Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Lords Chamber

Finally, sadly, in the Commons this went down a cul-de-sac of the sort I described when I started speaking. This issue deserves a much wider debate and I am very pleased to hear that the Opposition will also try to divide on this at a later stage. I beg to move.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 22, spoken to by my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark, is on electrical safety in homes, a very important issue. Whereas on previous amendments, I have simply followed the debate and intervened during it, on this occasion I want to use more copious notes to deal with the issue. It just so happens that my son, Markus, a contracts manager for an electrical contracting company in the London area, is somewhat of an expert in this field. I asked him for a background note on the developing need for this particular reform and this is what he told me, in some detail. When he joined the industry in 2003,

“the market for electricians was polarised. Many larger contractors were signed up to self-regulation schemes like the NICEIC but often smaller contractors saw no benefit in doing so. Business customers often worked under strict procurement rules or had insurance companies insisting that NICEIC registered contractors were used. But the average landlord had little compelling them to do so. Landlords asking industry representatives what they must do to comply with the law were not given a simple answer. Contractors would explain that the Wiring Regulations were a non-statutory document, but that in the event of legal action they could be used to show that electrical works had been completed to a recognised standard. In other words you could ignore them if you could handle the risk.

There were also no rules saying when you should use a NICEIC-registered contractor. Contractors could explain that NICEIC regularly accessed the system, checked qualifications, provided technical support and advice and, importantly, helped customers who felt works were below standard. As reassuring as that should be, many customers would still choose not registered contractors. They were simply cheaper. There was little stopping a landlord employing anybody, qualified or not, registered or not, familiar with the regulations or not, cowboy or not. It was just a question of risk”.

So, in 2005, the Government introduced Part P of the Building Regulations—a very important development. The wiring regs, BS7671, while still a non-statutory document, are now referenced within those building regs. This means that some higher-risk works within domestic properties have to be completed to this recognised legal standard. Contractors now have two options. They can notify building control of works to be carried out or join a government-accredited domestic installer scheme. These schemes allow contractors to self-certify their work and provide retrospective notice to Building Control.

When Part P was initially introduced, it was simple for some companies to upgrade to domestic installer status. However, many self-employed electricians and small contractors found that they could not practically carry out work within domestic properties without breaking the law. So, many of them applied to domestic installer scheme providers to become registered. Assessors visited their premises to see their work. Electricians who had not updated their qualifications in years needed to prove that they knew the regulations. Contractors who had never issued certificates for their work were now asked to produce them and justify their contents. Contractors were asked to show examples of their work, calibration certificates and to demonstrate how to use test equipment. Ofsted had arrived and it wanted to know that the kids who were in training were safe.

Consumer expectations also changed after Part P. The legal responsibility was now far clearer. A decade later, the number of registered contractors has more than doubled. Many contractors are proud of their achievements, with the introduction of higher working standards. Many completed courses, such as the City & Guilds 2394 and 2395, which teach how to test installations for electrical safety. Both exams are more technical and beyond memorising of regulations. They require a technical understanding of safe electrical installation methods that underpin the regulations. The courses are a challenging process, particularly for trainee electricians, many of whom have only just left school at the age of 16. Some companies now exclusively advertise for engineers with a deeper understanding of the regulations. As many engineers working for larger firms are lone workers, these skills are useful for management to ensure and monitor the quality of work.

That is the background. If Amendment 22 is adopted, the industry would require appropriately trained electricians to carry out fixed electrical wiring tests, and demand for electricians who have completed City & Guilds 2394 and 2395 will inevitably increase. The adoption of my noble friend’s amendment would lead to a major upskilling in the training of electricians, in the same way that happened after the introduction of Part P in 2005, when many contractors were forced to upskill in order to legally work with domestic properties. Amendment 22 takes advantage of the huge increase in Part P-registered contractors seen over the past decade by using the existing method of notification to Building Control.

Ten years ago the industry thought this notification process would be burdensome, but online submissions have proved to be quick and easier than expected. Most contractors have moved away from handwritten certificates to online and mobile device-based software, with app store support where required. A typical test on a domestic property can take between two and four hours to complete, and the electrician can leave the site with an electronic document ready for the client. The market for tests and inspections is very competitive, with companies advertising flat rates for the work. These rates vary across the country and comparisons with property values probably provide a good insight into the variance.

The statistics on deaths due to electrical faults and electrical fires speak for themselves. The Committee has an obvious opportunity tonight to tackle this, but it must not underestimate the general lifting of standards that a step such as Amendment 22 can bring. The Wiring Regulations are complicated for many and, given a chance, even experienced contractors will neglect them at times. Introducing compulsory testing will give the Wiring Regulations the further gravitas they deserve.

If anyone in the Chamber is worried about the cost of inspections, which I understand was the position the Government took when the matter was dealt with in the Commons, they should think about this frequent scenario. An electrician recently attended an emergency job. A tenanted flat had lost its power. A loose connection in the fuse-box arced and caused heat damage to the surrounding components. The unit installed was relatively new and the risks to the tenant were minimal, but had the installation been tested recently, the issue could have been identified before it occurred and the landlord could have saved a lot of money—the cost of an emergency callout and a new distribution board.

Testing is not just about finding faults; it is a method of maintaining an installation and preventing major issues from occurring, which can be very expensive to deal with. They teach 16 year-old kids this at colleges in London. In fact, if anyone in the Chamber was to ask me—a mere mortal in these matters—my advice on the electrics in their own home, the first thing I would ask is, “When was it last tested?”.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, tabled Amendment 22 —the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, beat me to getting her name on it. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, this amendment is supported by a very wide range of organisations. That includes the Local Government Association, so I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA.

We have just heard a very well-informed and powerful speech from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. I am sure he is extremely grateful to his researcher—his son, as he says—who gave him that information. Indeed, he makes a powerful case. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, spoke fully and very well on the information supplied, particularly by Electrical Safety First. I have the same information but will not repeat it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and my noble friend Lord Judd have set out in graphic detail the nature of the problem. I want to say a few words on one of the tangential benefits of this annual report being produced. I suspect that the Minister will say at the Dispatch Box, “No way; you’re not going to have your annual report”. I presume that the Minister’s notes will contain the instruction “resist the amendment and say no”. But there is another benefit of all this that Ministers might wish to take into account. With all this talk about buy to let, people throughout the country are being led into a world where they believe that quick profits are to be made out of rental income. However, a lot of people are deluding themselves. As I said before, a lot of these buy-to-let tenancies have been let as a result of pressure from television programmes, friends at dinner parties or whatever. A lot of buy-to-let tenants are in arrears and are suffering.

I am sure many noble Lords will know of people who are in arrears. I know of two properties where people moved in only recently and received notice letters directed to the previous tenants. In both cases, the tenants were being referred to the courts for being in debt. There is a huge booming problem out there of rising debt arising out of rent arrears. This measure is one way of indicating to the world that there really is a problem. So this is not just about health in the way set out in the amendment; it is about providing a way of indicating that in the real world there are problems to do with arrears that people who are led mistakenly into this market have to recognise before they take foolish decisions which they can ill afford.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)]

My Lords, I also support this amendment. Earlier today we finished Third Reading of the Welfare Reform and Work Bill. I wonder whether the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has talked to the noble Lord, Lord Freud, about the interlocking of this amendment with one of the issues that we were discussing on the Welfare Reform and Work Bill. I rather suspect that it may not have happened because of one of the two defeats of the Government on the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, as opposed to very welcome movements they made towards a common consensual ground around this House, which we very much appreciated, as, indeed, we did on kinship care, guardians, carers and so on. However, one of the two issues on which the Government were defeated fairly early on in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill was child poverty indicators. As the Minister may or may not know, the previous Labour Government had four poverty indicators: absolute poverty, relative poverty, persistent poverty and material deprivation. The Government proposed to replace this with indicators of life chances from the DWP. It is perfectly proper to track those life chances but we argued that that must include poverty as well.

I remind the Minister that the Government’s agenda on poverty was debated on the Welfare Reform and Work Bill. The Government wanted to assess life-chance risks, which would include a parent being unable to work, addiction and mental health problems, being unqualified, being without work and being unemployed. The other one was unmanageable personal debt, which was classified as being behind on rent, or needing alternative payment arrangements in universal credit. We know that both these things are happening. We know therefore that the Government recognise, or believe—I think, possibly, falsely—that this is a driver of poverty and not just a consequence of it. If the Government believe that it is a driver of poverty, they need to know what is happening if they are to know as a Government at what point they intervene and what levers to press to address it. Therefore, we need this information. The problem for all Governments, including my own, is that we tend to do the things that are easy. We do things we can count, not the things we need to assess. For example, you know, if you are doing key performance indicators in any measurement, that if you put in, “The telephone has to be answered in fewer than eight rings”, people will do that because it is easy. You count it and you can put the numbers in and you will get your 90% performance target. If you suggest something such as assessing what is happening to health and well-being, they will not touch it, because it is qualitative and therefore regarded as less real, being less quantifiable than telephone rings.

The DWP, in a parallel development, is seeking to address the issue of unmanageable personal debt as a driver of poverty. If there are implications for mental health and well-being, as this amendment suggests, it will be crucial for DCLG to investigate what is happening in this area, which is not about housing benefit but about housing policy, including rent arrears and all the other issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has raised tonight. I hope the Minister takes this very seriously, because if she does not, the two government departments will be pulling in diametrically opposed directions. I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, would not wish that to happen.