Fire Safety (Protection of Tenants) Bill

Debate between Jim Fitzpatrick and Adrian Sanders

Friday 19th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Sanders]

Since the Bill was published—four and a half months ago—I have made repeated attempts to arrange a meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who has responsibility for fire, but I have met another junior Minister, who kindly allowed me to talk things through with civil servants. However, I was shocked this morning when the Under-Secretary said to me that if I withdrew my Bill, I could have a meeting with him. That was an insult to the people who have died in fires and their relatives.

The key word is “guidelines”. The housing health and safety rating system highlights 29 factors that may be taken into consideration by local authorities when assessing risk to all residential properties. If fire is seen as a category 1 hazard, enforcement action can be taken. Other guidance documents over recent years have stressed the importance of smoke alarms, but still local authorities are free to do as little about it as they wish. A number of cases have highlighted the need for better regulation. At an inquest into a fatal fire in Yarcombe near Honiton in Devon in May 2008, the coroner resolved to contact DCLG Ministers urging them to review whether smoke detection could be made mandatory in rented domestic dwellings. To date, DCLG has not responded positively.

Earlier this year, there were fire deaths in two incidents in Northumberland, at Ashington and Bedlington. Three people died in total and in neither fire were there any working alarms. In September, an elderly woman died in a fire in Porlock, Somerset. Again the fire authority found no smoke alarms. Indeed, fire officers have told me that they have never attended a fatal fire where working smoke alarms have been present, and the number of cases reported in the local press of smoke alarms saving families from death and/or injury is significant. There should be a straightforward solution to this problem.

In 2004, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Committee, of which I was a member, produced a report on the fire service with the following recommendation:

“We believe that functioning smoke alarms save lives and reduce injuries. The Committee congratulates those Fire Services which operate initiatives to fit free smoke alarms for the vulnerable. We welcome the requirement for alarms to be hard-wired in alterations, extensions and new buildings. We recommend this requirement be extended to include all existing tenanted properties, housing of multiple occupation and housing for vulnerable members of society. If the design of such buildings makes installation of hard-wired alarms impossible, we recommend use of alarms fitted with 10 year batteries.”

This Bill seeks to implement the Select Committee’s recommendations, which are still on the table, six years later. It will ensure that all landlords provide a working hard-wired fire detection system at the start of any tenancy agreement. That will be a legal requirement, in the same way that a landlord must have the gas system certified annually, an electrical safety check, and an energy performance certificate. From commencement of the tenancy, responsibility shifts to the tenant, who should refrain from causing damage to the system, and report any problems punctually, in the same way that the vast majority of tenants already do with all aspects of their home. As one of the Devon and Somerset fire officers said, when someone buys a car, it has to come with a seat belt. After that, it is the responsibility of the driver to use it properly. The same applies to smoke alarms. It seems eminently sensible that rented properties should be safe at the start of a tenancy, but it is equally sensible that the tenant should take responsibility for their safety after that.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I apologise for missing the start of the hon. Gentleman’s speech, and commend him for bringing the Bill to the House. Is he aware that, before and subsequent to the Select Committee’s report, even when smoke detectors without extended-life batteries or hard wiring were given away by registered social landlords and fire brigades, that did not work because batteries were taken out or they were sold at the local pub? Hard-wired detectors and 10-year batteries have been proven to work, and have saved lives. I wish the hon. Gentleman every success with his Bill.

[Mr Sanders]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Indeed, the figures are startling, both for failure rates and the number of properties where batteries were removed. That is why all building regulations today, and the Bill, require the hard-wired solution where it can be implemented.

My aim is to ensure that all rented properties, not just those covered by the latest regulations, have a good deal of fire safety. Tenants would not have only 20 seconds’ warning, and that could be the difference between life and death. It would save dozens of lives every year, and could prevent thousands of injuries. It would save millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money which is otherwise spent on preventable death and injury, health and social care costs, welfare and support. There are issues that need resolving in Committee, including the applicability to long-term tenants, a suitable process to allow landlords to hold their tenants to account without protracted civil court proceedings, and so on.

Making smoke detectors compulsory in all rented properties has broad support, including from the former Select Committee. Early-day motion 31 endorses mandatory detectors and has cross-party support. Indeed, immediately before the general election, the then shadow Home Secretary visited my constituency and was quoted in the local press as saying that he wholeheartedly supported the campaign. I only hope that his Front-Bench colleagues share that diligent attitude to saving lives.

Fire authorities have done a great deal in promoting fire safety, but there is a gap in protection that needs filling, and the fire service on the ground tells me that legislation is the only way to achieve that. I am aware of ideological objections that the Minister may have to regulation, but I hope that I can persuade him that not all regulation is pernicious and malevolent. In fact, much of it has been designed to protect and to save lives. The current regulations on fire protection in houses in multiple occupation, furniture regulations, and regulations on new build have all contributed to a decline in death and injury from fire.

Where there are market solutions, they need to be deployed, but it is clear from my discussions with the insurance industry that it does not accept that compulsory fire alarms are a priority. It simply adjusts its premiums and allows bad landlords to continue to put tenants at risk.

If the Minister is unable to set aside his ideological objections to regulation, there are many suitable candidates for removal that could serve the Administration’s one- in, one-out rule. One solution would be to consolidate or bundle the current safety regulations applying to landlords. They are already mandated to check gas and electrical equipment and to provide an energy performance certificate, so why not streamline all the relevant regulations that affect landlords?

The energy performance certificate, for example, often proves of no practical use to tenants, and it certainly will not save any lives. Perhaps the Minister could look at exempting landlords from having to produce energy performance certificates, and give them the same status that life-saving alarms have under the current guidelines. The one in, one out principle: sorted; simple. The bottom line is that regulation saves lives and ideological objections take lives. This is an interesting test for the coalition, because that difference goes to the heart of what divides most Liberal Democrats from most Conservatives. Is the Minister big enough to bridge that divide?