Fire Safety Bill

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

I welcome the Bill, and the measures it seeks to put in place to make buildings safer and prevent tragedies such as the one we witnessed with Grenfell Tower. I note, too, that other measures announced by the Government will further complement the Bill.

I have worked in construction over several years, during which time I was involved in the construction of fuel retail stations. I have also worked on oil rigs. I should also note that I am a landlord and thus declare an interest. Ensuring that homes and other buildings are safe is of the utmost importance. My experience has given me some insight into fire safety and how sometimes I see a disconnect between policymakers and those who deliver a service on the ground. The practicalities of day-to-day delivery can sometimes show a well-meaning policy to be out of touch with what actually happens on site. Let me give an example of what I mean.

I have known site managers ask for fire doors to be installed before a building had been made waterproof—dozens of doors. As to be expected with our British climate, it rained, and those fire doors and frames swelled. When they would not open and close properly, carpenters were asked, under time pressure, to plane doors down so that they would pass inspection. Of course, eventually these doors dried out and shrank. That meant they were again the wrong size, but this time with gaps so large that they were no longer fit to be fire doors. However, by that point, the doors had been signed off by inspectors, despite the fact that modifications had now made them no longer fit for purpose.

My plea is to ensure that when the Bill is finally delivered, people who are ultimately accountable for fire safety are not only competent by the certifications they may have, but that they are present on site and understand construction, not just fire safety alone. Furthermore, I make a plea for an ever-evolving and updating follow-up process that identifies any and all changes that new tenants can often make, often innocently for aesthetic purposes, which alter the fire rating of the system, such as the changing of door furniture and other material modifications. We need a dynamic model of fire safety that ensures it is delivered over time during construction and for the entire lifetime of a building. This Bill is a very positive step in the right direction, but it is a step because fire safety and any safety is always evolving.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate.

Over three years after the Grenfell Tower fire, any improvements to fire safety legislation are of course welcome; however, the Bill in its current form is only a modest improvement on the current fire safety regime. I do not have the experiences of so many hon. Members speaking in this debate today, but as the daughter of an ex-firefighter I certainly understand the importance of these issues, and I share the concerns highlighted by the Fire Brigades Union that the views and concerns of the people who live and work in high-risk buildings should be at the heart of the new system of fire safety across the UK.

That means that the voices of tenants must be heard in this process. Residents have raised concerns about the removal of flammable cladding and the role of waking watches. It is disturbing that three years on from Grenfell, there are still issues around the removal of flammable ACM cladding from both social and private-sector tower blocks. Coronavirus has caused many contractors to stop work on cladding sites, while others have not even begun due to complex legal disputes. These delays mean that residents of buildings continue to face extortionate fees for interim safety measures, most commonly waking watch. The National Fire Chiefs Council’s advice on waking watch has become outdated. Its guidance suggests that waking watch should be a temporary measure, yet some residents have been forced to pay for waking watches for a number of years. This is not a sustainable solution. New clause 5 would require both this Government and the Welsh Government to specify when a waking watch must be in place for buildings with fire safety failures.

The voice of firefighters also needs to be heard with regard to the Bill. The FBU believes that this legislation requires investment in professional firefighters and an expansion in the number of fire inspectors. Therefore, I have great concern that the Bill gives little consideration to the additional costs to the fire and rescue services in implementing these additional inspections. That comes on top of Government cuts to central funding to fire and rescue services by 28% in real terms between 2010 and 2016, followed by a further cut of 15% by 2020. These cuts have led to 11,000 fewer fire service personnel—that is 20% of the service. On Boris Johnson’s watch as Mayor of London, in eight years the London Fire Brigade was required to make—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Lady must refer to the Prime Minister as “the Prime Minister” here in the Chamber, please.

[Kate Osborne]

On the Prime Minister’s watch as Mayor of London, in eight years the London Fire Brigade was required to make gross savings of over £100 million, leading to the cutting of 27 fire appliances, 552 firefighters, 324 support staff, two fire rescue units and three training appliances, the closure of 10 fire stations and a reduction in fire rescue unit crewing levels. Ministers must commit to funding fire and rescue services sufficiently to ensure that fire authorities are able to inspect and enforce these new measures.

In conclusion, last October the Government promised to implement the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower review in full and without delay. Nearly a year later, this Bill does not contain a single measure recommended by the inquiry. Therefore, I will be supporting new clause 1 as it places robust requirements on building owners or managers to implement the recommendations from phase one of the Grenfell Tower inquiry. I will also be supporting new clauses 2 to 5. I urge the Government to make true on their promises: back the amendments and put everyone’s safety first.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I would like to add my voice to those of many colleagues across the Chamber who have expressed the frustration of many of our residents that, following the terrible incident at Grenfell, we have not yet brought to a conclusion many of the issues that the incident highlighted. We have followed the progress of the inquiry, with many views expressed by stakeholders—those personally affected because they had relatives in the building, and different parts of the industry and professional bodies. At the heart of much of the frustration is the question of liability. Who, ultimately, will meet the costs faced by our residents—whether they are landlords or occupiers of the property, freeholders or leaseholders—for the cost of remediation, which we know is substantial?

That issue plays out in many different parts of our lives. In my former role, I was responsible for the construction of a significant number of new schools. Inspections of those new buildings subsequently identified that some of the fire safety work, signed off and done in recent times, did not meet the standards that we would expect. We need to ensure that the question of liability is brought to a conclusion as quickly as possible. Those on the Front Bench know that there are many different ways in which that might be achieved, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister will have something to say about that.

I turn to two specific points on which it would be helpful to hear a little more from my right hon. Friend. The first is the role of the responsible person. Across Government, where we are concerned about the degree of accountability for a life-and-limb, critical activity or service, it has been common practice to identify an individual post holder who is accountable for ensuring that work is done to the relevant standard. In children’s social care, we have the director of children’s services. In public health, we have the director of public health. In businesses, we have chief accountable officers.

We also know from long experience, with all sorts of things having gone wrong across different parts of those services, that having someone identified as accountable will only bring about the improvement that the House wishes to see if we can be confident that that person has the necessary qualities to do the work required and the ability to carry out the duties we are imposing on them. A number of Members have expressed views about whether there will be sufficient people with the knowledge of fire safety to undertake this role. It is crucial to ensure that whoever is responsible in individual buildings, on estates, on local authority estates or on school estates, we can rely on them to carry out that duty effectively. It will be critical to ensure that training, qualifications and all the rest of it sit behind that.

Secondly, ensuring that that person has the ability to do what sometimes may be intrusive and expensive work that may not always attract the consent of the householder will be a major issue. Earlier on in my political career, I spent a bit of time as chairman of a housing management and maintenance sub-committee at a local authority responsible, as a landlord, for over 12,000 properties. I am conscious that the local authority sometimes had to take several dozen tenants to court every year to get access to properties to do—at no cost to the tenant—essential safety checks and safety-critical work. We should not assume in this House that, by saying that we are going to designate a responsible person, we can be confident that they will be able to do what they need to do. I look forward to my right hon Friend fleshing out the further measures that we might need to take to ensure that responsible people are able to undertake the work to the relevant standard, to provide the assurance that we all want on behalf of our residents.