Building Safety Bill

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 21st February 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow on from what the noble Baroness has outlined. I strongly support what she has been saying. I will speak on a couple of other points that have been raised so far, particularly on Amendment 4 and what the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said, and on what my noble friend Lord Foster proposes in his amendment.

However, I will first deal with the point just raised. It is not about a theoretical code; there are absolute, actual conflicts between the requirements which fire officers, for instance, dictate in relation to fire doors—how soon they should shut, and so on—and the requirements of what someone with mobility problems needs to pass through that doorway. These issues are not resolved at the moment; they are not just the subject for soft words but for reconciling the tensions and devising ways to find solutions to those problems. I could make the same point about railings and barriers, where what is required for fire safety is often in conflict with what disabled people need.

Apart from the generality of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, I say to the Minister that there are really specific regulatory pitfalls; things which, if you implement them very mechanically, have internal conflicts which need to be resolved. I very much hope the Minister can, at least during the passage of this Bill if not today, undertake to consult both fire officers and the disabled community on rational ways of solving or at least ameliorating those difficulties.

Amendment 4 was very ably proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. He has made the central point, which is that there is an important difference between having a set of regulations which are really a complicated algorithm or tick-box—where if you have got everything right you have simply passed, and that is it—and having legislation which sets out the overall purpose of having any regulations or rules at all in the first place. That is where this amendment comes fully into play. It says that safety has a wider import than simply what we mean by making a building fire safe; it is about what we mean by making it safe to live in in the long term.

When I looked at page 82, I was interested to see that Clause 60(8) says that regulations can be made under this provision where there is a significant risk of deaths or

“serious injury to a significant number of people.”

It is clear that, if you think about buildings as things which kill people, far more people are killed by buildings which are damp, leaky and dangerous than by buildings which catch fire. Asthma and bronchitis deaths caused by poor housing form a significant fraction of the health service’s burden during the winter months. That broader outlook or vision of what we actually mean by making a building safe—creating a safe home for people—lies at the heart of this amendment. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to respond to it with a very generous spirit.

I would perhaps urge the Minister on a more practical point: later in the Bill, we shall consider the establishment of residents’ engagement strategies for buildings. I am not sure quite how he envisages those will work, but at some point a large group of residents in a particular building will meet and tell its owners what they believe needs to be done to make their building safe. The Minister has led a council and been to residents’ meetings, so he knows the kinds of things which are raised at them. I would bet that, by 10 complaints to one, they will be about damp, draughts and leaks as against fire doors that do not close properly. Those residents’ engagement groups are going to give a lot of grief to those who run the system in the future. Including this overall vision of what safety and well-being mean within the compass of the Bill and the scope of the new regulatory environment would be one very good way to show that there will be a route for residents to have their complaints, whatever their nature, about their lack of well-being or safety in their home addressed by the legislation.

Having spoken on Amendment 4, of course I strongly support what my noble friend Lord Foster said about the property situation. My support may be irrelevant but I notice that the National Fire Chiefs Council strongly supports this provision, as do the Institution of Fire Engineers and the Association of British Insurers. They all support the inclusion of property risk alongside life safety risk in the regulatory structure that we erect for the Bill. I very much hope that, as with Amendment 4, the Minister will be able to give us a very satisfactory outcome on Amendment 1 from my noble friend Lord Foster.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for his clear introduction to his amendments.

Noble Lords may remember that the Minister said at Second Reading that

“Dame Judith called for a complete overhaul of the system, and her recommendations underpin the Bill, with a golden thread that will ensure that, henceforth, people remain safe in the homes that we build for them. The Bill is unapologetically ambitious, creating a world-class building safety regulatory regime that holds all to the same high standard.”—[Official Report, 2/2/22; col. 916.]


We certainly applaud this ambition, but making high-rise residential buildings safe requires much more than action to stop fire spreading. There is also an urgent need to prevent those fires from starting in the first place and to look more broadly at what building safety means. We therefore support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, which are designed to make buildings safer and to increase resilience. As the noble Lord said, it is important to improve protections and safety for firefighters and for residents, to give people more time to evacuate the building and to make it less likely that the building itself will be completely destroyed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 135 in my name, which was referred to a moment ago by my noble friend Lord Stunell, and which I intend as a probing amendment. I should say that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I raised this issue at Second Reading, as the Minister will recall, and the question of whether permitted development rights would continue as now when this Bill is enacted, in respect of the conversion of office blocks to residential accommodation of any height. Amendment 135 seeks to clarify the matter. It says that

“Nothing in the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 … permits development which would convert offices to residential accommodation if such development is contrary to the provisions of this Act.”


I am grateful to the Public Bill Office for the help in drafting those words.

I simply say to the Minister that I hope he will clarify that this is government policy. If it is, that fact should be in the Bill to avoid any doubt. I look forward to the Minister’s assurance, because it would be inappropriate—as my noble friend Lord Stunell said—if a different set of rules were to apply to a conversion from office to residential than would apply to a residential block always designated as that. This amendment aims to clarify that the permitted development route cannot be used where it would be contrary to the provisions of this Act. I hope the Minister will agree that this is a very important issue.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I will look briefly first at Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. As we know, the proposed building safety regulator will be responsible for implementing and enforcing the new regime and will monitor the safety and performance of all buildings, with the aims of securing the safety of people in or about buildings and improving standards. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, went into a lot of detail and clearly laid out all the reasons behind his amendment, so I will not go over the ground that he has covered.

I just make the point that amendments have been made to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act to reflect this, so the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, would also bring those necessary powers contained in the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act into this Bill and would, as the noble Lord said, be in accordance with the recommendations of the Hackitt report. This seems a practical and sensible approach.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in his Amendment 135, raises the issue of office to residential conversions, which are being actively encouraged by the Government. We need to consider any associated building safety issues with that policy. The noble Lord asked the Minister for clarification on this, and I think that this clarification is important so that we all know exactly what implications there will be. I will be interested in the Minister’s response to that.

I have a number of amendments in this group. I will first speak to Amendments 11 and 43 in my name—I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for her support on them. Combined, they will ensure that the more stringent building safety framework applies not just to buildings over 18 metres but to those under that, where they are multiple occupancy dwellings. We believe the Building Safety Bill, in its original draft and as amended in Committee in the other place, fails robustly to confirm whether the gateway system will apply to buildings under 18 metres where there are multiple occupancy dwellings. This will create a two-tier system where buildings below 18 metres will face less rigorous safety regulations than those over 18 metres.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 6 and 149 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, draw attention to timing and delivery. For example, his Amendment 6 would ensure that safety is dealt with in a timely fashion. If we consider that this spring it is five years since the Grenfell tragedy and that progress on that has been painfully slow, with leaseholders waiting many years for any kind of justice to be done, people need to know that with the passing of this Bill there will be no further delays. We agree with the noble Lord and would certainly strongly support a regulator’s assessment within a two-year period that would aim to improve safety.

Amendment 149 looks at a requirement for regular reporting to ensure transparency and accountability to Parliament of the enhanced building regulations regimes. Again, we very much support it; it is similar to Amendment 134 in my name, which would force the Government to publish annual reports on data collected as part of the implementation and monitoring of this Act, when it is passed, as well as steps to increase transparency. I am sure all noble Lords would agree that transparency, accountability and monitoring are important to instil confidence and deliver the ambition in this Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, spoke to his Amendment 129. Having heard from him, it is very much in the same spirit as my Amendment 127 on flood resilience, which we debated in an earlier group. Of course, his amendment would force the Government to publish an assessment of the impact of climate change on building safety, including coastal erosion and flooding, both of which are huge concerns where I live in west Cumbria. I am sure he will not be remotely surprised to know that I am extremely pleased to offer our very strong support on this amendment.

Looking at the amendments in my name, first, Amendment 89 would force the Secretary of State to publish an estimate of how much leaseholders have spent on building safety remediation work each year for the past 10 years. We have tabled this because it is disappointing that there is still no robust legal protection for leaseholders who face ruinous costs for remediating historical cladding and non-cladding defects. We know that, despite the long catalogue of people and organisations who can be held to blame for many of the failings on building standards, up to now the leaseholder has been expected to foot the bill. These bills, as the Minister knows, involve huge sums on many occasions.

During Committee in the other place, evidence was taken from some of those who have been badly affected: Alison Hills, Stephen Day and End Our Cladding Scandal. They all talked about the enormous bills they face and the fact that they simply cannot afford to pay them. If we are to resolve this issue so that affected leaseholders are properly compensated, we need to know how out of pocket they really are. My Amendment 89, by forcing the Secretary of State to publish this estimate, would provide information and enable us to properly give full recompense.

My Amendment 126 would force the Government to publish an assessment of the effectiveness of the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, plus proposals to increase the number of homes which would comply with that Act. We need to ensure that all homes, existing and new build, are of the highest standards. We have heard many examples from people in our discussions and debate today where this simply is not the case and has not happened.

We think it is important that the Government should publish an assessment of the effectiveness of that Act. I hope that the Minister would in particular be sympathetic to this amendment because his Government brought in that important legislation, and any legislation has to be complied with to be truly effective. This amendment would provide that reassurance and remind rogue builders that minimum standards simply must be met, so I await the Minister’s response with great interest. I hope I will see him tearing up his speech to prove the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, completely wrong.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we come to the—I am sorry, it is the turn of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock.