Building Safety Act 2022 (Consequential Amendments etc.) Regulations 2023

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Tuesday 20th June 2023 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)]

My Lords, these regulations will make technical but important changes to the language used in existing legislation, bringing it into line with the new terminology and processes introduced by the Building Safety Act 2022.

I will start by providing some context for these 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 identified the need for significant cultural and regulatory change, including recommendations focused on the building control process.

Part of the Government’s response to these building control recommendations included the introduction of provisions in Section 33 of the Building Safety Act that repeal Section 16 of the Building Act 1984. The Government consulted on these provisions, and they were subject to pre-legislative scrutiny ahead of formal consideration of the Building Safety Act.

Section 16 made provision for the deposit of plans with local authorities before starting building work, as well as the passing or rejection of the plans. The information provided to building control was not always consistent, nor always sufficiently detailed for the work to be carried out.

Section 33 of the Building Safety Act, which has yet to be enacted, repeals Section 16 and provides instead for a new system of applications for building control approval. For higher-risk buildings, this means a more stringent system, with the building safety regulator the sole building control body. Applicants cannot proceed with work without explicit approval from the building safety regulator.

For non-higher-risk buildings, there is no significant change from the existing procedure. Local authorities and approved inspectors will remain responsible for supervising this work, and work can begin before approval is granted. Applicants do so at risk of having to uncover or change work and could face enforcement action. In addition, provisions in the Building Safety Act largely transfer procedures for appeals under the Building Act from the magistrates’ court to the specialist First-tier Tribunal.

The purpose of these regulations is to align the Highways Act 1980, the Clean Air Act 1993 and 13 local Acts with the terminology and processes that will be established when Section 33 of the Building Safety Act is enacted. Provisions in the Highways Act that relate to the payment of charges for street works when building control plans are deposited are amended to refer to new systems of applications for building control approval. Section 16 of the Clean Air Act is also amended. This section requires local authorities to check the height of proposed chimneys to ensure that they are tall enough to prevent smoke and particulates becoming prejudicial to health. It is amended to replace references to the deposit of plans with provisions that refer to applications for building control approval.

Similarly, 13 local Acts are also amended to replace definitions of the deposit of plans with provisions that instead refer to the new system of applications for building control approval. Further references to the deposit of plans in these acts are also updated to reflect the new terminology. Of the local Acts, 11 contain provisions relating to appeals to the magistrates’ courts. To align these Acts with the new procedure for appeals, the provisions are amended to direct appeals to the First-tier Tribunal. The instrument also contains a transitional provision providing that consequential amendments do not apply to plans for building work deposited before the date on which the regulations come into force.

I wish to reassure noble Lords that they will have the opportunity to scrutinise the specific requirements of the new system of applications for building control approval. These requirements were subject to consultation in 2022 and will be set out in a number of statutory instruments that amend the Building Regulations 2010 and provide for new building control procedures et cetera for higher-risk buildings. The Government will lay these instruments in the coming months.

The Government intend to bring both these consequential amendments regulations and the regulations that create the new building control system into force in the autumn. Without these consequential changes, the provisions of the Highways Act, the Clean Air Act and the 13 local Acts will cease to operate as they do now, as they will no longer have meaning once Section 33 of the Building Safety Act is brought into force. I hope that noble Lords will join me in supporting the draft regulations. I commend them to the Committee.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to comment on this statutory instrument and thank the Minister for the introduction she has given to it. It goes in partnership with Section 32, which is not yet in force. She has rightly drawn attention to the fact that it does not cover the question of the actual application process, which is going to be dealt with later. So it is rather a small cog in a very big machine to make sure that the system works effectively.

I do not propose to spend a lot of time commenting on the local building Acts, with which I once used to wrestle in a professional capacity. I am sure that rationalising those makes a great deal of sense, regardless of the building safety and high-rise issues driving this change.

I note the frequent references to the building safety regulator in what the Minister put to the Committee a few moments ago. I share her view that the regulator is an absolutely fundamental part of the new machinery and, clearly, will be pivotal to making sure that, ultimately, the machine moves and works. The Minister will know that I have already expressed my concern about proposed amendments that the Government have brought forward in the levelling-up Bill to potentially change who the regulator is, perhaps on a timescale that could very likely interact with the implementation of Section 32 and the bringing into force of a new application process. What consideration has the department given to the potential for this process and the very tightly drawn and carefully designed machinery, of which this is a small part, to continue to function—or, rather, begin to function—smoothly and without effort or distortion when the new system comes into play, as outlined in the levelling-up Bill amendments by the Government?

That is a matter that we will obviously return to at the Report stage of consideration of that Bill—I do not want to enter that debate now—but I hope the Minister will give us what reassurance she can that the machine of which this is a small cog is intended to continue working seamlessly in the event that the Government proceed with completely reshaping the building safety regulator sometime in the next two years.