Draft Higher-Risk Buildings (Descriptions and Supplementary Provisions) Regulations 2023

Lee Rowley Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Lee Rowley)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Higher-Risk Buildings (Descriptions and Supplementary Provisions) Regulations 2023.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. The regulations will complete the definition of higher-risk buildings, setting which buildings will be subject to legal requirements of the new regime for building safety, which was created by the Building Safety Act 2022. They are an important part of our ongoing reforms to ensure that all residents’ homes are a place of safety.

I will start by providing some context and background to the regulations. After the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the Government recognised the need for an overhaul of our building safety regime. In 2017 we appointed Dame Judith Hackitt to conduct an expert review of the current regime. Her review pointed to an industry that needed significant cultural and regulatory change, and identified a range of problems with the current building and fire safety regimes. Dame Judith Hackitt recommended a new approach to managing fire and structural safety risks in high-rise residential buildings. She advised that a new strengthened regulatory regime to improve accountability, risk management and assurance for higher-risk buildings should be brought forward. We accepted her recommendations, and in April 2022 the Building Safety Act received Royal Assent.

The Act establishes a new regime, which creates stronger oversight of and clearer accountability for, and places stronger legal duties on, those who are responsible for the safety of higher-risk buildings throughout their life cycle. It also brings forward stronger enforcement and sanctions to defer and rectify non-compliance. There are two parts to the new regime. The first covers the design and construction of new higher-risk buildings and the building work to existing higher-risk buildings. I will refer to that as the design and construction part. The second part establishes a new regulatory framework when higher-risk buildings are occupied. I will refer to that as the occupation part.

The definition of a higher-risk building is set, in part, by the Act. The Act sets the height thresholds for higher-risk buildings at 18 metres or seven storeys. It also states that buildings meeting the threshold that contain two residential units are in scope of the occupation part of the new regime. The regulations build on the provisions set out in the Act, completing the definition of higher-risk building and setting out exactly which buildings will be subject to the legal requirements of the new regime that will be directly overseen by the new Building Safety Regulator.

The regulations can be considered in several parts. First, they specify that hospitals, care homes and buildings containing at least two residential units that meet the 18-metre or seven-storey threshold will fall within the scope of design and construction part of the new regime. They also specify that certain types of buildings are excluded from the new regime. Hotels, secure residential institutions such as prisons, and military premises such as barracks, are excluded from both parts of the new regime. In addition, the regulations specify that hospitals and care homes are excluded from the occupation part of the regime. All other buildings with at least two residential units that meet the height threshold set in the Act will fall within the scope of the regime.

The regulations provide definitions for care homes, hospitals and secure residential institutions, based on the definitions in existing legislation. We have set this scope, as we want to ensure that proportionate rigour is applied to buildings where the risk of fire spread or structural collapse is higher. Dame Judith recommended focusing on residential buildings, and we agree that occupied non-residential buildings are, in the main, already adequately and proportionately regulated for through other legislation. Such building types are therefore not included in the new regime. We have responded to the concerns of stakeholders regarding the design and construction of care homes and hospitals by including them in the regime, ensuring that high-rise buildings that may be occupied by those who are unable to evacuate quickly or without assistance are designed and constructed within this scope.

The regulations also provide an overall technical definition of a building for higher-risk buildings. Some buildings under the new regime will be large, complex structures with multiple parts and connections. The building definition therefore allows a building to be defined depending on its design and structure. We have adopted a broad definition in that regard, so that when a new higher-risk building is constructed, the Building Safety Regulator can consider the overall structure while it is built.

For work in existing buildings and the occupation part of the new regime, the term “building” is more narrowly defined in certain circumstances—for example, when multiple structures are joined but there is no access between them—because we believe it will be disproportionate to apply the duties and responsibilities of the occupation regime across an entire set of structures, especially when some, taken in isolation, may not meet the criteria for higher risk. This definition seeks to ensure that the requirements of the new regime are applied proportionately and to buildings that present the higher risk. We will produce detailed guidance allowing those constructing and managing buildings under the new regime to clearly understand whether they are in scope.

The regulations also set out how to measure height and storeys for higher-risk buildings. To support this, they define ground level and gallery floors. The regulations specify that height should be measured from ground level to the top of the floor surface of the top storey of the building. Similarly, storeys should be counted from ground level to the top storey of the building. In both cases, any storeys below ground level, such as underground car parks, or any area containing only rooftop machinery, can and should be ignored. We have chosen these methods because they are understood; they are existing ways of measuring within the sector and mirror a method already taken in building regulations. The two-pronged test for measuring buildings will also help to prevent the gaming of the system and ensure that the right buildings are captured. It will be clear to those constructing and managing buildings under the new regime, and will support the aim of creating a proportionate and effective system.

The regulations are important to setting up the new regime for building safety and to bringing about the lasting change that we know is needed to help people to be and to feel safe in their homes. I hope I can rely on the Committee’s support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree for her questions and for confirming that the Opposition will support the regulations. We are grateful for their willingness to do so, as we collectively agree on the importance of the regulations’ progress, so that they can be operationalised and—hopefully, in time—improve the processes for the building and management of higher-risk buildings.

The hon. Lady asked specifically about inclusions and exclusions in regulations 7 and 8—an important and reasonable point. Ultimately, this is a question of proportionality, on which I recognise that different people here may have slightly different views. As the hon. Lady indicates, we did consult on the regulations, and received a variety of responses, including suggestions that the approach should be broader.

The key principle on which we have tried to build the regulations is that of the residential occupation of buildings. As hon. Members know, there are a broad variety of ways in which people live and manage the buildings in which they live. For other types of properties, where there tends to be a greater level of building management, by definition there is always likely to be somebody on site or nearby. For example, hotels will have an element of staff on site almost around the clock and there will be regular room management. Taking everything in the round, the view was that the proportionality was not there to extend the regulations to hotels at this stage. That is the core reason that there is a separate approach: there is a likelihood, in most such scenarios, that there will be more people on site and more management will be undertaken.

Within these rules—should it be appropriate; we are not proposing this now—we can in the future look at whether the proportionality is correct and whether we have got the thresholds right. There will be an opportunity for the Building Safety Regulator to propose changes and for the Government of the day to ask the regulator to look at whether changes would be proportionate, to report back, and then to come back to the House in the normal way to make those changes through secondary legislation, should that be appropriate.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the Minister’s explanation of proportionality. Is there also a cost implication?

[Lee Rowley]

I am not aware of a cost implication. From discussions with officials, and from working through the underlying purpose, reasons and rationale for the structure of the statutory instrument, my understanding is that it is simply a question of proportionality. It is primarily about acknowledging and recognising, as I think all hon. Members do, that hotels and properties that have the facets of hotels are operated, managed and staffed differently from residential buildings, and therefore it is proportionate to have a different approach for them.

I hope I have answered the question about definitional differences and the reasons for using one approach for some buildings and another for others. I am grateful to the Opposition for confirming their support. I hope we can make strong progress with the regulations, which set out the definitional changes necessary to build the new regulatory framework and architecture over the months ahead. Taken together, we hope they will improve safety for higher-risk and high-rise buildings over the long term in a proportionate and reasonable way that reflects and responds to what happened at Grenfell, and all the consequent discussions and debates.

Question put and agreed to.