Fire Safety Bill

Baroness McDonagh Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 1st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McDonagh (Lab)]

I too welcome the Fire Safety Bill and thank the Minister and the Government for bringing it forward. At this stage, I have more questions than answers after reading it. Perhaps the Minister will bear with me as I go through them: I have five.

The first is on scope and the definition of premises. Clause 1 refers to when

“a building contains two or more sets of domestic premises … the building’s structure and external walls and any common parts”

and

“doors between the domestic premises and common parts”.

In reality, does that apply to an HMO? Many of us who are politically active will now be used to knocking on the doors of terraced houses which housed one family but now house a family in each room, so that there are five or six families. We are all very worried about the safety of these premises. A second HMO-style point is about the growing numbers of houses in multiple occupation through the changes to “Supporting People”. When cuts came to the housing benefits of people with severe physical and learning disabilities in 2011-12, we saw more private landlords housing people with those disabilities in HMO-style properties. They would be vulnerable, so will the scope of the Bill apply to them?

My second question is about impact assessments. My noble friend Lord Monks also asked about this. All legislation is framed and depends on the research put together and the impact assessments. I have found it difficult to find the external impact assessments that went into writing this legislation. It might be that I have not looked in the right places. Can the Minister point me to them and, if they have not yet been published, whether they can be?

My third question is about the number of properties this legislation will apply to. The two assessments I have seen from government are that there could be 1 million properties, or 2 million. I have a bit of an issue with that if we are building capacity for a service. I understand a fluctuation of 5% but not one that can fluctuate by 50%.

My next question, the fourth, is about scaling the number of fire inspectors. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and my noble friend Lord Whitty both asked questions relating to this area. How are these numbers of fire inspectors to be trained and scaled? Can the Minister tell us whether his department envisages that this training will take place via the fire service? Will it be done in large part by firefighters or by the private sector? This matters because it would require us to put standards and training into the Bill if a private-sector supplier, with little experience in this area, was to take on such a responsibility for all our costs. I am not being an ideologue about these matters but we understand that if we get these things wrong, they can go very badly wrong. I know that the Minister will understand the problems there were when the Government privatised the probation service; that service had to be brought back in-house.

We know, too, in this country that outside the public sector few private sector organisations have trained people over time. This is why we have a skills problem in many areas. For example, if I looked for qualified electricians who could work underwater, there are very few left in this country—and they will all be in their late 50s and early 60s, because virtually none have been trained since the Coal Board was disbanded in the 1980s. How we train and supply people will matter.

My last and fifth question is around Grenfell. I too welcome the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, and congratulate him on his maiden speech. I very much agree with the sentiment he expressed due to the tragedy at Grenfell. However, the Bill will not change now the temporary nature of properties that have such inflammable cladding. I absolutely concur with all the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft. Three years on, I do not understand how this matter has not been dealt with or how these premises still have a waking watch. That is a medieval term, from a time when buildings were much more flammable. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the City of London did away with flammable materials such as thatched roofing. It feels incredibly difficult to understand how this has not been addressed after three years. When the Minister comes to address the points that many of us are raising, can he give us a little more detail about the landlords who have not removed the cladding? What type of landlords are they—social, local authority or private sector landlords? Please can we have some more information?