Building Regulations (Review) Bill [HL]

Lord Best Excerpts

Friday 22nd October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Best]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, on bringing forward this revised version of his earlier Bill. During Committee on the noble Lord’s previous Bill, I moved an amendment to his proposal for a mandatory requirement for the installation of domestic sprinkler systems, changing this to introducing a review in consultation with representatives of house purchasers, tenants, housebuilders, housing associations and other interested parties to ascertain the feasibility of amending the building regulations. I am therefore very pleased with the noble Lord’s mark 2 Bill, which follows this line.

I declare an interest as chairman of the Hanover housing association, a charity which provides 19,000 homes for older people. My remarks relate particularly to the building of new homes for this age group, which, as the noble Lord has pointed out, is the main target for the changes in the building regulations which eventually may emerge from this initiative.

The housing associations, including Hanover, are keen to find ways to keep our residents safer and to lower the costs of damage if there are fires in our buildings. Sprinklers would achieve that. I would add a further point in favour of installation of sprinklers in new homes; that is, the advantage in terms of design. With sprinklers in place, it is possible to have open-plan apartments without the ventilated lobbies and cumbersome internal walls that are necessary because of current fire regulations. I have witnessed many excellent and well designed open-plan apartments for older people in Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, where architects and residents have been liberated from the requirements for boxed-in lobbies that use up space and restrict design options. I recommend that any reviews look at European experience and that from the US. Indeed, some American providers of care homes are now operating in this country and bringing with them a knowledge of sprinkler systems from which all of us can learn.

Perhaps I may list some of the questions which the review of the building regulations envisaged by this Bill would need to address. On capital cost, we need to know how much a new system will cost to install, but we also will need to know how much is likely to be saved on an average basis as a result of the installation. If each fire costs less because there is less damage, quite apart from the saving of lives, that advantage means we need to know what savings will result. If there is a net additional cost to the provision of the new homes, we have to ask whether this is affordable at a time when we are trying to invest more in other ways in new housing—namely, in the sustainability of new homes and moving up to the levels of the code for sustainable homes—and in investment in accessibility of new housing to achieve full lifetime home standards, meaning that all homes are spacious enough and well planned enough to accommodate all mobility problems that any of us may encounter in our lifetimes. Will something else have to give if we add expenditure on sprinkler systems to the capital costs of each new home?

The Hanover housing association and all housing associations, not least because we are very worried by the cuts announced earlier this week, are having to look at the capital costs of everything that we do with the utmost care. We are trying to trim any possible frills in anything that we build and we would need to be convinced that the cost benefits are really there before adding any extra burden to the total expenditure.

Leading on from that, there will be ongoing costs. What will these be in terms of maintaining the system? For example, there may be repairs if pipes burst, perhaps because they always have to be kept filled during the winter months, and regular checking and servicing of the system to see that it works. There also may be offsetting costs. For example, will insurance companies reduce premiums because fire claims are likely to be fewer and smaller? But if there are net costs—I gather that the estimate for servicing the systems will work out at around £150 per annum or £3 per week—will this be welcomed by the occupiers who have to pay? Does research with consumers and residents suggest that they would see this as a priority for extra spending?

At Hanover housing association we are having to increase service charges in many of our schemes because help from the Supporting People grants has become tighter. Residents never like to pay more. While £3 per week could well be worth paying, before adding it to the rising costs facing tenants we would need to get buy-in from those residents since they will be paying the bills. This is not the place to express my anxieties about the future for housing benefit, but it is possible that the support for tenants’ rents will be reduced in the future. If so, adding any additional burden might be impossible.

The noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, in the earlier debates pointed out that expenditure here would not reach any existing homes. Some 85 per cent of existing stock will still be with us in 2050. One has to ask whether the same amount of investment going into a relatively small number of new homes might not do more good if it were to be spread among the most hazardous buildings and existing accommodation where fire hazards may be greater. There will be opportunity costs involved here.

In talking to colleagues, questions have been raised about behavioural aspects of this issue and how people may react to the introduction of sprinkler systems. For example, at present, if a smoke alarm is triggered in a development of apartments for older people, the advice for all those adjacent to the fire is to stay put. The doors of the flats will hold back the spread of fire until help arrives. It is not a good idea for older people to pour out of their flats and try to get out of the building. Will the presence of sprinklers, whether they go off or whether residents believe that they will go off, lead to more people trying to get out of their flats when a fire alarm sounds? Could that lead to more accidents and harm than the current system? Could our own forgetfulness and occasional ineptitude mean that sprinklers could cause as much damage as they prevent—for example, when the toast is badly burnt and smoke fills the kitchen? Will residents worry about false alarms and systems soaking their flats for no good reason? These are some of the points that I hope a major review could investigate.

I support the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, in pressing the case for this review. I certainly pledge the expertise of my organisation, Hanover, with its excellent architectural advisers such as Sidell Gibson and PRP—as well as, I am sure, the input of the very articulate and well informed residents in our retirement housing—to assist in any way we can. I wish the Bill well.