Building Safety Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Kate Osborne and Siobhan Baillie

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

Q My question is to Mr Russell, because we have not heard so much from you. First, how does this Bill help to upgrade the UK product safety system, and what could be improved? Secondly, we heard evidence in a sitting last week about the need to get the definitions of construction products right in the regulatory guidance, and there was a suggestion that we should look to the medical devices sector for good practice. I am interested in your views on that. We understand there is an awful lot of work to be done in that area.

Graham Russell: Hitherto, the broad product safety regime has not applied to construction products unless those construction products are also sold to consumers. The Bill seeks to address that, and to apply to construction projects the same principles and approach that apply to product safety, which, although they are not without problems, are building a good rate of success. I think that is right.

On the second part of your question, there is good practice in areas such as medicines and healthcare products. The great thing we see there is a risk-based approach in which we recognise that different products create different levels of risk, and we therefore regulate them differently and put in place additional requirements. In the construction products area, there has not been an effective underpinning of that system. Although the designated standards approach has sought to deal with the highest-risk products, we have not had an essential safety requirement that means that every product must be safe. The Bill provides for that, which is really important.

When we try to diagnose what has gone wrong in the past, we can sometimes see a latticework through which things are thought to have fallen. Whether that is right or wrong, if you have an essential safety requirement approach, you give people that opportunity. By having that requirement, you ensure that people cannot run to that place—every product must be sound. There are additional provisions for high-hazard and high-risk products, but you have that underpinning, and that is what the Bill provides.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

Q Are the functions and the objectives of the new regulator appropriate? To learn the lessons from Grenfell, how will you hardwire the residents’ voice into the regulator?

Sarah Albon: As Peter and I have both briefly said, we absolutely recognise the importance of residents’ voices. We have already started working with a small panel that can help us engage appropriately with residents. We will be reaching out much more formally in the coming weeks and months to a much wider group of residents, to fully understand what they need from us as the new regulator, and to understand how they want to work with us, how they need us to behave and how we can design the new regulatory regime in a way that has residents and their voices and needs at its heart. We absolutely recognise that that has been one of the failings in the past.

For us, that starts with listening, and making sure that, in as many different formats and locations as possible, we go to residents and hear what they think. We recognise that means we need to think about the different languages that are spoken and the accessibility issues.

It is very easy these days to assume that everybody is online and wants to email you, but we know that is not true. We are planning events in community locations, and are going to the residents. We recognise that one size does not fit all, because the resident community is as diverse as the population of the United Kingdom. We need to respect that and not impose our preferred ways of working and engaging on that group, but should rather let them come to us and shape how we work and engage, so that we hear from as many different voices as possible.

We have tried to do that over the years with workers, with a degree of success. That would be the analogy. When HSE goes to any business premises, it of course wants to speak to the managers and those who have responsibility for ensuring safety, but we also always try to engage directly with the workforce, so that we hear from them at first hand what it is like to be part of that work environment and can triangulate—can see if what we are being told by the duty holder matches up with the experience of the workers. That will be really important.

There is not just the business-to-business relationship of us talking to duty holders. We need to listen to the needs of residents and be responsive to them. Crucially, we need to take on board their feedback on their day-to-day experience of their duty holders, the way that their buildings are managed, and how they are kept safe in their homes.