Fire Safety Bill

Lord Shipley Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 1st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. He said that we needed to see the totality of what the Government are proposing, and also to listen to residents. In both respects, I entirely agree with him. I should declare that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. May I also add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Herbert of South Downs, on his excellent maiden speech? We look forward to hearing more of his contributions in the months ahead.

I support this Bill. It brings extra clarity to defining who is responsible for managing the reduction of fire risk for residential buildings in multi-occupation. The proposed clarification of the scope of the 2005 fire safety order is to be welcomed, as it will clearly include building structures, external walls and common areas. I strongly welcome, too, the wish to address problems caused by less resistant entrance doors on some residents’ flats. The proposals in the Bill are measured and proportionate, and while we may wish to examine in Committee issues debated in the House of Commons that were not progressed, it is my view that the Bill should pass.

My noble friend Lord Stunell raised a number of important issues, particularly in relation to the rights of tenants and occupiers of flats in high-rise blocks to be listened to. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, made the same point a moment ago. My noble friend also talked about the financial burden faced by many leaseholders through no fault of their own.

As my noble friend also said, this Bill has to be seen in the context of the forthcoming building safety Bill. And may I say that I think it will prove beneficial to have placed that draft Bill into pre-legislative scrutiny? These two Bills are related. Both seek to address systemic deficiencies identified after the appalling Grenfell Tower fire, and to prevent such a tragic ever happening again.

The revelations that we have heard from the inquiry hearings are worrying. They have shown that cost cutting has been too dominant a consideration in building construction of high-rise blocks, and that there have been major failures in the testing of materials and in the enforcement of fire regulations. This Bill is a start in addressing that deficiency. In all respects, public safety and the minimisation of risk must come first.

So the aims of the Bill are very important. But is the Minister confident about delivery? Once this Bill and the building safety Bill are in place, will local government and the fire services have sufficient powers to make this Bill effective? Has there been confirmation of this from organisations affected? I am concerned about, for example, entrance doors in tower blocks. How will responsible persons have enough power to ensure that individual flats owned by leaseholders have adequate fire safety protections, given that their doors join common areas?

Responsible persons are rightly required to review their fire risk assessments, and in buildings with no cladding there is likely to be sufficient professional capacity to assist in undertaking those reviews. But how are responsible persons to get the expert resource necessary to update the fire risk assessments of all buildings that do have external wall cladding systems? Are there enough qualified people to do the job? If not, what are the plans to increase training and, following that, numbers of staff?

I hope that the building safety Bill will be properly integrated with the amended fire safety order, to establish a building safety system that is easy to understand and easy to implement. Doubt about responsibilities must be avoided. For example, it has been suggested that there are differences between the fire safety order’s concept of a responsible person and the proposals for an accountable person and a building safety manager contained in the Government’s response to the Building a Safer Future consultation response. Will the Minister confirm that such differences in interpretation will be avoided, and that clarity will be paramount in the Bill and in regulations?

Since the Grenfell fire, the Government have allocated money to alleviate some of the critical problems related to ACM and other cladding, and they created a building safety fund worth £1 billion in June this year. Despite this, overall spending is low and there is confusion over entitlements. In addition, many owners of flats can face a lengthy wait to sell properties, because surveyors need to get evidence required by mortgage lenders on the construction of their flats, on whether there is external cladding, and on whether there is an external wall survey—which often may not exist.

The situation is not helped by the sheer amount of work to be done, and by the complexity of the responsibility chain, with so many different organisations and tenures involved across the public, voluntary and private sectors. I hope that the Minister understands the urgency of resolving this problem.

I have one final point, which my noble friend Lord Stunell also talked about. I have raised before the issue of whether there should be a public register of fire risk assessments. There is a very strong case for having one, and I raise the issue again, in the hope that the Minister might take a further look at it.