Domestic Premises (Electrical Safety Certificate) Bill [HL]

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th July 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Foster of Bath]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, the Bill is a useful prelude to the following Healthy Homes Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, which I fully support. In recent months—not least through amendments to the then Building Safety Bill—I have sought to introduce measures to improve electrical safety in our homes. I am grateful for the support I have received from Electrical Safety First and, especially, Mr Ron Bailey.

The tragic Grenfell Tower fire was started by a faulty electrical appliance. Sadly, there are many other examples of fires started in this way, which lead to loss of life and damage to property and have significant financial consequences. As well as faulty appliances, numerous fires are caused by faulty electrical installations in our homes, with similar results. Electrical Safety First estimates, using Home Office data, that over the last five years approximately five fires a day in England and one fire a day in Wales have been caused by faulty electrical installations. In total, that is six fires a day and well over 2,000 fires every year caused by faulty electrical installations—some with severe, and at times fatal, consequences for the occupants.

I am pleased that action is already being taken. Dwellings in the private rented sector in England are already required to have their electrical installations checked every five years. During the passage of the Building Safety Bill, I proposed that the same should apply in the social rented sector. After a slight hesitation, the Government agreed and the requirement for five-yearly checks in socially rented properties forms part of the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill currently before Parliament. Action is being taken in Wales too; from December, similar electrical installation checks will be required for all rented homes.

This leaves the owner-occupied sector, where nothing is currently planned despite it being the largest form of tenure and the one in which the largest number of vulnerable people live—those aged 65 and over, who are most susceptible to electrical risk. Overall, 17 million households in England and Wales are living in properties whose electrical installations are subject to no existing or planned mandated periodic checks. That is where this Bill fits. It is intended to fill this regulatory gap. However, certainly at this stage, it appears unrealistic to introduce measures to require five-yearly checks. Unlike in the rented sectors, they would be very difficult to enforce. Instead, the Bill has an easily enforceable approach centred on the time when a property changes ownership.

As covered in Clause 1, the Bill requires the provision of an electrical installation condition report or an electrical installation certificate at the point of sale by the seller or, if deceased, someone acting on their behalf—rather like the seller currently has to provide an energy performance certificate at the point of sale. An agent selling the property would then have to ensure that there is an EICR just as they have to ensure that there is an EPC. Clause 2 specifies exemptions to that requirement: where properties are being sold for demolition or where they have been rewired in the last six months. Clause 3 defines the terms used in the Bill and Clause 4 enables the Secretary of State to make the necessary regulations applying to England and Wales, subject to the power of the Welsh Parliament to nullify those regulations regarding Wales.

The Bill’s provisions have widespread support from, among others, Electrical Safety First, organisations that oversee and regulate domestic electrical work, and the Electrical Safety Roundtable, whose numerous participants range from the Local Authority Building Council and the London Fire Brigade to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and estate agents such as Savills. Many owner-occupiers also want stronger measures in this area. A March 2022 survey by YouGov for Electrical Safety First found that over two-thirds of homeowners in England and Wales stated that they would strongly support being required to complete regular electrical safety checks on their electrical installations.

The Government should also welcome the Bill. As the Minister considers how he will respond, he may wish to reflect that, in the year ending September 2021, there were 954,000 house sales in England and 48,000 in Wales. If this legislation had already been enacted, we could have ensured that an extra million properties were electrically safe. Significantly, it would also help the Government honour a very clear commitment. Following the Grenfell Tower tragedy, Dame Judith Hackitt called for a complete overhaul of aspects of the building regulation regime. Lots has already happened or is in progress; the former Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, said that some of these measures were

“unapologetically ambitious, creating a world-class building safety regulatory regime that holds all to the same high standard.”—[Official Report, 2/2/22; col. 916.]

If all housing tenures—privately rented, socially rented and owner-occupied—are to be at the same high standard of electrical safety, this simple and widely supported Bill provides the missing bit of the jigsaw. I hope it will have the Minister’s and the Government’s support. I look forward to his response and beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken and thank the vast majority of them for their support. I say to the son of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that he has raised some very interesting issues which I hope we can at least look at in more detail in Committee, if we can get that far.

My noble friend Lady Brinton drew attention, as did I, to the problems caused by faulty electrical appliances. As I said, more work needs to be done on that, not least on electrical appliances bought online, to which the level of security that applies to appliances bought on our high streets does not apply. However, I am grateful for her support, as I am for that of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, my noble friend Lord Shipley and the noble Lord, Khan, on the Opposition Front Bench.

I am grateful that the Minister repeated a lot of what I said at the beginning of my speech, saying what the Government have done and what they plan to do. As he said, the Government have moved quite some way. I too said that, and I applaud the Government for the work they have done and the work being planned.

However, the Minister suggested that the Government would support this Bill only if it was “proportionate, necessary and not overburdensome.” I went out of my way to say that it is proportionate, because I do not propose to introduce five-yearly checks but to do it at the simple point of sale of an individual property. On whether it is necessary, I have already given the statistics, backed up by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, who drew attention to the way in which this will not only save a vast amount of money but, much more importantly, save lives. That is one of the key reasons why it is so important. It is certainly not overburdensome. If it is so overburdensome to require some form of certification for something or other at the point of sale of a property, why have the Government introduced that very approach by the requirement of an energy performance certificate at the point of sale? I have sought to mirror what the Government have already done in respect of energy efficiency of properties in relation to the security of energy installations.

The Minister suggested that some measures were taking place in respect of owner-occupied premises, and he is absolutely right. But I say gently to him that that applies only to those in high-rise premises, which is not the vast majority of the 17 million owner-occupied properties in this country. That remains a huge gap in the current regulatory regime. He talked about his concern about this being overburdensome. The cost of the checks I am proposing would be between £150 and £250. As a proportion of the cost of selling a property, that is a very small amount indeed.

Nevertheless, I hear what the Minister says. I hope that he will agree with at least some of the representative organisations which are supporting the Bill, including those that would be responsible for providing it, the fire services and homeowner organisations. I hope that the rest of the House will be prepared to support the Bill. I commend it to the House.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.