Building Safety Bill (Fifth sitting)

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

With this, it will be convenient to discuss that schedule 1 be the First schedule to the Bill.

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I am pleased to see that we seem to be, if not sharing political attributes, at least sharing some new facial attributes. It is very good to see you in the Chair.

Before we begin to further scrutinise the Bill, I acknowledge and thank all those who have been involved in the legislative process so far, from the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who oversaw the prelegislative scrutiny by the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government, to independent advisers, such as Dame Judith Hackitt, whose independent review formed the bedrock of the Bill. I also extend my thanks to those who sat in the Wilson and Boothroyd Rooms for being part of this Committee’s process, some of whom have already been involved in the development of the legislation and who have helped to make it as ambitious as it is in its scope.

I am sure that over the coming weeks we will work constructively together to achieve the same ends. The Bill takes forward the Government’s commitment to fundamental reform of the building safety system. It delivers on each of Dame Judith’s 53 recommendations detailed in her independent review of building regulations and fire safety, which was published in May 2018.

The independent review found a sector that needed significant reform, that was opaque and fundamentally lacked clear accountability for safety. It has understandably been a complex and extensive process to get to this point today, but for that I do not believe we should make any apology. The Government accepted all the independent review’s recommendations and published our “Building a Safer Future” consultation in June 2019. Nearly 900 responses were received from individuals, resident groups and representatives from the fire safety and built environment industry. The Government published our response to the consultation in April of last year.

Having considered stakeholder feedback, the Building Safety Bill was published in draft on 20 July 2020. Prelegislative scrutiny then followed, as I have indicated, with the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee publishing its final report on 24 November last year, which the Government considered carefully and gave our response to in July this year. I hope the Committee agrees that it has been a comprehensive process.

I welcome Graham Watts’s comment in evidence last week that there has not been “a more exemplary case” of the Government consulting with industry on policy matters. I trust that that will stand us in good stead as we scrutinise the Bill. I hope the Committee will agree that at the end of this process, the Bill will usher in a new age of safety for our built environment, and that at its heart it will ensure greater accountability and responsibility for fire and structural safety issues throughout the entire life cycle of buildings that fall within the scope of our new regime.

Clause 2 establishes the national Building Safety Regulator as a new operational arm within the Health and Safety Executive. The Committee will be aware that clause 1 acts as an overview of the Bill’s constituent parts and will be considered at the end of the process. The independent review of building regulations and fire safety recommended that the Government should make a series of important improvements to create a more effective regulatory and accountable framework for buildings.

At the centre of the Government’s strategy to implement those improvements is the setting up of the Building Safety Regulator, to bring national focus, drive and expertise to the delivery of the reforms. The Building Safety Regulator will implement a more stringent regulatory regime for high-rise residential and other in-scope buildings, oversee the safety and performance of all buildings, and promote the competence of professionals working on all buildings.

The key effect of clause 2 is to determine that the Building Safety Regulator should be delivered by the Health and Safety Executive. The Government believe that the identity of the Building Safety Regulator is critical to the success of the Bill, so we took independent advice on the matter. Following the independent review, the Government took independent advice from Dame Judith Hackitt on who should deliver the new Building Safety Regulator. Dame Judith suggested that the Health and Safety Executive would be best placed to deliver the Building Safety Regulator. That reflects four particular strengths of Health and Safety Executive delivery.

First, the Health and Safety Executive is an established regulator—it was established in 1975, as we all know—and has extensive experience in making robust and proportionate regulatory decisions, including in a construction industry context.

Secondly, Health and Safety Executive delivery offers the fastest and most efficient route to establishing the new regulator, and is therefore the quickest way to provide reassurance to residents about their safety.

Thirdly, we believe that the Health and Safety Executive’s expertise, reputation and knowledge will send a signal to industry that it will be properly held to account by a robust regulator, as offshore drilling was held accountable by the Health and Safety Executive after the Cullen inquiry in 1988.

Fourthly, the Health and Safety Executive combines being an independent regulator with extensive expertise in working with local government in order to deliver—I believe that that is a really important consideration.

The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee also took evidence on this issue as part of its prelegislative scrutiny. I am grateful to its Chair and members for highlighting that the

“evidence overwhelmingly supported the Building Safety Regulator being established within the HSE.”

It concluded:

“We welcome the location of the regulator within the Health and Safety Executive and agree that it has the experience and expertise to implement the new building safety regime.”

In the light of the strong external evidence that the Health and Safety Executive will deliver an effective Building Safety Regulator, I hope that this Committee will welcome its role.

Where possible within existing legal powers, the Health and Safety Executive is already focused on improving building safety and standards as a shadow regulator. The focus of its work is to develop and pilot key elements of the new regime, work with early industry adopters, and recruit the top team, including the first Chief Inspector of Buildings, Peter Baker. We heard evidence from him, and from Sarah Albon of the HSE, to very good effect last week.

It will be this Bill, however, that gives the Health and Safety Executive the tools and powers to deliver the independent review’s vision for an enhanced building regulatory system. Clause 2 introduces schedule 1, which makes a number of necessary amendments to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, to support Building Safety Regulator delivery. Those provisions give the Health and Safety Executive a broad power to determine the right administrative arrangements to deliver its new building functions, and to set up committees to support those new functions.

The provisions ensure that up to four members of the Health and Safety Executive Board may be appointed due to their building safety, building standards or fire safety expertise. That will ensure that the Health and Safety Executive board will have the requisite expertise to effectively oversee the Building Safety Regulator. Schedule 1 creates important safeguards around the use of the Secretary of State’s existing power to direct the Health and Safety Executive. Under those provisions, a ministerial direction can never be issued in relation to the enforcement respect of a particular case.

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)]

I welcome the Bill, especially as it will be of much benefit to my constituents in Bolton North East. Can the Minister assure me that HSE will have the resources it requires to undertake this role?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I quite agree that the Bill will help his constituents, and those of all right hon. and hon. Members on the Committee and in the House. We want to ensure that HSE has the appropriate resources to do its work. I am sure that we will discuss that in greater detail as we proceed, but I can say that the finances available to HSE were increased by 10%—to some £14 million—for the course of the covid emergency. That is an example of the financial stimulus that we provided to HSE, and we will of course continue to support it in its new and important role.

Clause 2 and schedule 1 are vital to our wider reform, which the Building Safety Regulator within HSE will sit at the heart of. They provide the regulator with the necessary powers to effectively deliver a new regulatory regime, and I commend clause 2 to the Committee.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, with your very colourful tie, Mr Dowd. It will be a pleasure to work with everybody in this room over the next few weeks, scrutinising and hopefully strengthening the Bill, which will alter the building safety landscape.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Byrne]

I completely concur with the hon. Gentleman. It is a very valid point, but as I said, this is about ensuring that the resources are there. The hon. Member for St Albans made a very good point about local government. There have been 68% cuts to Liverpool City Council. It has been hollowed out. The ability to check on buildings has been catastrophic at times. This comes back to funding. The intent and the money have to be there. Without them, I am afraid that we could be back to some of the situations that many of us have faced in our constituencies with some buildings.

[Christopher Pincher]

I congratulate all members of the Committee on their contributions on the clause. A number of Members, properly and understandably, raised funding, including my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West and Opposition Members such as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby. We have made further funding available for the creation of the shadow regulator within HSE. We also, as I said earlier, made funding available to HSE during the covid emergency. We have also made commitments through the building safety levy to ensure that developers that have made mistakes in the past provide appropriate and proper restitution for the remediation of high-rise buildings. We will provide more information about that in due course. Certainly, the funding of HSE is, as always, subject to discussions with the Treasury in the spending review, and I am sure we will hear more about that—to the benefit of HSE—in due course.

The hon. Member for Weaver Vale referred to Grenfell in his remarks, and he was right to do so because Grenfell was the wake-up call to the challenges that we face in a very complex development, ownership and safety terrain. That is why we must approach the Bill and the clause with care, to ensure that we address the complex situation of buildings, safety and ownership carefully, and that is what we will do throughout the course of the Committee.

The hon. Gentleman made two specific points to which I think I ought to respond. He asked about residents’ voices. Sarah Albon made clear in her evidence to the Committee last week that HSE is reaching out—to use that modern phrase—to stakeholders, including residents and dwellers of high-rise buildings, to ensure that their voices and concerns are heard. We have also committed to a new homes ombudsman. That is not the point of the clause, but it is something that we will debate later in our scrutiny of the Bill, giving the hon. Gentleman and other Members the opportunity to learn about the Government’s work to ensure that residents’ voices are heard. The hon. Gentleman also made the point about HSE funding, and I refer him to the comments that I have just made.

To conclude, we have heard the high regard in which HSE is held by all members of the Committee for its historical and, one might say, international reputation as a safety board of the highest regard. We believe that HSE provides the regulator with the necessary powers to effectively deliver the new regulatory regime. I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Clause 3

The regulator: objectives and regulatory principles

[Mike Amesbury]

I beg to move amendment 11, in clause 3, page 2, line 14, at end insert—

“(c) mitigating building safety risks due to climate change, including—

(i) flood risk

(ii) coastal erosion, and

(iii) overheating of buildings.”

This amendment would mandate the building safety regulator to mitigate for risks to building safety due to climate change.