Building Safety Bill

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Grand Committee

What does the Minister have to say about these challenges? We have an unregulated marketplace for electrical goods. We have had severe cuts to enforcement bodies. We have also had an increase in online purchases. It is a perfect storm. Ultimately, how will the Minister ensure that dangerous products do not end up in people’s homes?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this important debate on additional building safety measures. As noble Lords know, making sure everyone’s home is a place of safety is at the heart of the Bill. I will address each of the amendments discussed in turn.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for raising the important matter of ensuring that electrical goods sold online are safe. The Government remain committed to ensuring that only safe products can be legally placed on the UK market, both now and in the future. Preventing the sale of unsafe electrical goods is clearly important to achieving this aim, but this extends to ensuring that all consumer products sold in the UK are safe. Existing product safety legislation places obligations on manufacturers, importers and distributors to ensure that consumer products are safe before they can be placed on the UK market. This applies to products sold both online and offline.

In common with the noble Lord, Lord Foster, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Khan, the Government also recognise that the rise of e-commerce presents a particular challenge. However, it is not true that the Government are doing nothing. They are undertaking a thorough review of the UK’s product safety framework, which includes an assessment of the impact of e-commerce.

Following a call for evidence last year, the Government are developing proposals for reform of the product safety framework and intend to consult in due course. This includes options to address the sale of unsafe products online. We are also taking forward a number of immediate actions. This includes implementing a programme of work focusing on the safety and compliance of goods sold by third-party sellers on online marketplaces.

I thank noble Lords for raising this important matter. However, the Government will not be supporting the amendment at this time, given the broader work as part of the product safety review and the existing regulatory controls that I have outlined.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

I am very grateful for what the Minister said the Government are doing, but before she moves on to the next amendment, can she give a clear indication of the timescale? Far too often we hear the phrase “in due course”—the Minister has herself used it. We all know what it means; can she give us something a little more concrete?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am afraid I pushed my officials to give me a specific time. They have agreed that we may write with more details to give the noble Lord an indication of when this might be forthcoming.

On Amendment 112, I thank the noble Baroness for raising the important matter of the testing and certification of construction products. The Government are committed to reforming the regulatory framework for construction products and it is important that our approach to reform considers the system in the round and is based on engagement with stakeholders who make, distribute and use construction products.

We therefore do not believe that it is right to set a deadline of six months to introduce new measures, as this will constrain public debate. We intend to introduce a requirement for products to be corrected, withdrawn or recalled where they are not safe. This will deliver a greater practical benefit than publishing information about known safety concerns.

We recognise the importance of accurate, reliable performance information to support appropriate product choices. However, a product’s testing record is unlikely to provide useful information for this purpose. Instead, we will create a statutory list of “safety critical” products, where their failure would risk causing death or serious injury and require manufacturers to draw up a declaration of performance for these products. Dame Judith Hackitt’s review recommended that industry should develop a consistent labelling and traceability system for construction products. We agree that industry is best placed to develop an approach that will be effective in practice.

I could sense the frustration of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, with the language used in the Bill, specifically in Schedule 11. I am afraid that the “may versus must” argument recurs in many bits of legislation that I have taken through, and particularly here, when Dame Judith used “must” in her report. However, the whole reason we put “may” rather than “must” in legislation is that this approach is designed to allow the Secretary of State to review existing regulations, consult as needed and bring forward new regulations where needed. We clearly intend to use these powers and published draft regulations in October 2021. I recognise that that probably will not wholly satisfy the noble Baroness but it is as far as I may go.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

Did the Minister say October 2021?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Yes. We clearly intend to use these powers and we already published draft regulations in October 2021.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

They are draft.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

They are published.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

We will circulate them to the whole Committee.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

That is really helpful. I thank the Minister.

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[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

We will also be introducing requirements for labelling construction products, to support regulatory activity. Once again, I thank the noble Baroness for raising this matter but, based on the explanation I have just provided, the Government will not be supporting the amendment.

Finally, on Amendment 117, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, I thank her for raising the important matter of carbon monoxide and the risk it poses. Carbon monoxide can be released from faulty or leaky boilers and chimneys. As the noble Baroness said, it is colourless, odourless and tasteless and can lead to life-changing injuries or death. It is indeed sometimes called the “silent killer”.

The Government take the risks and consequences of carbon monoxide poisoning very seriously and share a common goal with the noble Baroness of wanting to safeguard people from this deadly gas. She was right to stress the relationship between poverty, particularly fuel poverty, and the high incidence of harmful indoor air quality. However, the new clause is unnecessary. Legislation is already in place, as I will go on to explain, and we will bring forward new legislation and updates to guidance that will safeguard people from the harmful effects of carbon monoxide poisoning. We believe that, together, these measures will achieve the improvement in safety sought by this clause. The gas safety regulations require the safe installation, maintenance and use of gas systems, and they require landlords to carry out annual gas safety checks, which reduce the risks of carbon monoxide poisoning.

While carbon monoxide alarms are not a substitute for the proper installation, use and checks of combustion appliances, they are a useful additional precaution. Currently, our building regulations require appropriate provision for carbon monoxide detection and alarms when solid fuel appliances are installed in homes, irrespective of tenure. The Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015 require carbon monoxide alarms in privately rented homes where there is a solid fuel appliance.

Recent evidence and analysis show that, although solid fuel appliances, such as wood-burning stoves, continue to be responsible for a disproportionate number of carbon monoxide incidents, the case to require alarms for combustion appliances using other fuels has grown. Therefore in 2020 we consulted on proposals to extend provisions for carbon monoxide alarms to be fitted when oil and gas-heating boilers are installed in all homes, irrespective of tenure, and to require that alarms are installed in any room used for habitation with a fixed combustion appliance, excluding gas cookers, in privately rented homes and social housing. These proposals received broad support and, in 2021, we announced that we will amend the regulations as soon as parliamentary time allows, with the changes coming into effect as soon as practicable. We will also update the statutory guidance on carbon monoxide alarms.

These new measures extend the use of carbon monoxide alarms to the extent that we consider appropriate, based on the current evidence available. The extended alarm measures are not limited to high-rise buildings and will apply to newly installed combustion appliances in homes irrespective of tenure and to all private and social landlords. While I appreciate the intention of the amendment, I hope I have reassured noble Lords that we have committed to extending the requirements and guidance around carbon monoxide alarms where appropriate to do so. I therefore ask the noble Baroness not to press the amendment.

Once again, I thank noble Lords for this debate, which has considered wider matters connected to safety, and I hope that, with the reassurances given, noble Lords will be content not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

May I ask why the Government have not extended the requirement to all new builds and to major refurbishments when they are bought by a company and subsequently sold, and why there is a resistance to insisting that alarms are installed in workplaces? More and more firms are now struggling with the cost of heating. They may be turning it down, and people in the workplace may, in wanting to keep warm, bring in heating devices from outside that should be used for camping and cooking outside, or whatever. With fuel poverty, the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning is going to rise.

Simply to put into regulation that alarms need to be installed seems a move that would not cost anything significant to the building trade, or anyone refurbishing buildings—but to leave it simply restricted to landlords and to rely on annual checks, when we know that they are not always done adequately, seems completely inappropriate and highly risky. The landlord has to check the appliance installed, but when people are in fuel poverty they often cannot afford to run that appliance as it should be used—and, as I said, they will do such things as use an oven with the door open to try to stay warm, and that will pour out carbon monoxide. The other problem with that is that the level of air in the room is exactly at the level of a toddler’s face, so children are more exposed than adults in such a situation. If an alarm was installed, it would go off irrespective of relying on a landlord.

The other problem is that a lot of people now in fuel poverty are not in rented accommodation. They have mortgage commitments which they are struggling to pay. They are suddenly finding that they are in a band of poverty that they never imagined they would be in when they took out a large loan to purchase their property, particularly with interest rates going up as well.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

As I said in my speech, the extended alarm measures will apply to all newly installed combustion appliances in homes, irrespective of tenure, and to all private and social landlords. I should also add that we consulted in November 2020 on proposals to extend the requirements for carbon monoxide alarms to oil and gas heating installations and to social housing. The Government are yet to respond to this consultation, but we will do so in due course.

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[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, it has been an absolutely fascinating debate. This is very much the additional safety measures group—that is three words; you cannot do better than that. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, in particular for raising this important issue, as well as noble Lords who have spoken about the Safer Stairs campaign. I am sorry that I did not hear from my noble friend Lady Eaton, but she could easily have joined forces with everyone here.

I have been invited to say, “Just go for it” or “Just do it”—it is almost like a Nike ad in this House—but I think that it is a question of how you go for it. I met with the chief executive of RoSPA, Errol Taylor, in this House, and we have a plan that is important to share with noble Lords. As my officials have said, it would be highly unusual, even though people are grappling for precedents, to include in an Act of Parliament something that is as detailed as this, referring to a specific technical standard.

We are not graced by the presence of my noble friend Lord Young, who was Minister when the building regulations were passed. It is possible that this existing standard, BS 5395-1, could be included in an approved document. Indeed, it is in Approved Document K. I have received a letter from RoSPA making that proposal, which we will take to the next meeting of the Building Regulations Advisory Committee—BRAC—which advises on these things. We have effectively brought forward the next meeting, which was scheduled for September, as I know that noble Lords are very impatient.

We brought forward that meeting, which essentially is an emergency BRAC, to 16 March. That is how fast we move in my department. You meet someone on 23 February, you set up an emergency meeting on 16 March and you get an answer. Let us see whether the route of updating the approved document is an elegant way of fulfilling the desires that have been laid out by so many noble Lords. We all have elderly parents, or some of your Lordships may well; I do not. No, I take that back—perhaps we do not all have elderly parents. I suddenly realised that that was probably not the thing to say. [Laughter.]

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Shall I take over?

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[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Before we move on, could I just say we have quite a lot more to get through this evening, and we have a hard stop at 9.15 pm? I do not want to stifle debate, but perhaps we could avoid repeating arguments made by previous speakers in the same group.

Amendment 121

Moved by

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[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am delighted to take that point on district heating back to the department. It will become an increasingly interesting area as we move to nuclear power and other ways of producing energy for district heating networks. I know that my noble friend has already made a note of that.

I shall speak first to Amendment 121 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster. I thank him for raising this important matter, but I am afraid that the Government will not be able to accept the amendment. That is not because we disagree with its aims, but because we are already doing an awful lot of work in this area, and it pre-empts a number of workstreams already under way across government.

On the assistance that we are giving those who face the tragic choice between heating and eating, I remind noble Lords that we have already introduced winter fuel payments and the warm home discount. The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, introduced a £9.1 billion package of support in the spending review, encompassing a number of initiatives. A £3 billion package of energy efficiency measures will be introduced over this Parliament. All are targeted at low-income households. There is also the ECO scheme, funded from bills, which will rise from £750 million to £1 billion over this Parliament. There are also boiler upgrades. We are doing a huge amount in this space. We are not unsympathetic to the reasons for the noble Lord’s amendment, but I defend our record.

In 2017, the Government committed in the clean growth strategy to upgrade as many homes as possible to EPC band C by 2035 and as many private rental homes as possible to EPC band C by 2030 where practical, affordable and cost effective. The Government have now consulted on raising the energy performance standard in the domestic private rented sector to EPC band C and will publish a response to that consultation in due course.

We further committed in the Energy White Paper to seek primary powers to create a long-term regulatory framework to improve the energy performance of homes, alongside a package of incentives. We have consulted a wide range of stakeholders and will undertake further consultation on specific policy design before making secondary legislation. In the Social Housing White Paper, we committed to reviewing the statutory decent homes standard by 2024 to consider how it can better support decarbonisation and improve the energy efficiency of social homes. In the Net Zero Strategy, we reiterated our commitment to consulting on phasing in higher minimum performance standards to ensure that all homes meet EPC band C by 2035 where practical, cost effective and affordable. In light of these comments, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

I turn to Amendment 128 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. Her proposed new clause would set a requirement for the Secretary of State to consider the energy efficiency impact when making changes to the building regulations for the purpose of building safety. It is a fundamental principle of the building regulations that, when building work is carried out, all applicable technical requirements must be met. In many cases, this will include energy efficiency, referred to in the regulations as the

“conservation of fuel and power”.

If a particular technical requirement is not applicable to a specific building project, the building regulations none the less require that the building is not made less compliant with that requirement than it was before the building project. This means, for example, that where work is undertaken to improve a building’s fire safety performance, the building’s energy efficiency must not be worsened as a consequence. The opposite case is also true, in that energy efficiency improvements must not worsen the fire safety performance of a building.

As this principle is laid out in the existing regulations, energy efficiency is already a consideration in carrying out building work. We do not believe that it is necessary to introduce a specific duty for the Secretary of State to consider energy efficiency matters when making building regulations for the purpose of safety. I assure the noble Baroness therefore that her intention to ensure that energy efficiency is considered in relation to building safety has already been met under existing legislation.

I wish to reassure the Committee that the Government take the matter of energy efficiency seriously and are taking action in this space. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

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[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I move Amendment 132 in my name on the subject of external wall fire assessments. I did not speak on energy efficiency as time is short, although I was Energy Minister five years ago; I look forward to discussing the opportunities and frustrations informally.

Noble Lords will know that external wall assessments have been a serious problem aggravating the difficulties that leaseholders have experienced in the post-Grenfell world.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt. The Minister has had to leave to deal with a pressing personal matter. Can I ask for a five-minute adjournment?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

My Lords, the Committee will adjourn for five minutes.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Noble Lords may have noticed that I am not my noble friend Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, but I am here to move Amendment 132A and speak to Amendment 132B, both in her name. I am sure that the Minister is listening, because it is quite important that he agrees with me on this.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am listening.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am so sorry—I thank the noble Baroness.

These amendments create an obligation for local authorities to locate contaminated land in their areas and for the Government to review the management of contaminated land. This is the first parliamentary outing of what has been called Zane’s law. It is named for Zane Gbangbola, for whom the Truth About Zane campaign was also founded, which is still working. There is wide support for the campaign—from Sir Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham to the FBU, the CWU and the Conservative-controlled Spelthorne Borough Council—to get on the record the truth about the seven year-old’s death in Chertsey in 2014, when floods swept hideously toxic hydrogen cyanide into the family home from a nearby historical landfill site. That is not what the inquest verdict concluded in 2016, but the campaign continues to fight that inequality of arms and the illogic of that verdict.

Last year, Zane’s parents, Kye and Nicole, and their supporters took up an even broader issue: the question of why it was that they and the rest of the community had no knowledge of the danger of the historic landfill site near their home. I am old enough to remember Aberfan in 1966; it was a well-known site, but it was unstable. As most noble Lords probably know, 116 children and 28 adults were killed when the landslip came on to a school. What happened to Zane—and his father Kye, who was left paralysed by the hydrogen cyanide—could awfully easily happen to another family or a whole community.

The issue goes back to 1974, when the Control of Pollution Act first took control over waste disposal. However, before that came into effect, many dumps were quietly closed and, since then, have been pretty well forgotten, as campaigner Paul Mobbs explains in a disturbing video, which I do not have here with me. EU regulations on waste and pollution required the tightening of those controls under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Section 143 brought in an obligation on local authorities to investigate their areas and draw up

“public registers of land which may be contaminated”.

Section 61 gave local waste authorities powers to inspect closed landfills and clean them up if necessary. However, lots of new housing developments, in particular, are on old landfill sites. Under pressure, the Government held three consultations on contaminated landfill registers from 1991 to 1993, eventually deciding that the aforementioned Section 143 would not be enacted and all plans for public registers of contaminated sites would be dropped. The explanation given was cost and the desire not to place new regulatory burdens on the private sector.

Limited powers were brought in in 1995, although they did not come into force until 2000, which meant that when developers found contamination problems, public authorities often had to pay. But it got worse. In 2012, as part of the Cameron Government’s “bonfire of red tape”, to reduce the statutory burdens, the right of enforcement authorities to use the law was further reduced—the emphasis being on “voluntary” clean-up, with no real power to check it had been done. This is clearly a problem for existing buildings, but also for buildings being constructed right now. It is evident that there is a great risk at potential locations of new homes right around the country, from Carlisle to Cambridge, and Dudley to Newbury.

There is also the issue of the climate emergency and the new extremes of weather, particularly floods, but also heatwaves, that cause events such as that which tragically claimed young Zane’s life. To identify the size and scale of the problem, in every local authority in the land, there has to be a starting point to fixing it and preventing future risk to life. I beg to move.

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[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be brief, because there will probably be another vote soon in the House. We are very happy to support the two amendments tabled in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for her comprehensive introduction.

We know that local authorities, as we heard, are responsible for determining whether their land is contaminated. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, talked about the grants that her authority has been waiting for to clean up land. It is really important that these grants are dealt with quickly, because it can be incredibly expensive to clean up contamination. If we are to use brownfield sites, local authorities need to be able to do so in a way that is cost effective for them. That was an important point.

We are also aware that availability of land is one of the biggest barriers to building at the moment. The government targets for housebuilding mean that, in particularly populated areas such as the south-east, any additional homes are more likely to be built on previously developed brownfield land. No one would want to build on contaminated land by choice, but “brownfield” does not necessarily mean that land is contaminated. We need to be clear about this.

However, there is a need to ensure that houses constructed on sites affected by contamination are built to the appropriate standards, including those next to an area of contamination. We need to know where the contaminated land is so that we can do these checks properly. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, things such as flooding can bring contamination across a very wide area, with, as we have heard, sadly catastrophic consequences. As she said, on the surface of it, Zane’s law seems pretty simple and straightforward to implement. If we can identify the size and scale in every part of the country where contamination is, that would be a very logical starting point to prevent future risk to life and support local authorities in tackling the whole issue of contamination so that we understand it better as we move forward with more development and housing. I hope the Minister will listen to this, because it seems to me that Zane’s law ought to be supported.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for tabling her amendments, so ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I welcome her raising the important issue of contaminated land in this Committee. As always, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made some very powerful points—as did the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Pinnock—on the need for speeding up the process of decontamination. I believe the ambition to bring a version of Zane’s law on to the statute book is well intentioned but I consider that the policy intent behind these proposals is already met by existing legislation and statutory guidance.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is right that Section 143 was repealed, but it was replaced by Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which provides a framework for identifying contaminated land in England and allocating responsibility for its remediation. It provides a legal definition of contaminated land and lays out the responsibilities of local authorities and the Environment Agency for dealing with it. These responsibilities include a requirement for local authorities to inspect their area to identify actively land that may be contaminated, to investigate and remedy contaminated land and to maintain a public register of information relating to contaminated land. This includes contamination from non-operational historic landfill sites and is regulated by local authorities. Further, Part C of the building regulations requires reasonable precautions to be taken by developers to avoid any risk to health and safety caused by contaminants in the ground where they are carrying out building work.

Lastly, assessment of contaminated land risk currently focuses on the impact of contaminated land on human health and the environment. Shifting focus on to buildings and building safety may dilute the aims of the existing framework. Given that this existing framework is already embedded into legislation and guidance, the proposed amendments regarding contaminated land would create unnecessary duplication and could cause confusion for local authorities. Therefore, while I appreciate the concerns of the noble Baroness, I ask her to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her response, and I will of course check the Environmental Protection Act, exactly what it does and what protection it gives. I also thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Pinnock, for their support.

I care very much about this, even though this amendment is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, because it seems that the poor always suffer. This is one of those things where, if you live on an old industrial site or whatever, you are likely to have a much lower form of housing and much less protection in any case. If we are talking about levelling up, this would be a very good thing to do.

By the way, I want all your Lordships in this debate to know that this is a much friendlier debate than the one next door. It was a real relief to come in here out of there; there will of course be another vote soon.

I understand that this is not the moment to push this amendment, but it will probably come back on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw it.