Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Andy Slaughter and James Brokenshire

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter]

In Grenfell Tower, there will have been secure tenants,

leaseholders and private tenants. Why should regulations apply to some of those groups and not others just on the basis of tenure?

[James Brokenshire]

I was coming on to precisely that point. In her review, Dame Judith Hackitt recognised that residents themselves have a role to play and recommended clearer rights and obligations for residents to maintain the fire safety of individual dwellings, working in partnership with the duty holder. There are provisions on this within the draft Building Safety Bill, published in July, setting out a clear duty.

A number of different measures are in place, but I take the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West made very seriously. The Government are committed to ensuring that the electrical products that people buy are safe. I recognise the concerns, and we will look across Government at whether there are any gaps in the current regime and proposals to strengthen accountability in this area. I give that assurance to my hon. Friend to work with him. I would like to pay tribute, as he did, to Electrical Safety First for its important work in this arena. I hope to work with my hon. Friend and colleagues across the House to identify gaps, and if there are still gaps, we, like so many Members, want to see those filled effectively. With that assurance, I hope my hon. Friend will be willing to withdraw his amendment.

I turn to the new clauses, which were tabled in Committee, as the hon. Member for Croydon Central highlighted. On new clause 2, I agree that there is a clear need for reform in relation to fire risk assessors, to improve capacity and competency standards. That includes the role for the industry-led competency steering group under the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s building safety programme and its sub working group on fire risk assessors. That group is looking at ways to increase competence and capacity in the sector. The competency steering group will publish a final report shortly, including proposals in relation to creating a register of fire risk assessors, third party accreditation and a competence framework for fire risk assessors. The Government will give detailed consideration to the report’s recommendations.

The Government are also working with the National Fire Chiefs Council, the fire risk assessor sector and the wider fire sector to take forward plans for addressing both the short-term and long-term capability and capacity issues within the sector. The fire safety consultation will also bring forward proposals on issues relating to competence. Members are understandably keen for this work to be brought forward, but it is vital that we get this right and that the Government listen to the advice in order to frame this effectively and appropriately. Once the fire safety consultation responses have been considered—as I said, it closes on 12 October—the Government will be able to determine the most appropriate route to implement changes.

New clause 3 seeks to impose a new duty on inspectors to prioritise their inspections of multi-occupied residential buildings by risk. I would like to underline some of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Minister for Crime and Policing in Committee. As he said, the Government’s position is that adequate and established arrangements are in place to ensure that enforcement authorities target their resources appropriately and are accountable for their decisions without the need to make it a statutory requirement. The fire and rescue national framework for England requires fire and rescue authorities to have a locally determined risk-based inspection programme in place for enforcing compliance with the fire safety order. The framework sets out the expectation that fire and rescue authorities will target their resources on those individuals or households who are at greater risk from fire in the home and on those non-domestic premises where the life safety risk is greatest. The national framework for Wales includes similar provisions.

In parallel, the regulators’ code states that all regulators should base their regulatory activities on risk, take an evidence-based approach to determine the priority risks in their area of responsibility and allocate resources where they would be most effective in addressing those priority risks. The building risk review programme, which will see all high-rise residential buildings reviewed or inspected by fire and rescue authorities by the end of 2021, is a key part of this.

The programme will enable building fire risk to be reviewed and data to be collected to ensure that local resources are targeted at the buildings most at risk. The Government have provided £10 million of funding to support that work, not only to facilitate the review of all buildings, but to strengthen the National Fire Chiefs Council’s central strategic function to drive improvements in fire protection. That is in addition to a further £10 million grant to bolster fire protection capacity and capability within local fire and rescue services. The allocation of funding is based on the proportion of higher-risk buildings, further demonstrating the need to target resources at risk. I remind the House that we have also established the task and finish group that will be responsible for providing a recommendation on how the Bill should be commenced before the end of this month—obviously I have commented on that work and how the group is expected to report.