Building Safety Bill

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 21st February 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I am getting used to the free-wheeling nature of these debates. I apologise that I stood up before the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, had her say.

There is no doubt that a large part of this is focused on high-risk, high-rise residential buildings, not least because of the tragedy of Grenfell, which followed the tragedies in Lakanal House and Garnett Court. We have also had near misses, such as the Bolton Cube, which was just under 17 metres and is one of the reasons why we talk about the cut-off being six storeys or more as it was a very big near miss.

There is that focus but, equally, it is fair to say that the Building Safety Bill also encapsulates building regulations for the entire built environment and makes a contribution to increasing competence among key actors, such as approved inspectors, duty holders, the accountable person and the building safety manager, to ensure that buildings in occupation remain safe. There are contributions around competence that will have wider benefit but what the noble Baroness said is right: this is very much part of our response to a broken regulatory system that we need to fix. I think that we recognise the need to do precisely that collectively in this Committee.

I thank noble Lords for a lively debate. This group of amendments is essentially around new reporting requirements. I shall respond to each amendment in turn.

The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, opened this short debate with Amendment 6 and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, spoke on it. I thank them for raising this important matter but I am afraid that the Government will not be able to accept the amendment. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe with her background as a civil servant who took that expertise to play a leading role in a supermarket. She did not mention which one but I know it was Tesco—every little helps—because I remember when she was in that position. It is important to reflect on when we can hold the Civil Service to account, as she put it. I understand where my noble friend is coming from, even if I do not accept it on this occasion.

Our assessment is that this amendment would unnecessarily prescribe issues to which the regulator must attend. I must also point out the unintended effect that this amendment would have in effectively restricting the regulator’s work to a limited list of subjects. Such prescription could unwittingly narrow the scope of the regulator’s focus and efforts. Furthermore, the imposition of a time limit could have the perverse effect of constraining the assessments being sought only to factors that can be determined within the timescales afforded.

I assure the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that their intention to ensure that major safety issues are reviewed and assessed by the regulator has been met through the measures in the Bill. The building safety regulator will have a duty to keep the safety and standard of buildings under review and to be transparent about its work, reporting annually on the delivery of its functions under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and Clause 3 stipulates that it must be transparent.

I can also assure your Lordships that the specific areas of building safety identified in the proposed amendment are actively being considered by the Government under research projects being undertaken with the help of academia and stakeholders. These projects include the technical review of approved document B, which includes research on means of escape in blocks of flats, including stairways and ramps, and means of escape provisions for people with disabilities. As I am sure the noble Lord and the noble Baroness are aware, the Government have already conducted an assessment of the effectiveness of sprinklers as a means of fire suppression and, in 2020, we changed the statutory guidance so that sprinklers should be provided in all new residential buildings more than 11 metres in height, as opposed to the previous 30-metre threshold. I want to thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for raising this important matter and hope that I have been able to assure them that all aspects of building safety are of importance for the Government.

Before turning to Amendment 89, I pay tribute to Alison Hills and Steve Day, who were mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock. I got to know Steve Day in particular, but also Alison Hills. They worked very hard on constructive amendments which will help the thinking around getting the polluter to pay, because they are victims. In the case of Steve Day, it is a sign of triumph, because he is part of a group of people who, in their spare time, without pay, essentially fought a big developer to get it to pay for the remediation of their building, bit by bit. We need to pay tribute to these heroes who work tirelessly on behalf of their fellow residents to get the polluter to pay; they are people for whom I have huge fondness and regard. It is right that some people have shelled out huge costs and have not been able to get the polluter to pay, and there are many orphaned buildings—if you like—for which we cannot easily find out who is liable to pay. The question is, how do we deal with that? That is something that we as a Government recognise that we need to have an answer to, but let us leave that until a later part of this Committee stage. I am sure we will return to it on Report.

Turning to Amendment 89, on which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, spoke, I thank her for raising this important matter, but I am afraid that, again, the Government will not be able to accept this amendment. The Government remain committed to ensuring that those responsible are held to account to protect leaseholders from unaffordable costs, but our assessment is that the amendment would not constitute an appropriate use of the Government’s time and resources. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to quantify the impacts for any leaseholders who may have carried out remediation of cladding and fire safety defects over the past 10 years, regardless of the nature and scale of the works.

I draw the attention of the noble Baroness to the amendments tabled on 14 February, which make clear that freeholders with links to developers and those with the resources to fund remediation in full must do so. In other cases, the contributions of leaseholders will be subject to a legal cap. The new schedule to be inserted before Schedule 9, tabled on 14 February, also provides the Secretary of State with the power to make regulations providing for the recovery of sums due that have not been paid. These amendments ensure that leaseholders will no longer be susceptible to large costs. The supplementary requirements that would be introduced by Amendment 89 would therefore present an unnecessarily onerous task that would increase costs and burden to the Government, where resources could be better employed. I thank the noble Baroness for raising this important matter and assure her that this Government are committed to ensuring that those responsible are held to account to protect leaseholders from unaffordable costs.

Turning to Amendment 126, I again thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for raising this important matter. Unfortunately, the amendment would have the effect of unacceptably increasing the burden on the Government at a time when we are concentrating on our programme of reform and raising standards in rented homes.

The 2018 Act built on the existing regulatory framework and empowered tenants, for the first time, to take action in the courts for breach of contract if their home was unfit to live in. That is why we supported it. It is right that this is in addition to, but separate from, enforcement of standards by local authorities, which we also strengthened in 2016. There is therefore limited benefit in requiring officials to spend time interrogating court records when we are, at the same time, concentrating on building on the 2018 Act and further raising the standard of rented homes, higher even than the requirement introduced by the Act. We will do this by consulting on introducing a legally binding decent homes standard in the private rented sector and by reviewing the decent homes standard itself, and we will provide more detail in due course.

I now turn to Amendment 129. I wish the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, had provided my speaking notes as he has such command of detail. It is quite incredible and testament to his long-term passion, commitment and interest in the subject. I certainly learned a lot about the almost dystopian future that certainly my children—probably not me—will to have to deal with. It is probably why school-age kids are so nervous about this. It is horrendous. Amendment 129 raises a very important issue and while the Government will not be able to accept this amendment, I hope to reassure the Committee that Clause 5 already makes appropriate provision for this and that risks to buildings as a result of climate change are already being dealt with through existing locally driven action.

Clause 5 places a duty on the building safety regulator to keep under review the safety and standards of all buildings. This would include advising industry and government on research into new or emerging risks, such as those presented by climate change. The regulator will also advise on and prepare proposals for changes to building regulations. Climate change mitigation and adaptation are intrinsic components of the building regulations and will remain so. We also recognise the importance of ensuring local authorities work with their communities to understand the risks buildings may face as a result of climate change. However, the amendment would duplicate existing locally driven action; for example, the requirement on lead local flood authorities to assess flood risks across their area through the local flood risk management strategy or the requirement for local authorities to develop the best approaches to managing the risk of coastal erosion and flooding through shoreline management plans and local planning policies.

I turn now to Amendment 134 and will respond to Amendment 149 at the same time. I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baronesses for raising how we monitor the effectiveness of the Bill and hope to reassure them that the Bill makes appropriate provision for monitoring. Dame Judith Hackitt’s independent review recommended that we ensure that the new system works through regular independent reviews. Clause 135 requires that these reviews happen at least every five years and that the resulting report must be published. In addition, the building safety regulator must report annually on the performance of its functions under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. Clause 3 further stipulates that the regulator must be transparent and accountable. The Government intend that the regulator’s published strategic plan, required by Clause 17, will set out further detail on what it must report on.

Finally, the Bill ensures that crucial aspects of the new system are included in the regulator’s annual reporting, notably engagement with residents under Clause 19 and mandatory occurrence reports, which can help industry track safety issues, under Clause 20. Further reporting requirements risk duplication, complexity and additional bureaucracy. Amendment 149 would also require the Government to report on the exact number of certified building safety managers and fire risk assessors when certification is not a function of government under the Bill. In light of the strong existing provisions, I hope that I have provided sufficient reassurance and that your Lordships will be content that the Government have fully addressed the concerns raised in the amendments.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

I have a question about flooding in London. I am sure the noble Lord is aware of an article in the Observer yesterday—I declare an interest in that I live in Shepherd’s Bush, where a month’s worth of rain fell in one day in July last year. The point of this article was that in London very many people live in basements, which are at serious risk of flooding, and it suggests that people may drown in their own homes if there is flash flooding. The further aggravating point is that no one seems to be aware how many people live in such basements.

I simply ask the noble Lord whether there is any intention to take a strategic look across London; there are clearly responsibilities on local authorities but, at the London-wide level, there seems to be no requirement to look at this. I would be very interested to know what he thinks, particularly in light of Hammersmith and Fulham having been afflicted so badly.