies, or, in some circumstances, the responsibilities may be split. The Government must address these in the context of the Bill, because the subject matter is vital in terms of human safety, and too important to be left to chance, but I wonder how secondary legislation will deal with overriding established practices set out in the legal arrangements for tenure and occupation.

I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, is very enthusiastic about electrical appliances. I am a little less enthusiastic, not about the objective of greater safety, but about the practicality. There should be a clearer cut-off between what is “system” and what is “appliance”. For instance, a hardwired electrical hot towel rail is regarded as appliance, not system. There should be a clearer definition, so that anything with a square pin plug on the end of its lead falls under “appliance”. Again, there are issues to do with things such as cookers, which are also hardwired.

I note and largely agree with the views of the LGA regarding the enforceability in real life, and the shifting of responsibility, in my definition, from the primary leaseholder or occupier of the unit, who is in charge of the items in the building, unless they have been supplied by the lessor or manager from inception. There is an assumption that there will be some degree of occupier co-operation. Logging the appliances on a register may capture the inventory at a moment in time, but that does not procure accuracy without continuous updating, so there are issues there as to how much time and energy are to be taken up with doing this. Some modern service lettings include white goods, and possibly many other smaller items, and, to give the example of holiday accommodation, typically the owner of the accommodation provides all the white goods and appliances, but even that does not stop someone coming along with their own appliance, which may not be tested. The same thing applies for normal rentals.

Therefore, accuracy is an issue. Retrofitting the sort of standard that might apply in circumstances where all the white goods and appliances are pre-provided by the lessor would be extremely difficult. If the intention is to include everything that might be caught under a normal PAT test, that will be extremely detailed, with a high turnover of items within any five-year period. If occupiers of flats are not obliged to declare all relevant items whenever exchanged for another, or whenever a new item is brought in, this could create an impossible task for managers. Therefore, if the Minister agrees to this amendment, in detail or in principle, some of these issues must be addressed.

I suggest a phased approach, to allow for the most at risk and the most dangerous situations to be dealt with as a matter of urgency. Here, I am with the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, but for the rest, one must ensure that the arrangements are put in place in a workmanlike manner, that they are practical and, particularly, that manufacturers and retailers be locked into the chain of compliance. Also, there has to be a cultural change, so that every occupier of a high-rise block realises that they have a responsibility and an input, and that they are pivotal in procuring safety and ensuring that they do not misuse—or fail to maintain and clean—their appliances or operate them in unsuitable locations. I recognise, approve and agree with the thrust of these amendments, but I remain concerned about some of the detail.

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[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, between them my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, have shown how complex this situation is and why we need much greater clarity to ensure that such premises as are referred to in this amendment are covered by the fire safety order and everything that flows from it.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Tope, I have considerable anxiety at the way in which the Airbnb model has mushroomed—Airbnb itself and other less identifiable organisations and individuals. Flats in both private and social housing have effectively become short-term let premises, with a continuous rotation of people moving in and out. I have, in other contexts, frequently in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, who raises this frequently, been concerned for wider reasons, such as the effects on the housing market, environmental concerns. But in this context, there is also a safety concern.

The leaseholders, who are normally the owners of these flats, have quite frequently decided to make a business out of them. In terms of social housing, it has quite often been the people who have inherited what were once right-to-buy flats, or have bought them and turned them into a business. I have queried on previous occasions whether that is strictly legitimate, and quite what the role of the tax authorities is in this area, but in this context we are talking about safety. I am aware that in some of those flats, the leaseholders, sometimes in conjunction with the organisers of short-term lets, have changed the format of those flats—in effect dividing them up, increasing the number of bedrooms and, in some cases, knocking down walls and changing layouts, thereby compromising firewalls. More frequently, to allow for multi-occupancy, and in some cases for such things as disco equipment—because some of these flats are used not so much for tourist families but for parties and worse—the electrical systems are altered to cater for that clientele.

The requirements that would normally be on the owners to inform the occupants of the safety provisions and evacuation procedures, and to provide for detection instruments—smoke alarms, et cetera—are not observed in the often radical conversion to a different purpose than that of being a family home. If such premises can be seriously and dangerously subdivided, then there is a real risk here.

We have to be clear whose responsibility it is. In most cases, the responsibility is on the leaseholder, or it may be on whoever is supposed to inform the occupants of the safety provisions. Either way, if, for example, you are in a large block and a few of the flats in it are let by Airbnb or similar, you are a danger to the rest of the occupants. It is once again necessary, irrespective of the form of tenure, to ensure that all temporary as well as permanent inhabitants are made safe and do not impact on the safety of other families and occupants in neighbouring flats. It may be complex, but the outcome and intention are clear. We need clarity, consistency and to make sure that such premises are safe and covered by the legislation.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

My Lords, in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, raised important concerns about the application of fire safety legislation to properties that are, in part or in whole, let as holiday lets. It was unfortunate that the Government were not able to return on Report with a comprehensive response in the form of a government amendment, which would have accepted that there is confusion about the applicability of the legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has rightly raised these concerns again. What must not happen is that the growing sector of short-term lets falls into a grey area of the legislation, and that the Government wait for a serious fire incident to accept that omissions need to be closed.

The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, has provided expert legal advice on this matter, which demonstrates that there is a gap in the legislation. It is complicated, as the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, explained. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, raised further concerns about potential subdivisions of dwellings. However, the amendment proposes a way forward to close a gap that all noble Lords agree exists in the fire safety extent of the current and proposed legislation. I will listen carefully to what the Minister says in reply and I hope that he seizes the opportunity to put this matter right. I look forward to his response.

Fire Safety Bill

Lord Whitty Excerpts

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

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I strongly support these amendments and the requirement for a regular mandatory check on electrical appliances, broadly for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, explained to the Committee. I pay tribute to the campaign group Electrical Safety First, which has given me some information on the issue. As the noble Lord has said, the fires at Lakanal House in Camberwell, Shepherd’s Court and Grenfell were all triggered by faulty electrical appliances. Whether it was dangerous cladding, compromised firewalling or poor evacuation procedures that led to multiple deaths, electrical appliances triggered the fires in the first place. Indeed, more than half of the fires in dwellings in this country are related to electrical appliances.

These amendments would require regular checking of the standards and appropriate use of white goods in all multi-occupied properties. There are already mandatory gas checks on most such buildings for gas supply and the correct use of gas appliances. That is largely because people and regulators have long recognised that gas is dangerous. Yet, these days, electricity is the greater hazard. In multi-occupied multi-storey buildings, if there is a problem in one flat or unit, that is a potentially lethal problem for everyone in that structure.

We should explain that the amendment to regulations would in no way reduce the central responsibility and liability of the manufacturers to ensure the safety of their products; nor should any responsibility be taken away from users to follow instructions and not use equipment irresponsibly or inappropriately. However, the continued use of recalled products, dangerous wiring arrangements, damaged circuits and inappropriate placement of white goods requires regular inspection. There is also a requirement on landlords, tenants and leaseholders to have knowledge of that inspection to help reduce hazards. Failure on their part to facilitate inspection or to take action in the light of that inspection will rest primarily with the owner and manager of the building. That is how it should be. I strongly support these amendments.

[Lord Shipley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, first, I remind the Committee that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I support both amendments in this group. My noble friend Lord Tope, who is a signatory to Amendment 1, is unable to take part today but I know that he is looking forward to debating the issues raised in both amendments when we reach Report.

As we have heard, evidence from Electrical Safety First tells us that electrical faults cause more than 14,000 home fires a year. That is almost half of all accidental house fires. Logically, therefore, the more electrical appliances are checked, the lower the risk will be of a fire breaking out and then spreading to other people’s properties. This is not just a matter of building safety but about preventing fires breaking out in the first place.

I suggest that the general public have a right to expect that Governments of all persuasions should be willing to legislate to ensure high standards of regulation to improve public safety. Those who live in blocks of flats have a right to expect that they are living in a safe environment and that the owner of their block has undertaken the necessary safety checks within it, in this case to electrical appliances within that block.

The proposal in this group of amendments is for checks at least every five years. That is justified. If I drive a car that is over three years old, I have to prove every year that it is roadworthy by having an MOT check. This is to protect other road users, not just me and my vehicle. The same principle should apply in shared buildings where electrical appliances that are a fire risk could cause damage to other properties and to their occupants in that shared building.

I therefore conclude that the fire safety order should apply to electrical appliances where a building contains two or more sets of domestic premises. That seems reasonable. For high-rise residential buildings, in particular, it is important that a responsible person should keep a register of white goods in the building for which they are responsible, that they ensure that white goods are registered with the manufacturer for recall, should that be necessary, and that safety checks are conducted at least every five years.

Any privately rented home in a block of flats of mixed tenure will now be subject to electrical safety checks. It seems odd that in a high-rise block of mixed tenure, only the privately rented properties will be subject to the 2020 regulations. I would be grateful for the Minister’s explanation as to why that is, and to know whether the Government will act now to address that anomaly.

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The longer this issue of payment hangs in the air, the more risk there is that yet another terrible tragedy will occur; the costs of that would quickly overwhelm any budget it may cost to help lubricate the repair and restoration process. The Bill, as we have discussed, extends the reach of the assessment regime much more widely, so the likelihood of problems similar to those we have heard about—of leaseholders and renters being stuck with huge bills—is likely to grow, not shrink, with its passage. Again, I hope that the Minister can give us, and millions of leaseholders, some words of comfort and support.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I have added my name to most of the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Kennedy. He has explained the objectives of the proposed new clauses extremely well, so I will not add much to that. I particularly emphasise the need for the accreditation and professionalisation of fire assessors to instil some degree of confidence in the advice which owners, tenants and leaseholders receive. On the definition of responsible persons, this takes us some way forward to adopting my noble friend’s amendment. It is also important that the Government ensure that the terminology used here is the same as that in the draft building safety Bill, and in existing regulations, so that we avoid any confusion or ambiguity over who is responsible for what.

I did not sign up to Amendment 9 in the name of my noble friend Lord Kennedy. That is not because I disagree with the wording on the Marshalled List. I support that but it could be misinterpreted. My noble friend has already referred to the concerns in this respect, and the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, referred to them in an earlier debate. This amendment deals with waking watch and the whole concept is that if a building has been designated as a fire risk, we need constant checking on the safety of that building. But many tenants and leaseholders find that the waking watch arrangements are used as a reason to delay improving the basic physical safety of the building. Moreover, they are faced with substantial costs on the operation of a waking watch. I do not intend to undermine my noble friend’s Amendment 9. However, it needs to be put in a context where the cost does not fall on the tenants and leaseholders but on those who are genuinely responsible for the lack of safety in the building. Waking watch is not an alternative to the amelioration of that physical condition.

[Lord Shipley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I strongly support all the amendments in this group because they would help improve standards immensely. My name is attached to Amendments 15 and 17.

The purpose of Amendment 15, which is also in the name of my noble friend Lady Pinnock, is to secure an up-to-date public register of fire risk assessments, to be kept and made available on request. I see this proposal as a matter of significant public interest and of vital concern to those who live in a shared accommodation block, particularly one which is high-rise. As my noble friend Lord Stunell pointed out, they have a right to know that their building is safe. I raised this problem previously when I discovered that such publication can be excluded under freedom of information legislation. Surely all those who live in tower blocks have a right to know about the fire safety of their block, so I wonder what further assessment the Government may have made of the rights of those who live in such blocks to further information.

On Amendment 17, there is a clear case for a prohibition on freeholders of a building passing remediation costs for their building on to leaseholders or tenants. We know that following Grenfell, as we have heard, so many leaseholders have found themselves being asked to meet huge remediation costs. In addition, many owners cannot sell their homes because they have not got—and cannot get—the right certification on the construction of their building. Preventing the provisions of the Bill, when it becomes an Act, leading to further costs for leaseholders or tenants must be an absolute priority for government.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. He is not responding, so we will come back to him. I call the noble Lord, Lord Whitty.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in relation to the responsibilities of leaseholders. It is important that this is reflected in the terms of the Bill. Leaseholders are not the responsible person unless they happen to be co-owners or co-freeholders, and as we heard in the debates on earlier amendments, leaseholders are being faced with quite substantial costs. It would be wrong if the legislation allowed an interpretation whereby in certain circumstances they were the responsible person. They are not. The owners or their agents are the responsible person and we should make that quite clear.

I also strongly support the principles of the amendment tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Berkeley. Like him, I am astonished that at the moment, the regulations relating to domestic dwellings and indeed other buildings do not include a requirement on new build and major refurbishments for the installation of sprinklers.

Perhaps I may divert slightly from the question of high-rise domestic buildings. When I was at primary school in the 1950s, the school burned down. The fire actually started in my classroom. The report on that fire suggested that a simple sprinkler system would have quickly suppressed the fire and saved the building. As a result, when we returned to school, we were accommodated in temporary huts. Those temporary huts, in 1952, were required to have a rather crude sprinkler system. I was astounded to find out that in the year 2020, there is no such requirement for school buildings and no such requirement for high-rise buildings and premises in multiple occupation. That is something that should be addressed, if not in this Bill, at least in the batch of measures being brought forward by the Government in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy.

I am grateful to my noble friend for raising this issue because it needs to form part of the Government’s thinking in relation to the overall response to fire safety problems. I hope that at some point the Minister can indicate where that proposition will end up. I would strongly support such an addition.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I apologise that I could not participate at Second Reading. I had wanted to raise carbon monoxide detection—a silent killer production of combustion—with fire detection, but I understand it is outside the scope of this Bill. I would like to speak to Amendment 8, to which I have added my name. Let me explain why.

I remain haunted by seeing the blazing Grenfell Tower from my daughter’s window, and I have every sympathy with those whose flats all over the UK find their leasehold purchases are now valueless and are still paying out their mortgage and charges. Back in the 1970s, we financially squeezed ourselves to buy our first flat, only later to find it was built with high alumina cement and, until deemed safe, completely worthless. That is why I feel a commitment to others caught in this plight. This amendment would bring further clarity to the meaning of a “responsible person”, and ensure that leaseholders who are not also freeholders are not made liable or responsible for any remediation work needed as a result of poor building and development decisions on flats which they believed, and were told on checks, comply with building regulations. I want to read the Minister’s response to the previous amendment very carefully, as I hope that it allays some of my concerns, but I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, has raised some ongoing questions.

The huge costs of fire safety checks, materials testing, removal and replacement of dangerous materials, and the retrofitting of sprinklers and other fire safety equipment, all currently fall to leaseholders. Let me illustrate this with information from one such leaseholder. For residents of three blocks of flats in Baltic Avenue, Brentford—which probably should never have been signed off—fire safety checks have been quoted between £15,000 and £24,000, the mock testing of current cladding and insulation will cost £50,000, and rectifying all identified issues has been initially quoted to be at least £6 million. The previous group of amendments highlighted the huge burden on leaseholders, so who is responsible? This is surely the responsibility of developers and their team of architects, builders, et cetera, and the freeholders—and what about the banks that earn an income from the loans?

As the Minister has pointed out, he is well aware of the crippling costs, and he is clearly committed to doing something about the many leaseholders living in flats that are currently valueless, that cannot be sold or re-mortgaged. Many leaseholders are already financially stretched and bought their flats using the Help to Buy scheme, but if they cannot afford to pay for the fire safety checks they need to obtain an ESW1 form, Homes England will not value any properties bought under the scheme. Despite living in flats that are valued at zero, many leaseholders still find themselves having to cover interest payments on a loan that was given on the basis that if it fell in value you paid less. If the flats are worth zero, have all these loans been reset to zero, and are we sure that that has happened?

Even more seriously, these leaseholders are now suffering real mental health problems, not only from the financial burdens but because they know they are stuck in flats tonight that could go up in flames at any moment. The removal of cladding and other dangerous materials really is a matter of life and death. All this means that insurance costs will be sky high for buildings that are still considered to pose such a high risk. Can the Government give us some evidence of really speedy action?

In July, the housing Minister agreed that all costs should not have to be met by leaseholders and should be met by the developers or building owners. Many leaseholders believe the Government have changed their position, saying that leaseholders would still have to foot some of the bill, but they just do not have the money to do it. This amendment rectifies this by being absolutely clear about who is responsible for what, and that is why I support it.

Fire Safety Bill

Lord Whitty Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 1st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, and welcome him to this House. I look forward to his future contributions. It is also an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bourne. When he was a Minister he took very seriously the responsibilities which arose following the Grenfell fire, some of which we are debating today.

The fact remains that it is three years since Grenfell and 11 years since Lakanal House, and this is the first piece of substantive legislation that has been before Parliament. It is needed. We need to resolve the ambiguities in the fire safety order and clearly define responsible officers, their work and the parts of the building which will be subject to their responsibilities and to professional inspection.

I know that the Minister tried to do this to some extent in his opening remarks and in the letter that we received today, but we needed a report on the totality of progress on all of these issues post Grenfell, so that we could see where this Bill fits in with other initiatives. We have referred to the building safety Bill, which is still in very early draft form. Some people are saying that there is a clash of definitions of “responsible person” between that draft Bill and the Bill before us today. We must be clearer about how this all fits in with the Government’s consultation Building a Safer Future, the related safety strategy proposed by the Minister’s department, the implementation of the inquiry’s first stage and of the Hackitt report, and the progress on the proposed new regulator.

Specifically in the Grenfell case, we also need an indication of progress on potential prosecutions of the managers of the building and the suppliers. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, referred to the evidence reported in the press today about the person who would be deemed to be something like the responsible officer in Kensington and Chelsea, who clearly did not have a clue about their responsibilities and the regulations. The same applied to the representative of the major supplier. This is not an overregulated industry but a seriously underregulated industry, and those regulations that exist are not properly enforced. We need to look at all these aspects together, and some others as well.

My noble friend Lady Wilcox referred to sprinklers and the progress there. The case is not the same in Wales as it is in many authorities around England. The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, referred to electrical safety, and rightly said that the majority of domestic fires are caused by electrical faults. Inspection and enforcement of regulations in that area are also necessary. Whereas with gas there is a mandatory responsibility on landlords to inspect the gas installations, there is not one for white goods and other electrical installations within multi-occupied buildings more generally.

There is also some obscurity as to which pieces of legislation apply to which buildings. This Bill apparently applies to all multi-occupied buildings, whereas some of the other proposed legislation and regulation applies to buildings over 18 metres high, and that limit has been queried. We are also unclear as to how many buildings and landlords we are referring to. In the impact assessment for this Bill there is a pretty wide range of figures for buildings—2.2 to 3.2 million individual flats—and for the number of landlords, both private and social. So the House deserves a much more strategic report from Ministers on this whole area.

There are also wider issues. At the end of the day, whatever regulations come forward must be professionally enforced, and we must have adequate numbers of professionally trained inspectors. Regrettably, in the fire service there has been a cut of over 20% in recent years. That cut needs to be reversed. In particular, there is nowhere near a sufficient number of qualified and experienced fire inspectors to fulfil the clearer responsibilities in this and the other Bill. The Fire Brigades Union has indicated that there are fewer than 1,000 people who are even remotely qualified to carry out such inspections, which is about half the number there were a decade ago. We need a training programme and a recruitment programme to train up firefighters and others to fulfil these professional roles.

Of course, this may grow, because while in the Bill we are talking about tightening restrictions, the proposed new planning changes will allow, for example, conversion of office blocks to residential use, and adding storeys to existing buildings. If we are not careful, and do not have a robust and effective system of enforcing the use of safe materials and the safe design of the structure of the buildings, that will increase the potential danger of unsafe buildings.

The problem is not only with the fire service and fire inspectors. One of the other areas most drastically cut by many local authorities in the past decade has been building regulations enforcement, and the numbers employed there. The enforcement of standards of materials and the application of materials, as well as of the design of buildings, is clearly inadequate in almost every local authority.

With regard to materials and equipment, it is not just cladding that we should be worried about. There is also, for example, the issue of fire doors. In its briefing for the Bill, the LGA—I declare my interest as one of its vice-chairs—claims that thousands of non-compliant doors have been delivered to local authorities and housing associations in recent years. It estimates the replacement cost at £700 million. That is an absolute scandal. I know of nobody who has been prosecuted for failure to supply compliant doors.

The impact assessment on the Bill makes no mention of the significantly increased resources for both personnel and training that will be required to make it, and related measures, effective in carrying out their job. So there is a significant number of wider questions that we need to address in this context. I will support the Bill; I think it is necessary. But we need a clearer indication of how it fits in with other such measures.

Even in this limited Bill there is a serious omission. We need to mention the role of residents—tenants and leaseholders—and the need for them to be informed, and to have their concerns taken seriously by building owners, managers and suppliers. Let us remember that Grenfell residents were warning of the dangers of the refurbishment years before the tragedy happened—in terms of the cladding, the loss of firewalls and the increasing space for a fire to spread, and also of the potential dangers of the “stay put” evacuation advice. All were pointed to by the residents, and all were ignored.

More widely, the effects of the uncertainty about the safety of the buildings in which they live is causing widespread anxiety among all residents. Leaseholders also face potential substantial economic loss, as the value of their property falls and the availability of affordable insurance recedes because of safety fears. Tenants and leaseholders need to be listened to, and their role needs to be reflected in this Bill and in related legislation.

Planning

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I can assure my noble friend that local authorities will be essential in the process. They will continue to prepare the local plans and councils will have better, stronger tools to ensure good design and make the most of brownfield land.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, will the Government welcome the Architects’ Journal’s campaign on retrofit first? Far too often, developers favour demolition and rebuild when retrofit would have been more appropriate. This often has detrimental environmental effects such as emissions, detrimental social effects and sometimes dangerous safety outcomes. Will the new planning system favour retrofit as the first option wherever possible and ensure that in any replacement build or conversions, safety standards will really be effectively enforced?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I am aware of the campaign for retrofitting, and it often has a place instead of demolition and rebuild. I will look at the campaign and make sure that is fed into our policy as it evolves.