Fire Safety (Protection of Tenants) Bill

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Friday 19th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend makes an entirely fair and interesting point. Of course, we cannot put a price on saving life, and I would not like to think that anyone thought we could do that. Inevitably with a private Member’s Bill, we do not have an impact assessment, as we might with a Government proposal. However, if he is saying that we should keep the door open to considering the most effective technology, he is right. As I made clear to the hon. Member for Torbay, however, price is not the sole consideration. I also want something that is genuinely enforceable and will genuinely work on the ground. That is why it is important to look at up-to-date technology and not inadvertently to create a lack of flexibility.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

One thing that concerns me about the Bill is the requirement that every tenant should have to test the smoke alarm once a month. There is no sanction, so I cannot understand how that provision would be enforced. Does my hon. Friend understand how it could be enforced?

[Robert Neill]

With every respect to the hon. Member for Torbay, I am afraid that that is one of the most significant problems with the Bill. As I said, it is difficult in principle to create an obligation without some means of enforcing it.

Two specific difficulties arise in relation to the obligations in the Bill. First, it works on the premise that its requirements must be included in a written contract of tenancy. As a matter of practice, most contracts of tenancy are in writing, but there is no legal requirement for them to be. I would not want to create a perverse incentive for people not to have written contracts so that they could get around these provisions.

The second point, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) rightly said, is that there is an obligation not only on the landlord to ensure that the system is in place—that might be straightforward enough, subject to certain cost considerations and the right technology—but on the tenant to test all smoke alarms

“at least once a month”

and to

“notify the landlord of any defect”.

I find it difficult to see how that could ever be policed in any proportionate or practical manner. If the provision is intended to raise the awareness of landlords and tenants of the desirability of such measures, that is well and good, and I would welcome it. However, primary legislation is not the right route to deal with that laudable objective.

When a criminal sanction attaches to the tenant who fails to test the fire alarm once a month—the Bill refers to tenants failing to do that—there are real risks involved. That aside, although the landlord faces a criminal sanction under clause 2(1), it is not clear what the sanction on the tenant is, so how do we enforce it? An obligation that is not enforceable will not actually help anyone. Furthermore, there is no means of coming back at the landlord, even if the tenant did notify him, and he did not act. If such a case ever came to proceedings, how would we prove whether it was the tenant who had not tested the system or, having tested it, had not notified the landlord of the problem—there could be two errors—or the landlord, who, having been notified, had failed to act? There are so many variables and possibilities that the Bill does not make for good primary legislation. That is why, with every respect to the hon. Member for Torbay, I do not believe that it is the right way forward, but I am more than happy to have discussions with him.

Officials have met the hon. Gentleman before today. He met the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), who has responsibility for housing, on 13 October, and he has had discussions with officials. We have not shut the hon. Gentleman out of the Department, and I greatly hope that he will take up the opportunity to meet me and discuss the matter further. He has a good reputation for campaigning on the subject, and I hope that he will act as an advocate for people, both as a Member of Parliament—