Building Safety Bill (Third sitting)

Brendan Clarke-Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Ian Byrne]

Graham?

Graham Russell: It is not for me to comment on your question, apart from to say that I have worked with the HSE in various guises for 30 years and have the highest regard for its competency and abilities. Beyond that, I think the key question for me is the distinction between regulating products and regulating building safety. That was a decision that Dame Judith Hackitt gave advice on. She suggested separating that in the way that the Bill does, and that then leaves us with a responsibility. We are a product regulator—we regulate consumer products, machinery products and so on—so in that sense it brings our expertise to bear. We have the same challenges in building new competency in new areas, and we are working hard on that.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)]

Q Good morning, everybody. This question is more for Sarah and Peter. Do you feel that the enforcement tools being provided are sufficient, and how do you intend to use them?

Sarah Albon: I will probably bring Peter in to talk in a bit more detail. I think the broad answer is yes. I suppose that we intend to use the enforcement tools in the same way that we would want to use, and do use, the enforcement tools that we currently have. The best form of regulation is changing the behaviour of the duty holder so that they are doing the right thing in the first place. Clearly, it is important that you can and do take action when there has been a failure, but enforcement is necessarily always cleaning up after somebody has done something wrong. Our absolute focus and emphasis on workplace health and safety—it will be the same in this new regime—is to try to get duty holders to do the right thing in the first place so that residents and, currently, workers, are not put at risk awaiting enforcement requirements. Peter, do you want to say a bit more about the tools that will be available to you?

Peter Baker: We will have a mixture of both civil and criminal tools. We have been working very closely with MHCLG on the preparation of the Bill and the legislative package from our perspective, to make sure that a lot of the tools that we will have under the Bill reflect the sorts of enforcement tools that we have under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which are well tried and tested.

It is also important to remember that one of the step changes or real differences about the Bill in terms of regulation is the gateways. Unlike now, a duty holder will need to demonstrate at the pre-construction phase that they have all the wherewithal to build a safe building, and to demonstrate how they are going to comply with building regulations. The Building Safety Regulator will be able to say yes or no at that point and, potentially, prevent a development from going ahead unless all the necessary steps, safety management systems, and checks and balances are in place. It is not just a case of being able to serve enforcement notices, although they will be available to us; this is very much a permissioning regime similar to high hazard industries where the regulator can say yes or no at critical stages in the build and occupation of a building.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

Q You recently published some guidance on the safety case system. How do you see that system operating in practice?

Peter Baker: We clearly will not know for certain until the Bill emerges from the parliamentary process but, as I say, we see this as a key step change in the regulatory regime, particularly in the occupation phase. It applies very clear responsibilities to the accountable person to manage the risk, and it leans very heavily on other major hazard industries and safety case regimes. In principle, the responsibility will be on the accountable person—the landlord, the building owner—to demonstrate to the regulator and other stakeholders, as part of a licensing and certification process, that they have identified the critical fire spread and structural risks in a building, that they have all the management systems that they need to manage those risks, and that, where they have identified gaps, they have a plan to fill them.

I also stress that this process is not just to satisfy the regulator and then to be put on a shelf. The safety case is going to be quite a fundamental part of a duty holder’s management system and of managing the risks associated with their building.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

Q This question is for Sarah Albon. Going back to Ian Byrne’s question about the Building Safety Regulator, what is the metric of success when it comes to embedding the BSR within the HSE? Given the aims of the Bill, how will the HSE ensure that, operationally, the transition is as smooth and effective as possible?

Sarah Albon: If I can come to the second of those questions first, I guess that ensuring that the transition is as smooth as possible is about planning, but it is also about recognising that there are various aspects to the Building Safety Regulator, and we can bring on board those different aspects at different stages. We are already ramping up the engagement that we have with industry, for example. We are starting to do some key work reaching out to residents and resident groups, so that we have greater engagement with them and really understand the range of issues and concerns that they have, and so that those relationships are well built before the Bill goes live. Of course, the planning gateway 1 process has already gone live, so we are able to create the team around that and learn from it.

We have done various structural things within HSE, leaning heavily on our existing construction team, which has years of experience of working with the construction industry, influencing the importance of change not just day to day on different building sites but at a senior key level across the industry, and engaging with key players to ensure that that happens.

I confess that I have completely forgotten the first part of your question, so could remind me what it was?