Building Safety Bill

Debate between Christopher Pincher and Jonathan Edwards

Report stage
Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

As I have already said, we want to work across the parties to make sure that leaseholders are properly protected and that those who should properly pay the costs of defective fire safety work bear that cost. I have said it from the Dispatch Box, and, on 10 January, the Secretary of State made the same commitment. We will work through the passage of the Bill to make sure that those protections are in place.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

rose—

[Christopher Pincher]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman and then I shall make some further progress.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for giving way. I welcome the ombudsman. Uncompleted estates have been a big issue in my constituency, and I welcome the consultation with the Welsh Government. May I take him back to the intervention from the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) about people who are landlords and leaseholders in one property and the need to include them in the scheme. In the spirit of that consultation—whatever compensation scheme comes forward will be administered in Wales by the Welsh Government—can he tell me what discussions he is having with the Welsh Government about that specific group of people who are very worried about the situation at the moment?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support for the proposals in general. I can assure him that my officials work closely with officials in the devolved Administrations and we will continue to do so, again, as an example of working with interested parties to make sure that issues are properly addressed.

New clause 22 relates to appeals against registration decisions made by the Architects Registration Board. The new clause gives applicants for registration the opportunity to appeal a decision made by the board or the registrar to remove or refuse to enter or re-enter a person’s name onto the register. Without that, registrants removed under the new competence regime, to be introduced with clause 137, and first-time registrants will only have recourse to the High Court. The costs of an appeal made to the High Court could be prohibitive.

Amendment 58 will allow the board to delegate its prescription responsibilities to the prescription committee, giving it greater flexibility while maintaining oversight of the prescription of qualifications. Amendments 65 and 69 are consequential to that change.



I now turn to our proposed amendments on redress. The Bill Committee debated section 1 of the Defective Premises Act 1972 in significant detail; I recall that the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) made several concise and incisive interventions. Section 1 allows a claim for compensation to be brought through the civil courts when a dwelling was “not fit for habitation” on completion. The limitation period in that Act currently stands at six years, which means that a claim must be brought within that period following the completion of the defective works.