Building Safety Bill

Debate between Baroness Fox of Buckley and Lord Khan of Burnley

Committee stage
Thursday 24th February 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am very sympathetic to this group of amendments, but I have a number of queries that perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, might address, just because I am not quite sure about them. One of the points just made is that a large number of people will be accountable —it seems to me to grow every time I look at the Bill. Although I understood what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, meant about the bonfire of bureaucracy, regulations and so on, there is always a danger that we are creating layer upon layer of bureaucracy and accountable people. I shall be moving some amendments later to this effect.

For now, it is obviously the case that we need qualified people involved in this, but, as has been described, there are so many new roles that the qualifications do not even exist. I am concerned about including in the Bill that you need to have the qualifications to do the role when the qualification does not exist. What does that mean? Will that hold up the process?

I am also concerned about saying that training is “compulsory”. I am concerned for the professional autonomy and integrity of those who are already involved in this area. I do not know whether legislation is the right way to go. However, it would be useful to understand from the Minister what he anticipates will happen. It cannot be, as it were, just any old Joe Bloggs given the role. Will attention be paid to talking to the professionals who already run practice qualifications in universities and further education? How will the Government manage the fact that they are creating all these new jobs with no attention, it seems, to how the qualifications will be awarded or who will give them? That is where I am very sympathetic to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, in having a register, but I am not quite sure that the amendment does it.

I am nervous, perhaps because I used to be involved in education, about another government demand on education that ends up giving people a lot of work to do when there is no capacity to do it, so it will just be a shoddy box-ticking qualification that will not mean very much. That is my concern, while being sympathetic in general.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak in particular to the amendments in this group in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, who have made excellent contributions. I intend to be concise and brief, because the noble Baroness introduced them in an eloquent and comprehensive manner, which was followed up by subsequent speakers.

These amendments are much needed, and it is disappointing that these matters have not already been taken into account by the Government in the Bill. The new clause in Amendment 116 would require building owners and accountable persons, about whom I shall ask a question shortly, to verify the competencies of fire assessors before appointing them to conduct the fire safety assessments required by the Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, talked about the 1984 legislation and, prior to that, local authority employees. The cosy relationship between building constructors, developers and inspectors is really concerning. That needs to change.

These are serious concerns. Look at Grenfell, where numerous people lost their lives, and subsequent fires in high-rise and other buildings. The system is broken. Serious construction defects are there, and there have been failures in not detecting bad buildings. Building regulations have failed. That is criminal, as my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock pointed out on the previous group. We cannot have buildings signed off as safe when clearly they are not. Developers choosing building inspectors—a point the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned—cannot be a way forward. We have to all be singing from the same hymn sheet; that is what Amendment 116 talks about.