Building Safety Bill (First sitting)

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

I am still a sitting councillor in Liverpool.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

I am also a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

Q Good morning to you both. Will the reforms to the building control profession fix the problems identified by Dame Judith Hackitt? In particular, are the Government right to return the power of duty holders to choose their own building control body?

Sir Ken Knight: It is quite a significant part of Dame Judith’s report, of course, and that mixed economy has come through into the Bill. It is actually something that I support, providing that there is a level playing field in the competency, ethics and assurance of those doing the work. That is covered in the Bill, in a great deal of how the Building Safety Regulator will need to bring that to bear. The Bill makes the point, though, that in those buildings of higher risk the Building Safety Regulator is the enforcing authority for building control purposes—not either of those two bodies. I think that that is right. However, it is about levelling up the playing field for the competencies and assurances that are in place with some bodies and not others at the moment. There is a bit to go, but I personally do not object to that outcome, providing that the private sector actors involved in that are not directly employed by those for whom they are doing the work in seeking the outcome for the approvals.

Dan Daly: I do not have much different to say. The inability to choose your own building control body is important, particularly for developers that have wrapped up a number of those services within their overarching companies. Having some independence of that is important. There needs to be some robust checking if there is private sector involvement; that is the important element, and hopefully that is part of the role that the Building Safety Regulator will be able to take on. I suppose that is something to come in the guidance that will follow this Bill. We have issues of competency and capacity across the sector, so we need to keep our mind open to all those avenues, but with the appropriate checks and balances in there and the appropriate safeguards to ensure there is no compromise on safety in favour of profit.

[Ian Byrne]

Q It is good to see you both again. Is height the best measure of risk? If so, is the threshold in the Bill appropriate?

Sir Ken Knight: I am sorry; I missed some of the early part of the question.

[Ian Byrne]

It is my Scouse accent. Is height the best measure of risk? If so, is the threshold in the Bill appropriate?

Sir Ken Knight: I promise you that it is my hearing. Height is pretty arbitrary in risk. I think any professional would say that; I am sure Mr Daly will comment from a national fire chief’s point of view. It is right that there is at least a point to start, and the threshold in the Bill of 18 metres or more than six floors is a place to start. I would not want to presume that that means that high-rise is necessarily high risk, because risk is a difficult equation with two axes—one is probability, and the other is the catastrophic outcome risk.

Dame Judith’s report, and indeed the Bill, are based on the idea that the more people who could be involved in a single fire, the greater the catastrophic risk. In reality, more deaths occur in the home in bungalows, but that is not about height; it is about the demographics of people living in bungalows and the effects of that. It was right to set the bar somewhere.

Helpfully, though, the Bill allows the Building Safety Regulator to look at that first flush of buildings in scope—that will result in something like 12,000 buildings, a significant capacity issue to deal with—and then to move on from that in a dynamic way to look at other risk features that are not necessarily height-related. One might want to include in the next stage care homes and hospitals that are not necessarily over 18 metres. However, as a first tranche, the place to start is right.

[The Chair]

Mr Daly, would you like to reply to that?

Dan Daly: The short answer from our perspective is no. We talked about broadening the scope, and that is a nod toward the fact that we recognise other premises as being high risk. Part of that risk is about not just the physical attributes of the building, but the people who live in, use and work in those places, particularly our most vulnerable people, and the reliance they may have, in terms of the evacuation strategies from those buildings, on the building’s performing in a way that allows time for horizontal evacuation or phased evacuation, supported by people who are there to enable them to escape from the building when they need to.

There are a number of factors that I do not think are yet covered here, and I would like to see the opportunity to broaden the scope at some appropriate point, but I understand the proportionate start in the way that Sir Ken has described.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Amesbury]

Q Does the Bill protect leaseholders from unaffordable costs, and focus the mind or regulate to ensure that the industry steps up and pays its responsibilities and its fair share, given previous incompetence and very shabby practices?

Graham Watts: I think the answer to that is no, but the Bill does a bit more than the draft Bill did, particularly in the extension of the Defective Premises Act 1972. I am from the industry, and I have no doubt whatsoever that no leaseholder should have to pay for having been mis-sold a home that is not fit for purpose or safe. That should be axiomatic, and we should be exploring every opportunity. I know the housebuilders and developers have put up something like £500 million already, but in many cases they are not there any more—they have gone bankrupt, or it was a special purpose vehicle developer that does not exist any longer. I have no doubt that the Government must do more, but the industry must also do more, and I welcome the polluter pays principle of the developer tax.

Adrian Dobson: This Bill is a piece of the jigsaw; one problem is that this is predominantly a forward-looking piece of legislation, so it will address new projects and alterations to existing buildings, but it will not deal with the historical defects. That is a situation that will ultimately require the Government to engage with the insurance sector. We now have a situation where—to use the example of the EWS1 form, which I know you talked about earlier—because the insurance sector has pretty much excluded fire safety cover from many professionals, it is difficult to get professionals who can sign these forms, and they will now inevitably take a very precautionary approach, because they know that this insurance is difficult to get. There are some risks in thinking that the Bill itself will solve that; that historical liability is more complicated.

The Bill also raises the question of the insurability of the duty holder roles in the new regime; this illustrates why the interrogation of the regulations will be so important. The regulations as they are drafted at the moment mix words such as “take reasonable steps” with “ensure”, and they are very different. One is an absolute obligation and one is more like the CDM regulations. Will the insurers provide the insurance to underpin these roles? The insurance issue is where the problem lies, in my view.

[Ian Byrne]

Q I have really enjoyed the evidence so far; it has been really good, but will the Bill improve levels of competence and, just as importantly, listen to the Grenfell inquiry and the shameful evidence that we have heard? Will there be accountability in the construction industry?

Graham Watts: I think the answer to that is yes, because competence is in the Bill and it underpins and supports all of the work that the industry has done over the last four years—some of the things that Adrian talked about earlier in the different sectors. As I said before, I would personally like the Bill to go further in defining the levels of competence and in making sure that the people who are registered actually have the competencies. I think that is absolutely necessary.

Adrian Dobson: I would tack slightly along the same line. I think the Bill is very good at trying to address the competence issue, although, for example, there are weaknesses in other areas of the industry. Procurement is complex in construction. I know that has been discussed in the Select Committee and various places. There is a duty on the principal designer to monitor design work for compliance, and a similar duty on the contractor. “Monitor” is quite a weak term. In design and build procurement there is no requirement for independent inspection, or no duty on the designers to return to the building and say, “Has this building been designed and constructed in accordance with that design intent?” So I think it is stronger on competence than it is on addressing some of the realities of the construction industry. Will the hard stop at gateway 2 really be a hard stop, because the commercial realities of the construction industry will tend to want to keep the project moving forward, and that is a risk? So it is good on competence and perhaps a bit weaker in other areas.

[Ms Rimmer]

Q The Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to regulate construction products. Does it contain enough information about the new regime? Is there enough certainty about what types of products would be regulated by the Secretary of State?

Graham Watts: We are obviously at an early stage in the development of the new powers for the product regulator. As we have discovered from the Grenfell evidence, it is an absolutely imperative aspect of the Bill, so I certainly welcome that side of it. The work that has been done in the industry to ensure integrity in the marketing information for construction products has been scandalously shocking in the past. As somebody from the industry, I am ashamed of the fact that we did not wake up to that, but I welcome a rigorous attention to the regulation of construction products and also the Government’s recent decision to postpone the implementation of the conformity assessed mark for a year, because that was causing huge problems in the construction sector. Personally, I think a year is not enough, but at least it is a step forward.

Adrian Dobson: My answer is probably similar to before. There is an inevitability that there will have to be secondary regulation. Maybe an area that it does not address is that once we get to the stage of developing revised guidance, we have some questions about how much different sectors of the industry have been able to influence the testing process. If you are going to rely on testing to give you confidence about the performance of products, that genuinely needs to be independent testing. I will be interested to see what the regulations say about that and how they keep that independence of the testing.

Post Office Update

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

Absolutely. It is incumbent on us all, and I really hope that we can give confidence to sub-postmasters—not just those who have had their convictions quashed, but wider members of the group litigation. All postmasters should feel some confidence that they can come forward, tell their stories and know that we hat we are determined to get them answers.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

The Post Office scandal is one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in this century. It destroyed many lives and families, and justice must be given to these families in full. While I welcome the premise of a statutory inquiry, will the Government address the limited remit of the inquiry, which does not cover compensation or the accountability of managers in this scandal?

[Paul Scully]

To be fair, the accountability of managers will absolutely be in the inquiry, because that is part of the expansion of it. Sir Wyn can now look right the way out to the settlement of the group litigation and ensure that it is not just about the wrongs of the 20 years, but the lead-up to that civil case as well. I have answered the question about compensation in as much as an inquiry, statutory or not, cannot determine liability in itself. That needs to go through the courts, but I dare say that postmasters giving evidence will share their experiences of their financial losses, as well as the emotional impact on them and their families.

Fire and Rehire

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I declare an interest as a member of Unite and the GMB, and because a family member was subjected to fire and rehire. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) for securing this hugely important debate, and for her powerful speech.

I want to give my support and solidarity to my constituents and many people across the country who have been subjected to the immoral practice of fire and rehire. We should be in no doubt that it destroys livelihoods, families and communities, and my disdain for companies using that weapon to cause such misery in 2021 during a pandemic knows no bounds. I hope that the public will show solidarity and support for the workers who are affected, by using their consumer choice and power wisely, and that they will show their disdain for any company that chooses that path.

Bad employers, including a number that have made huge profits in the past year, such as British Gas owner Centrica, which posted profits in 2020 of £447 million, have exploited the pandemic to cut the pay and conditions of workers, through fire and rehire. The roll-call of shame is a long one. A few of the worst are British Gas, British Airways, and Go North West, but there are many others—the TUC estimates that one in seven workers in the UK will be under threat from the practice. I have personal experience of the cost, because my brother and many of his colleagues lost their jobs because of their refusal to sign inferior new contracts with British Gas under the terms of fire and rehire. Years of loyalty and skills were cast on to the scrapheap because certain companies wanted to make workers pay for the pandemic, and protect shareholder profits. It is beyond contempt.

The Minister condemned those bully-boy tactics last month; so when will he take action? The Government have sat on the ACAS report on fire and rehire for more than two months now. What does the report say? When will they release it? How will they address the concerns raised by those independent experts? The tactics of fire and rehire are a stain on this country’s reputation, and they harm our communities’ chances of rebuilding back from the pandemic. They are economically illiterate and they destroy relationships between workers and employers, often beyond repair. I urge the Minister to outlaw fire and rehire—to commit to doing that in the Queen’s Speech—and to start to take action against employers that use those practices. Too many livelihoods have already been destroyed, and he must ensure that not one more person endures the pain that many have already been subjected to.

Liverpool City Council

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. My predecessors have used their powers of intervention very sparingly. They have done so on a small number of occasions, in Doncaster, Rotherham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Northamptonshire. Each occasion was very different, but in most of those cases the intervention has proved successful and has turned councils around. The commissioners will behave sensitively, support the elected leadership of Liverpool City Council, and ensure that confidence is restored, public services are delivered properly, and taxpayer money is spent wisely. This now requires leadership from the politicians in Liverpool—those who will be elected in the local council elections to come. I look forward to working with them, and if we do appoint commissioners, I expect the commissioners to work with them constructively and productively at all times.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I will read the report in full today when I receive it. It has been a great honour to work alongside many Liverpool councillors and council staff who worked so tirelessly to protect the people of Liverpool before and during the pandemic and, indeed, who have been recognised for that work in this Chamber. Will the Secretary of State assure my great city and its people that this crucial work, on which so many of our constituents rely, will continue and that these vital services will be both resourced and protected?

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for those remarks. I share his thanks and his praise for many of the staff of Liverpool City Council, and for the good work over the year done by the wider health and social care sector across the region, which the Health Secretary, the Prime Minister and I have praised on many occasions. We want to ensure they continue to have resources, and we want all of government to see this as a moment in which, far from stepping away, we should redouble our efforts to support the city through a potentially difficult period.

I will be convening my Cabinet and ministerial colleagues in the coming days to reiterate that message and to ask them to do even more to support Liverpool. There has been good news in recent weeks, including from my right hon. Friend the Chancellor that Liverpool was successful in its application for freeport status. That is just one example of good news and investment that I hope will take the city forward in the years to come.

Residential Leaseholders and Interim Fire Safety Costs

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab) [V]]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) for securing this hugely important debate and for her fantastic contribution, and for her tireless work on these issues, including on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, on which I serve alongside her.

Residential leaseholders are the only group involved in the cladding scandal who have no responsibility for the danger they are in every waking minute and when they are asleep. The Government, the regulators, property developers, builders—I could go on and on—all have their share of responsibility for the cost of interim fire safety measures following Grenfell, yet leaseholders still have to pay ever-increasing bills to cover these interim costs. As we have heard in heartbreaking testimonies to the HCLG Committee, many are experiencing an unimaginable toll on their mental health, from circumstances out of their control and not of their making. The lack of clarity from Government is also causing significant distress, so I hope that the Minister will today provide the further clarity that Members and campaigners are asking for. After two hours at a Select Committee on Monday, I was left with more questions than answers about who is actually responsible for this current chaos and who will pick up the tab for sorting it out.

Waking watch is one of the fastest growing service industries in England, but with no regulation and no cap on costs, there has been an increase in bankruptcies and bailiffs up and down the country. These costs are being passed on to leaseholders and come at the same time as Action for Children reports that 40% of families are struggling to feed their children. I hope that the Minister will outline exactly what support his Department is giving to those having to choose between paying for waking watch or a hot meal for their children. I also expect the Minister to clarify what further support will be provided to those leaseholders who receive universal credit and face the costs of waking watch. The uplift of £20 a week pays for less than an hour of a waking watch once a week.

It is nearly four years since the Grenfell tragedy and we are still talking about interim measures. The toxic mix of the fire safety crisis and covid is causing a public health crisis, which should be recognised by the Government. This is not only about an industry that needs reforming; it is also about a health crisis that needs addressing. Unaffordable costs heaped on top of the mental torment caused by living in dangerous buildings do not feel interim for those facing them. This has already inflicted irreversible damage on the livelihoods and wellbeing of many leaseholders across the country. I expect the Minister not only to acknowledge this injustice, but to commit to providing the urgent and immediate support needed for those leaseholders.

Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab) [V]]

I thank the shadow Front Bench for this incredibly important debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) also wanted to speak today, and I want to put on record the excellent work she is doing for our city on these issues—in particular, in challenging the obscene service charge hikes of tens of thousands of pounds that are being passed on to leaseholders. In Liverpool, an estimated 8,000 people are affected by unsafe cladding, and the distress and anguish felt in our community as a result is difficult for me to do justice to. People are living and sleeping in fear, and when they wake up they feel threatened by the financial costs.

Rituparna Saha from the UK Cladding Action Group told the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, in a heartbreaking evidence session, that

“I would summarise my life as pretty much a living nightmare. I have spent every single waking moment when I am not working my day job trying to figure out how to make my home safe without going financially destitute. Unfortunately, my experience is not an uncommon one; it is shared by thousands of people just like me… We are constantly anxious, both for the safety of our families living in these dangerous buildings and also the pretty much blank cheque that we are being forced to write to fix defects that were not of our making.”

The HCLG Committee’s November report on the draft Building Safety Bill recommended:

“The Government must recommit to the principle that leaseholders should not pay anything towards the cost of remediating historical building safety defects, and, in order to provide leaseholders with the peace of mind they deserve, amend the Bill to explicitly exclude historical costs from the building safety charge.”

I urge the Minister to take on board the many powerful contributions that we have heard in the debate and take up the actions contained in the Opposition’s motion. How can the Government sleep easily in their beds knowing that thousands of tenants and leaseholders cannot sleep at all?

Arcadia and Debenhams: Business Support and Job Retention

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

My right hon. Friend raises some important points. There is already legislation and regulation in place to look at this. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has written to the administrators to make sure that they can expedite the report looking at directors’ behaviour, not just in the immediate weeks but looking back to see if anything untoward has happened.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab) [V]]

The job losses resulting from what is happening at Arcadia and Debenhams are on top of a series of devastating job losses across the north-west. Vacancies are scarce and people have few places left to turn. In Liverpool, West Derby, we have had increases of over 100% in both youth unemployment and universal credit claimants since March. Will the Government now commit to cancelling their heartless plan to cut universal credit, which will take £20 a week from struggling families in my constituency?

[Paul Scully]

To flip the question slightly, I know that a number of people up and down the country have been appreciative of the Government’s increase in universal credit to make sure that we can help them through this particularly acute time. Clearly, as I say, we will continue to work not only to support people who are out of a job but to make sure that we can create jobs and opportunities for them to get back into good work.

Covid-19 Lockdown: Homelessness and Rough Sleepers

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab) [V]]

After speaking with ACORN Liverpool and local volunteers such as Councillor Sarah Morton who are out on the ground every night in Liverpool helping the homeless, I would like to ask about one of their many concerns right now. The enforced evictions guidance has no basis in law. It does not protect against bailiffs, despite the Government saying that they have asked bailiffs to hold fire, and people are living in fear of eviction during this lockdown. The only way to ban evictions is through legislation, as with the ban between March and September. Will the Minister commit to such legislation and consider increasing funding for local authority discretionary housing payments, which are a vital resource in supporting early intervention and preventing homelessness?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

The Government have invested heavily in support for homelessness, particularly through the rough sleeping initiative. Liverpool is part of Housing First, which is one of the pilot projects to help rough sleepers, who have multiple complex needs. I hope that the numbers of people moving into that pilot will soon increase in Liverpool. The hon. Gentleman mentions an important point about evictions. It is true that there is a six-month stay on possession proceedings in court to 30 September, and that only the most egregious cases will be taken forward, such as those involving antisocial behaviour and crime. We are committed to that and have made it clear that we do not expect any evictions to take place. If we need to take further action, I am sure that we will find the tools to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I can give this assurance to the hon. Gentleman: the planning reforms that we intend to bring forward in the weeks ahead will not row back on any of our commitments to the environment. This Government want to bring forward homes that are truly fit for the future. We do not want to see homes being built in the years ahead that will need to be retrofitted at huge expense either to the state or to individuals in time. We want to ensure that we meet our obligations to the environment, to biodiversity and to the climate change challenge, and that is exactly what the proposals that I intend to publish later this month, or at the beginning of August, will do.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

What steps his Department is taking to ensure that dangerous cladding is removed from residential buildings of all heights.

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

We are taking action with the biggest reforms of building and fire safety in nearly 40 years through the Building Safety Bill, which we are publishing in draft form today. To tackle the most urgent problems, we have made available £1.6 billion to remove unsafe cladding systems, so there should be no excuse for further delay. We have made progress. Over two thirds of high-rise buildings with the most dangerous Grenfell-type aluminium composite material, or ACM, cladding have either been completed or they have started their remediation.

[Ian Byrne]

With applications for more than 1,000 buildings made to the building safety fund already, it is clear that £1.6 billion will not be anywhere near enough to remedy all high-risk residential buildings that still have dangerous cladding, more than three years after the Grenfell Tower fire. The Government are trying to find ways to fit a potential £15 billion liability into a £1.6 billion funding pot. Will the Minister commit to release more funding in line with the Select Committee recommendation to ensure that all fire safety defects in every high-risk residential building are addressed, allowing residents to live safely in their homes without fear of bankruptcy?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his question. To date, we have received 1,378 completed registration forms for the building safety fund. We expect the money made available by the Chancellor in this fiscal year to be fully allocated by March, so that the buildings that most need remediation where the owners were not able to act quickly can be helped. We have always made it clear that we expect a significant proportion of remediation costs to fall on the shoulders of those responsible for the original work or the building owners, and certainly not on the leaseholders.