Building Safety Bill (Tenth sitting)

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I would say, somewhat reflecting what Justin Bates said in evidence a couple of weeks ago, that we could put a great deal in the Bill—in primary legislation—but that would make the law exceptionally unwieldy and unresponsive to the developing terrain of building assurance, building safety and methods of construction. As Mr Bates pointed out, it would also mean that we would have to sit here from now until some time in 2022 for line-by-line consideration of the clauses in the primary legislation. Secondary legislation allows us to be flexible and respond to the changing terrain, while also giving Parliament an appropriate degree of scrutiny and control.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. Given that the Government intend to use secondary legislation to such a large extent, does the Minister accept that it is vital that all stakeholders, particularly leaseholders affected by the legislation, have sufficient time to scrutinise it?

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point. She will know that we often consult on secondary legislation before laying the regulations, so that there is time for the community, in its widest context, to give feedback on that legislation. Whether the regulations are subject to the affirmative or negative procedure, there is ample opportunity for Parliament and the House of Commons to consider them, have a say and scrutinise that secondary legislation, either in a Committee such as this for the affirmative procedure, or with the entire Chamber praying against regulations subject to the negative procedure.

We have already published secondary legislation and a number of factsheets to support the primary legislation. We will continue to do so throughout the parliamentary process, which, I remind the hon. Lady, is likely to be longer rather than shorter; this Committee stage will be followed by Report. There will be ample opportunity for the Committee and the House to look at the legislation and the regulations and to comment and vote on them.

The insurance market for approved inspectors is intricate and some bodies have specialist insurance expertise in this area. The power in clause 47 will enable the Secretary of State to appoint specialist bodies to undertake this important and complex work, as the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston alluded to, where the Government think that appropriate. I commend the clause to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Hopkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for making those key points so well. I will reiterate them: the Local Government Association and housing associations have warned that building safety costs will put at risk their ability to build much more affordable housing, as she pointed out. The required subsidy per affordable home currently sits at approximately £50,000; £3 million spent on remediation costs would mean 58,000 fewer homes over the next 10 years. Shelter also estimates that we need 90,000 new social homes a year to fix our housing crisis, and that does not go into what is needed to get social homes to a decent standard or reach our net zero targets, which the Minister will know we discussed in the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee earlier this week.

The Local Government Association—or should I say the Conservative-led Local Government Association—stated in its written evidence:

“Imposing the developer levy on councils would leave council tenants paying for the failings of private developers. If the Levy is imposed on social providers, their ability to deliver the improvements and additions to the housing stock that the Government requires will be put at risk.”

[Daisy Cooper]

Has the hon. Lady received any estimates of the cost of the levy for social providers? If not, does she agree that it might be helpful if the Minister could tell us what estimates the Government have made?

[Rachel Hopkins]

I thank the hon. Lady for her important contributions. There are different levels, because this is such a complex area, but research that the LGA commissioned, which just looked at the total cost to deliver compliance with the high safety standards, the installation of sprinklers and compartmentation across the entire housing revenue account council housing stock, would be more than £8 billion over a 10-year period, with the majority of the investment taking place in the first five years.

There is so much at stake here that will have an impact on social housing and the likelihood of being able to build good social housing. The conclusion is that the levy, if imposed on councils and social landlords, will increase the cost of building or refurbishing social housing, or increase the rents, yet the benefits to funds will not be available to the tenants who would otherwise have benefited from lower rents or better housing.

Finally, imposing the levy on councils means council tenants will be subsidising the failings of private developers and paying the costs of both remediating council housing and private housing. I am pleased to move this amendment; I hope the Minister will accept it, and I look forward to hearing his comments.