Fire Safety Bill

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 29th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

I am a former chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. One week after the Grenfell fire, the London Fire Brigade took me to the top of the tower, and what I saw there was a sobering experience, to say the least. So, this Bill is to be welcomed. It was a Conservative manifesto commitment last year, and it was announced in the Queen’s Speech at the start of this Session. I do not believe that the Bill represents the final destination on fire safety legislation, but it is a good first step along the way to prepare the ground for further legislation later this year.

Although the Bill is short, it seeks to take a grip on a key issue. As my right hon. Friend the Minister said in his opening statement, in amending the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the Bill makes it clear that enforcing authorities can hold building owners to account if they are not compliant with their responsibilities for external walls of buildings, which is particularly pertinent in the light of Grenfell, as well as for the inside. That is a major step forward. However, there are areas of the Bill that could be improved as it progresses through Parliament.

The first issue I wish to address was also touched on by the hon. Members for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) and for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), and that is the issue of the responsible person. The Bill does not make clear what constitutes a “responsible person”—what skills and abilities they need or what precise enforcement powers they have. Pinning down the identity of the responsible person has long been the bane of various fire and rescue authorities’ existence, and it can lead to long delays in taking enforcement action. The designation of who is a responsible person has in the past been applied to individuals, owners, tenant management organisations, local authorities, other forms of residents and groups, and so on. This legislation would be considerably strengthened if it were to require the designation of the identity of the responsible person on a building-by-building basis. There are also questions associated with the competence of the responsible person, and this issue is not dealt with in the Bill. Greater clarity on what constitutes competence on a building-by-building basis would be very beneficial, because the skills for fire assessment in a low-level, one-storey care home might be materially different from those for assessment in a multi-storey tower block.

There is a gap, too, regarding how the impact and success or otherwise of the Bill are to be measured. One way might be the speed with which enforcement can be carried out through legal proceedings and prosecutions—in other words, the length of time between a defect being identified and a prosecution being brought. Unfortunately, at present, that can take years in some cases. Identifying the responsible person who is the chief cause can be very problematic, and even once identified, they will often attempt to find a legal loophole to evade responsibility. Tightening that up would be of clear benefit.

The Bill could also be clearer on the ownership of premises where the responsible person finds it difficult to enforce front doors on flats in a building where some of the flats have been bought under right-to-buy legislation. It would be good to tighten that up. Similarly, the Bill does not deal with the need for private owners of individual flats in a block to comply with risk assessments, which can be a risk to a whole block. There was a tragic example of that in 2009, with the Lakanal House fire in the London Borough of Southwark. On that occasion, the fire started in a flat that had been purchased under right to buy, and the owners had made structural alterations—knocking walls down and so on—without telling the local council. Risk was not assessed prior to those alterations. Any such changes ought to be notified to the building owner, and the responsible person must be informed in advance.

None of those are reasons to reject the Bill at this stage, but I hope that they can all be picked up as the Bill progresses through Parliament.