Building Safety Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Fox of Buckley]

26: After Clause 74, insert the following new Clause—
“Review of provisions relating to accountable persons
(1) By the end of the period of two years beginning with the day on which section 71 comes into force, the Secretary of State must undertake a review of the financial impact of accountable persons on leaseholders in higher-risk buildings.(2) The review under subsection (1) may consider any matter appearing to the Secretary of State to be relevant, but must identify and quantify—(a) all costs passed on to leaseholders in relation to any function of any accountable person under Part 4 of this Act; and(b) any other costs passed on to leaseholders by any accountable persons.(3) A Minister of the Crown must, as soon as practicable on completion of the review, lay a statement on its findings before Parliament.(4) This section comes into force on the day this Act is passed.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the government to identify and quantify all costs passed on to leaseholders under the accountable person regime, for example to check if Building Safety Manager costs have been rebadged and passed on.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I thought we were going to have a vote.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

We surprised the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I am not ready.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Your Lordships need to calm yourselves.

On Saturday, I went to visit my home in Wood Green. It looks like a bomb site: there is no roof and there are huge amounts of scaffolding and barbed-wire fences surrounding the block of 25 two-floor maisonettes. When you arrive, you see a huge multicoloured fluorescent sign with the words “Zero tolerance” and then a list of prohibited activities, all relating to safety: “Safety helmets must be worn”; “Safety footwear must be worn”; “No smoking”; “Danger: tripping hazards”; “Danger: men working ahead”; “Danger: no children on the site”. We are told that “Safety signs and procedures must be observed.” I therefore know, having visited my home in Wood Green, that Haringey Council is definitely keen on promoting safety.

Let us consider this. My home is in this state because, two years ago, there was a fridge fire in one maisonette. The roof of the block caught fire and the other flats, including mine, were drenched by the fire brigade in putting out the fire. It was not too bad and, to be honest, we were so glad that no one was hurt and we were relieved to get out safely. But that was two years ago this month—two years in which 25 families have been effectively homeless. As a leaseholder, the council, which is my freeholder, took my front door key off me—it is not a glamorous house, by the way, but it is mine, or so I thought—and basically said that I would get it back when the block had been made safe. It is now two years later and I am still not back, and I have no idea when I can go home.

I have mentioned this story before. My retelling it is not therapy but to show how what starts as an unremarkable but unpleasant event—a fire, albeit in lockdown—can escalate and turn into a nightmarish, never-ending misery for so many people. At every turn, as leaseholders and tenants, we have been faced with layers of bureaucracy getting in our way, more and more people to deal with, more and more issues being raised to explain why we are not returning home, and dwindling effectiveness in getting our homes back to us. We leaseholders and council tenants have been shown a certain indifference to our plight. If I am honest, all that has been much worse than the original fire, but it is okay because Haringey Council has put up lots of safety signs. Safety trumps all, and is used to say to us, “Shut up and put up.”

I arrived at this place during the time of my eviction from the house and was inspired by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, whom I heard speak on what was happening to leaseholders. I thought, “I’m going to join that debate.” I was inspired by their dedication and what they said, and that is how I ended up here.

The moral of this tale is that I want to make sure that the Bill, which is well-intentioned on safety, does not in the name of safety end up with the unintended escalation of a whole new set of problems for leaseholders, which was the point of the analogy with my flat fire. The amendment—I actually prefer a similar but better amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, who is trying to do the same thing—would require the Government to commit to review the impact of the legislation in a couple of years. It says to the Government, “Can you just check in all instances that the legislation doesn’t cause more problems and is actually doing what you want it to do, or what we in the House have been told you want it to do?”

We are rather rushing through the Bill. Whole swathes of new amendments have emerged. These have been put in not necessarily by noble Lords but by the Government. I was happy to hear the Minister explain that there are so many amendments because he, the Secretary of State and the department are listening. But whatever way you look at it, we, as people scrutinising the Bill, are being presented with hundreds of amendments that have been quite hard to get one’s head round in the time. In many ways, the Bill is not being fully scrutinised line by line. As the noble Lord, Lord Jordan, put it, it really is a legislative quagmire to wade through and it is very difficult.

It has been almost impossible to read the amendments, assess what their nuances mean and look for what the consequences might be. I appreciate that that is for me and that I am a lay person on technicalities, but luckily, as has been mentioned, leaseholders have a few important voluntary heroes who have helped the rest of us through. I know that the lawyer and leaseholder Liam Spender has already been name checked for his multicoloured sheet, which has already been shown, but if noble Lord have not seen it is well worth studying because it really does explain things. There are also all sorts of reporters for the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership and intrepid leaseholders doing their own work, trying to get to grips with what all these new amendments and the Bill mean.

I mention that because it would be irresponsible if we passed this Bill and then let it sail off into the distance without any idea that it will be looked at again. I worry that the Government think that all will be solved once the Bill has passed. I do not want hostages to fortune. We have had lots of reassurances today, we have been told not to worry and have had great rhetoric from the Government on proportionality and common sense, but we therefore need to be able to check that that rhetoric will be fulfilled.

Finally, this is not all about leaseholders. My hunch is that the Bill has a range of problems because it has gone along uncritically with the picture painted by Dame Judith Hackitt that somehow every aspect of living in a flat should be seen as a potential hazard and a dangerous fire risk. For the last few years—understandably because of Grenfell—there has been a sort of hyperactive “something must be done” mentality that has led to the EWS1 crisis and caused many of the issues that informed the discussion on the previous group of amendments on innocent victims paying for excessive remediation.

All I ask is that this review checks that an overzealousness does not emerge from the legislation that skews priorities and means the Government’s valiant efforts at common sense and proportionality somehow end up in a proliferation of chunky formalised procedures.

I will also reflect on the other people we should bear in mind. I have emphasised leaseholders throughout this contribution, but in my Second Reading speech I also talked about the construction industry. I want to make sure we do not end up stymying the house-building programme through overregulation. There is a danger that, as we have heard in some of the contributions, we describe the construction business as though they are all cowboy builders, which is a rather insulting caricature. With another hat on, at another time, I would be saying the big crisis in this country is a lack of housing and we need to “Build, build, build”, so I get worried when the Home Builders Federation says that it is concerned that there will be difficulties with housing delivery if too much of a burden is put on housebuilders. You might say, “I am not going to feel sorry for them,” but we do not want to get ourselves into a situation where the extraction of funds from the construction industry means that the UK home building industry—which is important to many parts of levelling up, social equality and so on—is stymied.

One way or another, I can think of nothing more sensible for a common-sense Minister than to say, “In a couple of years, we’ll review all this and check that your hunches are wrong, Lady Fox.” That will be fine. The Minister referred to me earlier as Oliver Twist—always wanting more. This is only a little bit more, but you cannot change the world unless you want more, and I intend to demand a lot more, but only a little more in this Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 264A in this group. I thank my noble friend the Minister, as others have done, for all he has done to make this Bill a reality.

The object of the Bill, as I see it, is to get defects remediated to a proportionate extent as quickly as possibly—mainly cladding, sometimes installed, ironically, to improve insulation in the interests of carbon reduction, but also other unsafe matters. There have turned out to be more defects than anticipated and we have witnessed an unfortunate record by builders and others of not doing enough to put matters right. The Bill seeks to get things remedied quickly. However, it is costing an eye-watering amount to home owners, leaseholders and the Exchequer, and the Bill therefore also seeks to establish an equitable share-out of the costs including appropriate contributions by the supply chain.

It is a long saga and some of us in this House have been seeking solutions for a very long time and welcome the principle of legislation. However, unusually, the Bill has been changed completely by government amendments tabled since it left the House of Commons, yet we have not had an updated impact assessment to help us assess the costs and benefits of the revised proposals. This is poor, given the financial and other burdens on different stakeholders, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, has just explained. However, as the chair of the Built Environment Committee I welcome today’s concession from the Minister on social housing, which I hope will be less costly, as it will give welcome clarity.

I have a great deal of respect for the Health and Safety Executive, as I have said before, and for the Minister who has fought so hard to present credible, effective and sensible proposals. However, it has been a rush, and I believe we must have a review clause in the Bill beyond the five-year independent review in Clause 152, and with more teeth. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, has constructively proposed one option; I hope my version may recommend itself to colleagues across the House and to my noble friend. I believe that agreeing to this could help to narrow current, very real, differences on the Bill particularly in the next group of amendments.

I will explain why. I am proposing a review within two years. It would look at the impact of the provisions of the Act. If the review found that there were serious problems for leaseholders, for home owners who could not buy or sell property, or for any other group, it would make recommendations.

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[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, and my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe for this insightful debate.

Amendment 26 from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, would require a review of the financial impact of the new regime. I reassure the noble Baroness that a review is already required by Clause 152, which provides that:

“The Secretary of State must appoint an independent person to carry out a review of”


the system of regulation of building safety and standards and the system of regulation for construction products. Importantly, the reviewer is not limited and may choose to review connected matters, including the matters mentioned in the noble Baronesses’ amendments.

Similarly, Amendment 246A in the name my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe would require a review of the impact of the Act. I apologise for the mix-up that resulted in my addressing this amendment in an earlier group. I will repeat for the record that we believe that this further replicates Clause 152 in the Bill and therefore we believe this is unnecessary.

What I do say to my noble friend is that the Secretary of State has to appoint someone to carry out the review within five years, so that is a long-stop date. I am very happy to meet my noble friend to ensure that we get going with this review at the very earliest opportunity to make sure that that long-stop date is comfortably met. We also need to make sure that this review is substantive and learns the lessons of a new regime in the broadest possible sense and addresses the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, as well those raised by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, who has had tremendous Front-Bench experience as well as experience as a distinguished civil servant.

With those explanations, I kindly ask the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, to withdraw her amendment and my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe not to press her amendment.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I will withdraw but I will come back to the Minister. I think it is important to come back to the Minister and say if it is within five years, I would like it to be brought forward sooner. I do not know why he does not just accept the two years but let us have the meeting to discuss it. At this point, I will not press the amendment and beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 26 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. In relation to Amendment 115, the noble Lord discussed the 11-metre question. The emphasis is often on whether there is less risk in safety terms under or over 11 metres. For me, that slightly misses the point—which is that, regardless of whether you have resolved that, the problem is that freeholders are still charging and doing remediation work on buildings under 11 metres. Therefore, there are costs that those people who live in buildings under 11 metres have to pick up. The lecture that it is less risky over 11 metres really needs to be given to the freeholders not, necessarily, to the leaseholders—but that does not really help us, I think.

More generally, this is such an important group of amendments. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, passionately reminded us of the context. It is true that being a leaseholder today is no longer just a description—it has almost become a full-time job in terms of fending off more and more financial demands and getting on top of the law. If you go and meet a group of leaseholders, they are having the kind of discussion about the ECHR that we have just heard from noble Lords, because they are trying to get on top of all these details and technicalities. It has become an overriding source of worry and anxiety, and genuinely—rather than just being about the status of home ownership—it has become a hellish state of affairs. So they need anything that can resolve that, and that is why this Bill is so important and this group of amendments matters.

My amendment in this group is a tiny, modest amendment that relates to evaluations. Amendment 165A in my name asks that any evaluations used to decide on caps for those still being charged for remediation should be looked at in a slightly different way. I do not want anything to be paid—I would go with peppercorn or nil—but if there are caps deployed and evaluations used, I remind noble Lords that we need to rectify a different kind of injustice.

The amendment asks that those valuations take into account that the leaseholder’s ability to pay will have been affected by the fact that their main wealth may be in the form of their asset—their home—and that their asset’s value may well be devalued hugely due to fire safety and building safety policies. The amendment notes that the properties may well be in negative equity as a consequence of government measures.