Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) (No. 2) Bill

Lord Stunell Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 18th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the non-domestic rating Bill is a simple Bill but it has some important ramifications that I want the Minister to clarify in this debate.

The first point I want to explore is how the Government intend to compensate local authorities for the income lost through the current Covid-19 emergency rates rebates, particularly for retail premises. As the Minister himself said, that has cost around £10 billion in this financial year, and it is at least a possibility that there will be some extension of that rebate system into the next year. My first question to the Minister is therefore: who is carrying the burden of that shortfall? Are the Chancellor and the Treasury making up the missing income so that local authorities do not lose out on the redistribution, or is the payout to the fund being cut and the damage borne by local authorities? The Minister may feel that that is outside the scope of the Bill, but that matter is very relevant to the point I shall explore in just a minute or two.

The Bill is the end product of a yo-yo policy-making process by the Government. Plan A was to reduce the review periods to every three years with a review date in 2022. That was changed to an intention to bring the review forward to 2021, to tackle the increasing evidence that outdated valuations were producing more and more unfair burdens for some—especially high-street retailers—and unearned tax holidays for others, especially distribution centres and out-of-town warehouses.

However, we now have a Bill that is to be effective from 2023, which is one year later than the original plan A and two years later than plan B. The Bill, plan C, avoids carrying out revaluation surveys until the Covid-19 pandemic is over—we sincerely hope. That makes sense in the current circumstances; it is not an issue for me at least. But the crucial point that remains is for how long hard-pressed retailers will be left paying exorbitant rates for rapidly depreciating high-street locations. How soon will they get the relief they so desperately need? One unintended result of the switch from plan B to plan C could be that that relief will be delayed by up to two years—a point the noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan, made eloquently.

One key to this may be the antecedent valuation date, or AVD. That is the baseline date from which assessing the rental values will be made. I am indebted to the Association of Convenience Stores for its briefing on that topic. The first part of the briefing welcomes a proposed AVD of 1 April this year because the ACS believes that would allow full account to be taken of the steep decline in retail values and would give its members smaller rates bills to pay. The second part makes a case for the urgent extension of the rates relief scheme into the coming year because of the continuing impact of Covid-19 on its businesses. Indeed, it says in its evidence that four out of 10 of its members would have gone out of business without that support this year, so it has been absolutely critical.

The Bill is running two years later than the Government originally intended. There must not be a two-year delay in bringing the benefits of an updated valuation to the retail sector, which has been left on its knees, not just by Covid-19 but by underlying trends in retail purchasing that were already in train but have been hugely accelerated as a result of it.

If the revaluation is done this year and comes into force only in 2023—and, even worse, if there is any kind of a transition period that delays any benefits to it—the retail industry, already struggling desperately, will be left high and dry between the end of the Chancellor’s scheme and their incoming reduced rates bills. That brings me back to the working of the current retail rate relief system. If the Chancellor has acknowledged the acute pressures facing retail businesses by granting them business rates relief, and if he pays heed to what the Association of Convenience Stores and many others have had to say about extending that scheme, surely there has to be some joined-up thinking across government departments. It cannot make any sense for there to be a critical gap of two years, possibly more, between the end of the Chancellor’s scheme and the delayed implementation of the rates revaluation, given that that review is to be based on an AVD of 1 April this year.

Can the Minister confirm that the AVD will indeed be on 1 April and that he will strongly resist any idea of phasing in the reliefs granted by the revaluation beyond 2023, which would delay the benefit to the retail sector even further? Will he explore any available options for implementing at least some parts of the revaluation at an earlier date than April 2023 so that their full impact will immediately be available sooner, to the retail sector in particular? The public lavatories Bill has a backdated provision granting retrospective tax relief from 2020, so the concept will not be unfamiliar to him. Will he consider introducing a similar provision for the retail rebates in this Bill as well?

Finally, if an early start is not an option, will he work with the Chancellor to provide appropriate transitional support to that sector between the end of the Chancellor’s scheme—that is, the current support package—and the new valuations taking effect? It would be folly for what is now a two-year delay in the original timetable proposed by the Government, which would lead to a near-fatal blow to our high streets—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I remind the noble Lord of the advisory speaking limit.

Fire Safety Bill

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, Amendment 8 in my name seeks to make progress in respect of the recommendations of the first phase of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. I intend to test the opinion of the House on this amendment.

It is disappointing that progress has been so slow, in all matters, following the tragedy at Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. That is a matter of huge regret and, quite frankly, unacceptable. I have stood at this Dispatch Box for years urging the Government to move forward on all aspects of the tragedy with greater speed and urgency, but that plea has so far not been answered. We have on record pledges from Ministers to implement the full recommendations in the report of the first phase of the inquiry, but this Bill does not include provision for any of those recommendations to be implemented. That is most regrettable.

When this Bill was before the other place the Government did not take the opportunity to correct this, and opposed bringing it forward. Instead, they said that they would launch a consultation. The consultation was launched in July and ended last month—a full year after they pledged to implement the first phase recommendations. That highlights the problem: we are not moving quickly enough. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, will explain to the House why the timescale that the Government are working to is so slow. People have waited far too long for legislative action.

I do not understand why the Government are not even prepared to include in the Bill the simplest of the inquiry’s recommendations, such as the inspection of fire doors and the testing of lifts. Perhaps the Minister will tell us why when he responds to the debate. These recommendations need to be implemented urgently. The Government need to do more and act with greater speed.

We remember that terrible night of 14 June 2017, with its dreadful loss of life and the ruin and devastation caused to the lives of those left behind. The physical scars may have healed, but the mental scars remain. It is beyond belief that, more than three years later, we have seen so little action.

This is the third piece of legislation from the Government. Today, people are still living in blocks of flats covered with ACM cladding; there are schools, hospitals and other buildings covered in it as well. Three years after the Grenfell Tower disaster, people will go to bed tonight having to rely on a waking watch. The cladding scandal has people trapped in their homes, unable to sell them and with the unimaginable worry that they are living in buildings which are potential death traps.

We ask the Government to take the long-overdue action to which they have committed themselves. It is urgent, necessary and right. Everyone concerned demands that these safety changes are put into effect. There is no justification for delay. The Government have given no reason for not acting immediately. They say that they want to do it not in this Bill but in the building safety Bill. That is just not acceptable, and I hope that the House will reject it. I beg to move.

[Lord Stunell (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I strongly support the eloquent plea made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, that we should get on with what everybody knows needs to be done. No one is apparently objecting to it, but the Government have not yet acted. The sense of impatience in your Lordships’ House is much more strongly felt by those who live in blocks affected by ACM and by all the terrible flaws in building construction revealed during the Grenfell inquiry and in Dame Judith Hackitt’s responses.

Amendment 8 systematically lists some of the key requirements that Dame Judith’s report strongly commended and recommended be done. The Government came to your Lordships’ House—not once, not twice, but at three-monthly intervals, for two years—promising that everything would be implemented and that this was a high priority. I am afraid to say that opportunities have been missed. The draft building safety Bill is silent on these issues, so it is not simply a case of saying that it will come up there: it does not. The opportunity has also been missed to include it in this Bill.

Among the recommendations is the inspection of individual flat entrance doors. We all know that tenants and leaseholders have individual views about personalising their accommodation. Not surprisingly, many flat doors do not comply. A survey in July showed that, of the roughly 750,000 fire doors in buildings of this type, perhaps as many as three-quarters needed some action to make them compliant. There is a potential risk to the residents in block after block after block. The Government are now resisting Amendment 8, which sensibly includes the core requirements of Dame Judith’s report for making our buildings safe. We have to wonder exactly how sincere the Government are in their frequent, powerfully expressed commitments, which, unfortunately, they do not seem willing to implement.

Just this last week, I have been looking with members of the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service at what needs to be done to satisfy the requirements emerging from the Grenfell inquiry. They told me that they have been inspecting high-rise buildings in Greater Manchester—as you would expect—with considerable diligence. Having reassessed the situation based on their professional knowledge, they have already required a number of those blocks to completely change their evacuation procedures. Surely it is time that these sensible requirements were included in legislation. It should not just be up to particularly diligent fire authorities to make residents safe, but to owners, leaseholders and the building industry.

Here is the opportunity for the Minister to accept the strength of the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. Will he come back at Third Reading and include provisions along these lines? If not, I shall certainly be joining the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in the Lobby at the end of this debate.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, has withdrawn, so I now call the noble Lord, Lord Shipley.

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[The Earl of Lytton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and I thank her for moving her amendment.

On the question of registers, I certainly agree that some list of assessments should be held for regulatory compliance reasons. However, there are likely to be several assessment bodies. Although something like the register of energy performance certificates, referred to by the noble Baroness, might be appropriate, I hope that the basis of assessment does not change every few years, as has happened with EPCs. I also hope that the standard of those accredited will be based on those with a professional standing and a working knowledge of construction. That standard was not adopted with the accreditation of energy inspectors, and I am sure that the noble Baroness would agree with me on that.

Beyond the minimum for regulatory purposes, it would probably be necessary to avoid a register that contained sensitive information. It is fair to say that some of the information that could be in a fire risk assessment might be sensitive. Therefore, it should not just be an online, free-public-access provision—at least, not in its full form.

It is also worth bearing in mind that this will, to a degree, for ever be a work in progress, so the register will not necessarily be accurate and up to date—but of course that is the situation with EPCs. However, somebody would have to maintain it. I think that that could be done only by a central government body, and that would have resource implications.

The really important thing is that occupiers and managers of buildings know that an assessment has been carried out, that it is in date and that occupiers in particular have the right to see it, and that any competent authority may do so as well.

Turning to Amendment 11, on the question of a public register of assessors, it is likely that many bodies will offer accreditation. Again, a central register would have to be held by some public agency if convenient public access was to be a reality. In practice, certifying bodies will themselves hold records of those accredited. I am not entirely convinced that others beyond occupiers, prospective purchasers and relevant public authorities need to have access to the register, and the public knowing that this matter is in hand, with enforcement of the need to carry out assessments, starting with those at greatest risk and progressing through the housing stock, would seem a fair balance.

The issue immediately before us, which has already been touched on, is the assessment of competence and, more particularly, capacity. This cannot be dealt with immediately. Not only does trainer capacity need to be built but issues to do with professional indemnity cover need to be resolved. I have already flagged up a number of these issues with the Minister, particularly the question of accrediting already competent professionals with a knowledge of construction. Therefore, the point was well made by the noble Baroness but there are issues that need to be taken into account.

On Amendment 12, in this group, I would much have preferred the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, in whose name it stands, to speak before me. This concerns one of the shortcoming issues that seem to be common in permitted development rights developments. Shortcomings in terms of living space, amenities, local environment, open green space standards and so on are all too frequent, and the health outcomes for occupants are also often very poor. Some of the buildings subject to conversion to residential have been quite unfit for that purpose. I have inspected some, so I can say that from professional experience. None the less, these projects have been signed off, although I suggest that that does not get owners off the hook on compliance more generally and that all developers who think themselves protected by completion certificates should think carefully about that. There is certainly an issue here.

In the meantime, ensuring fire safety in these permitted development conversions is a matter of top priority, particularly because they happen to house some of the most vulnerable people in society. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Lord Stunell (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 10 and 11, but will speak more fully on Amendment 12, as prefigured by my noble friend Lady Pinnock and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton.

Amendment 10 requires there to be a national published risk register, of which the two key requirements we have set out are that it should be publicly available and up to date. I understand the noble Earl’s concerns that this would always be a work in progress, but fire safety is always a work in progress. If we are talking about annual inspections, keeping a fire risk assessment up to date should come with the job.

If every landlord, designer, building contractor and construction operative always acted in strict compliance with the spirit and letter of every part of the existing regulations, this amendment would be superfluous. In my former professional life, I spent some years supervising building construction work; in case every anecdote about shoddy builders has bypassed your Lordships, I can confirm that such strict compliance is rare. However, one thing I thought sacrosanct was compliance with fire regulations. Even if the brickwork was shoddy and the plumbing a nightmare, at least the fire doors would fit. I now know I was wrong.

The picture emerging with devastating force from the evidence given to the Grenfell Tower inquiry is that at every level, from client and specifier to designer, contractor, subcontractor, and, as it now seems from the evidence this week, even specialist suppliers of critical components, it was not just a case of a few unfortunate errors because of lack of skill or experience but in some cases deliberate efforts to defeat the rules—even safety-critical rules on which many lives depended.

In the months and years since that terrible fire, evidence has been accumulating that this was not a one-off event in a particular building that happened to have a terrible outcome. There now seem to be, right across the country, many hundreds of buildings containing thousands of homes that are not just non-compliant, but pose a real and significant risk of harm to the people who live in them.

None of this would have emerged had the horrific events of that night not brought it very starkly to light. There was no transparency or openness to inquiry but a dismissive casualness in handling the legitimate concerns of those who had worries. In the case of the residents of Grenfell, those who had practical observations of non-compliant building work were completely swept aside. There was certainly no register you could check to show that your home was not a death-trap.

That underlines a significant truth: when those with power and authority find out about bad things and high risks that do not affect them but have a great or even fatal impact on the vulnerable and the weak, their natural reaction is to keep the news to themselves in order to avoid trouble and expense and to hope for the best. We must decisively end the hoarding of bad news on fire safety by the informed and powerful and empower the vulnerable who carry the risks and sometimes pay the ultimate price of life itself.

From now on there will be fire safety assessments. That is a very good thing, but it is essential that those assessments are in the public domain. I take the caveats that the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has rightly made about privacy, security and so on, but the essentials of a fire safety certificate should be available for public inspection. They should be at least as public and accessible as an energy performance certificate from which you can discover how much insulation I have in my loft and I can discover how much the noble Earl has in his. We put up with that because of the greater good; we ought to be ready to put up with the same sort of thing for the far greater good of saving life post Grenfell.

It is unacceptable for landlords and building owners to hoard that assessment to the detriment of those to whom they rent and lease their properties and whose lives are in their hands. Grenfell Tower residents’ legitimate and specific fears about weaknesses they could see with their own eyes were swept away by those in authority. No one knew if any assessment had been made, what it said or what should be done about it, and who should rectify the faults disclosed.

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I have enormous sympathy with the sentiments behind this amendment, but I do not think it works. Liability cannot fall on one person without establishing where else it might fall and what the consequences might be.

[Lord Stunell (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the contributions of my noble friends Lady Pinnock and Lord Shipley and to support this amendment. I hope the Minister will see the strength of the argument and accept the amendment. If not, I regret that I shall also be seeking the opinion of the House on the matter.

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for his—as ever—very thoughtful and constructive contribution. I am sure the Minister is aware that this is a complex and difficult question with many different moving parts, which the noble Earl so eloquently summarised. The one set of people who are not moving are the tenants and leaseholders stuck in flats which they cannot sell. They may be putting themselves at considerable personal as well as financial risk. These tenants, residents and leaseholders have no control over the circumstances in which they find themselves. They played no part in the decision-making—or lack of it—that has left them stranded. They are the vulnerable people whom the mighty, the powerful, the professionals and those with big pockets have left stranded. Our amendment is saying, “Right, let us at least fix this bit of the moving parts—these bits of the equation.”

I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, that there is a much bigger set of problems to be confronted. I hope that the Minister will accept this and will say that the Government are going to launch a wholesale consideration. I suspect that this is of concern far beyond the Home Office. Perhaps some prime ministerial attention can be given to sorting out this difficult and complex area.

The key question is: who will pay for the necessary works? Our amendment is simple and, I hope, clear. The innocent occupiers—the renters and leaseholders of millions of homes across the country—should not be held to ransom by building owners. They should not be forced to pay for making their homes safe, when they should have been safe from the start.

I know that the Government have begun to face up to the excessive costs facing leaseholders. The Minister has a well-tried set of statistics which he will give us again. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, ticked that box for him by recounting them. I know the Minister believes—as I do—that far more remains to be done.

The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, mentioned the construction warranty guarantees. Most of them are turning out to be virtually worthless. At the same time, they are often sold to residents and leaseholders as though they were some kind of guarantee that, if things went wrong, they would be compensated. This is not so. For the moment, at least, they are not delivering. The rush of people disclaiming that their warranty warrants anything is remarkable.

That puts an interesting light on something the Minister said in discussion of the previous group. He said that we did not need registers or government oversight because self-regulation would deal with it. He said that was the way to go and they did not want to increase the regulatory burden on anyone. I know that is the Government’s mantra in general, but one of the few positive things to come out of Grenfell was the tearing up of that whole story—that regulation was for losers—and the understanding that regulation provides a safety net that secures people’s future. This is just another case where self-regulation failed and none of the industrial, insurance and construction sectors stepped up to regulate their own behaviour and safeguard tenants. No case at all, therefore, can be made that tenants and leaseholders should be the ones collecting the bill.

I shall not rehearse any of the hard-luck stories that we are familiar with, but a straightforward case can be made to the Treasury: the longer this issue hangs around, the longer it will take to put all the remedial work in hand. If there are arguments over who pays, it will not be done and, if it is not being done, the risk of another major incident—and all the public money that will be spent on that—looms in the distance. And it is not just that, of course: there are also the long-term costs of health and stress that will be loaded on to the NHS as a result of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of people finding that the home they live in is worthless. I wonder how many bankruptcies there will be. If you are a sole trader and the bank has a guarantee on your home, what is your position when you cannot get an EWS1 form? How does that leave you in terms of business survivability?

Today the Minister has talked about phasing things, going slowly and proportionately, and getting fire tests and so on, but every time that we have looked further than the end of our noses we have discovered that there is more stuff to do—an estimated 750,000 fire doors around the country, just for starters.

I hope, therefore, that the Minister can give millions of leaseholders some words of comfort and support in backing our amendment. If not, I fear that I shall join my noble friends in testing the opinion of the House.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, Amendment 13, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, adds a new clause to the Bill that would prohibit the owner of the building from passing the cost of any remedial work attributable to the requirement of the Act on to leaseholders or tenants, except where the leaseholder is also the owner of the building.

As the noble Baroness has said, these leaseholders have done absolutely nothing wrong. They have actually done everything right: they have bought their property and are paying their mortgage, and they are being penalised for the failure of others. That surely cannot be right. The fact that their building has been given dangerous cladding has made their flats worthless. They cannot sell them but they still need to pay their mortgage. They cannot get the work done. They may be paying for a waking watch.

Fire Safety Bill

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 29th October 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Stunell]

3: Clause 2, page 2, line 10, leave out subsection (5) and insert—
“(5) Before making regulations under subsection (1) the relevant authority must—(a) consult anyone that appears to the relevant authority to be appropriate;(b) carry out an assessment of the impact of the amendment on the required number of fire safety assessors and whether that requirement is met;(c) carry out an assessment of the cost implications of the amendment, and who will be responsible for those costs; and(d) lay before Parliament a report outlining how the requirements in paragraphs (a) to (c) have been met.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is intended to monitor capacity for effective implementation of the Bill, and places additional requirements on the appropriate authority such as an assessment of associated costs and required personnel, before regulations under subsection (1) can be made.

[Lord Stunell (LD) [V]]

[Inaudible.]

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I think that the noble Lord might need to unmute or increase the volume, or perhaps position himself more closely to his microphone.

[Lord Stunell (LD) [V]]

Perhaps the noble Lord can tell me whether the situation has improved. Is he able to hear me?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Yes.

[Lord Stunell (LD) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 3 is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Pinnock. The Bill was of course discussed at Second Reading and is a long-overdue framework Bill, with a potential reach far wider than the high-rise residential blocks at the centre of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. I thank the Minister for the very open-handed way in which he has talked to Members on all sides of your Lordships’ House about the Bill and its intention.

We know that every multi-occupied home is in scope, from terrace houses to high-rise executive duplexes. It will impose significant duties on a scarce group of professionals—fire safety engineers. It will also impose significant duties on building owners of many different levels of professional competence and probity, and potentially it would impose significant costs on the occupiers of homes—renters, leaseholders and owner-occupiers—as commented on in the previous discussion by the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe.

In other discussions today, we shall be looking at the functions and duties in more detail, but the intention behind Amendment 3 is to probe whether the Government have understood nearly clearly enough how much work they have to do before the Bill can become operational.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have received no requests to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Stunell.

[Lord Stunell (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank all those who have participated in the debate for their support for the general idea that we ought to know what we are doing before we do it. I do not think that that is a particularly extreme requirement and I was extremely pleased to hear the Minister indicate that he very much wants to follow that course. I think we have highlighted some of the big-picture issues and some of those we shall come to in the next group of amendments, so I will not rehearse them at this point.

I am pleased that the right atmosphere has been created for us to look really seriously at how this scheme is going to work. It is essential that we do not launch a dud: it has to work, and that means a lot of deliberate thinking has to be done rapidly and we have to deliver a massive skills, development, training and recruitment effort in order to make it happen. That is, perhaps, only one out of three things that are missing at the moment and that need to be done. So, I thank noble Lords, particularly my colleague and noble friend Lady Pinnock for her strong support, and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for some very useful cross-fire. I appreciate that and I look forward to working right across the House to see the Bill developed better—and quickly. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 3 withdrawn.

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[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we come to a substantial group containing Amendments 5, 6, 7 and 9 in my name, and Amendments 15, 16 and 17 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock.

Amendment 5 seeks to make progress in respect of the recommendations of the first phase of the Grenfell Tower inquiry. It is disappointing that progress has been so slow, frankly, on all these matters following the tragedy at Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017, some 40 months ago. We have on record pledges from Ministers to implement in full the recommendations in the report of the first phase of the inquiry, but the Bill before us today does not include any of the provisions or measures called for in the inquiry to be implemented. When the Bill was before the other place, the Government did not take the opportunity afforded to them to correct this. They opposed moving forward and instead said that they would launch a consultation. The consultation was launched in July and ends this month, a full year after they pledged to implement the recommendations of the inquiry.

I hope the Minister can set out for the House the timescale the Government are working to, as people have waited far too long for legislative action. Will he say why the Government are not even prepared to include the simplest of the recommendations the inquiry called for in this Bill—recommendations such as the inspection of fire doors and the testing of lifts? There is an urgent need for these recommendations to be implemented and the Government need to act with much more speed.

Amendment 6 returns to points I made previously today and at Second Reading. The fire safety Order requires regular fire risk assessments in buildings, but there is no legal requirement for those conducting these assessments to have any form of training or accreditation for this work. Although this service can be commissioned from council-run building control services, numerous private providers compete for the work and their numbers have rapidly expanded since the fire at Grenfell Tower. Numerous experts have criticised the poor quality of the work in building control and fire safety. As I have said before, we do not want a race to the bottom, where anybody can set up and say they are an inspector with very little training to do the work.

I want to hear from the Minister today that we will ensure that when fire assessments are done, we will have people who are properly accredited and able to do the work. Although I accept that there are some voluntary accreditation schemes, it is sadly the case that the use of unregistered fire inspectors is commonplace. The lack of training and accreditation in this important area of work is, frankly, unacceptable. The Government should be using this Bill to legislate for higher standards and greater public accountability in fire inspections.

Amendment 7 requires the schedule for inspecting buildings containing two or more sets of domestic premises to be based on a prioritisation of risk. At present, there is no guarantee that the schedule for inspections will be based on any sort of risk analysis rather than an arbitrary distinction between types of buildings. This was raised in the Commons by my honourable friend the Member for Croydon Central, who said that many experts and stakeholders have “significant concerns” over how the Bill would be implemented. She drew attention to reference by the Minister in Committee to:

“The building risk review programme, which will … ensure that local resources are targeted at those buildings most at risk”.—[Official Report, Commons, Fire Safety Bill Committee, 25/6/20; col. 62.]


I agree, but it should also be pointed out that local fire and rescue services know their area well, and know the buildings where there is greatest risk. It should be they who decide the priority list.

Amendment 9 would require the UK Government, for England, and the Welsh Government, for Wales, to specify when a waking watch must be in place for buildings that contain two or more sets of domestic premises and have fire safety failures. There are still major issues around removal of flammable ACM cladding from tower blocks. A significant number of buildings remain covered, more than three years after the Grenfell Tower fire, and other types of dangerous cladding have also been identified and not yet removed from buildings.

I accept that coronavirus caused many contractors to stop work on cladding sites, while others have not even begun work because of legal disputes, including, as I mentioned in a previous debate, disputes over guarantees and insurance payments. These delays mean that residents are in buildings that are unsafe, which cannot be right, or face extortionate fees for removal. Guidance from the National Fire Chiefs Council suggests waking watches should be a temporary measure, yet some residents have been forced to pay for waking watches for years, with some put in place immediately after the fire at Grenfell Tower, more than 40 months ago. They can cost up to £10,000 a week.

Amendments 15, 16 and 17 have considerable merit. I am happy to offer my support to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and will listen carefully to her when she speaks to them. I hope the Minister will give a full response to all the amendments and I beg to move.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 15, 16 and 17, variously in the names of myself and my noble friends Lady Pinnock and Lord Shipley. Again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his helpful remarks and support: as his amendments show, we have similar views.

Our debate on Amendment 3 prefigured many of the matters covered by our three amendments here. Our intention in tabling them is to get into the Bill some of what I expect we will be told by the Minister are the good intentions of the Government in the first place, and to make them real and concrete. This is a new policy area for the Government, and a new direction of travel—more regulation not less. It is both very necessary and very welcome, and we on the Lib Dem Benches are not just willing but eager and keen to help the Government produce the best Bill possible.

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[Lord Stunell (LD) [V]]

I am here. I apologise for not joining the Committee earlier but we had some kind of IT glitch.

I want to look at another important aspect of who the responsible person can or should be. The problem that I want to guard against is the absentee responsible person: the anonymous set of initials from a remote managing agency with a non-responding website and no phone lines, or the international property holder registered in the Cayman Islands or Bermuda. I want to press the Minister to commit to ensuring that every responsible person is a real person, not a company or a corporate body, and that that person has a functioning terrestrial address and a phone number based in the UK—in short, that they can always be held accountable, can be assessed and if necessary trained to deliver their statutory obligations, and has the skill and intention of communicating effectively with residents in the properties for which they take responsibility. We do not want to add absentee responsible persons to all the existing problems of absentee landlords. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the “responsible person” definition has a key duty in this legislation, which is why I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, which seeks to clarify it. I apologise to the Committee that a lack-of-sound issue has meant that I was not able to hear the contributions by the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley or Lord Whitty, or the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, so my remarks are going to be quite basic as a consequence.

I agree with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that it is not just or practical to expect a tenant or leaseholder, unless they are owners or part-owners of the freehold, to fulfil the responsibility of being the so-called responsible person. I agree completely that it is important to have no room for uncertainty as to who is indeed the responsible person.

My noble friend Lord Stunell has just raised the very important issue that the responsible person has to actually be a person, not an entity—someone with an address and a telephone contact within the UK. I cannot imagine how awful it would be if the responsible person were some distant corporation based in the Cayman Islands, a fire arose and there was no obvious route to seeking a practical or legislative remedy for that disaster.

I have heard a little about the importance of water sprinklers and water misting in high-rise blocks, and of course I know that in 2009, Wales introduced a requirement for that. I look forward to learning what others have said about this important issue when I read Hansard, because I understand that it has been a priority of the fire and rescue services for a long time. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, Amendments 10, 11 and 12 in this group are in my name. Amendment 10 requires the Government to consider legislation covering similar matters to those in the Bill that has been enacted by the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive. The Bill covers England and Wales only, since Scotland and Northern Ireland both have separate legislation in place under their legislative competences. The Government should work with the devolved Governments to share best practice and consider which legislation works best, and what should be in place where they alone have legislative competence.

Amendment 11 requires the Government to consider the Bill’s impact on local authority finances. The LGA and local authorities are concerned about the impact of the Bill on their finances, as we have raised in previous debates. An analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, commissioned by the LGA, found that councils in England are facing a funding gap of more than £5 billion by 2024 to maintain services at current levels. This figure could double amid the huge economic and societal uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. This is a serious situation. It is therefore vital that councils are fully compensated for new requirements and burdens resulting from the Bill. As I have said before, the Government too often place extra burdens on local government, without a commensurate level of resources to deliver them. That is certainly not acceptable when looking at something as important as the Fire Safety Bill. It needs to be properly addressed when we consider matters of such importance.

Amendment 13 requires the Government to consider whether there is a skills shortage in the United Kingdom, in relation to the requirements of the Bill. Skills have been discussed in relation to many amendments. The lack of qualified professionals has already been raised today, along with the fear that, to get around it, we will have a race to the bottom, allowing unskilled people, who are not professionals, to undertake the work required of the Bill.

Britain has a skills shortage, particularly in higher technical skills, due to a number of reasons, including cuts to further education. The CBI said that two-thirds of businesses worry that they will not have the skilled posts to fill the work that needs to be done. The Government should make it clear whether they believe there is a sufficient skills base in the UK for the purposes of fire safety. If they do not believe that there is—and that may well be the logical conclusion—they need to set out what they will do to ensure we have the right skills base. I look forward to the Minister answering those points in his response. I beg to move.

[Lord Stunell (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I offer my support to Amendment 12, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, which looks to have a UK-wide, or at least England-wide, skills audit. There is clear evidence, particularly for matters relating to infrastructure, construction and this topic specifically, that there is a serious deficit in skills and training, and in the attractiveness of the industry to new entrants. There are many reasons for that but discussing them would be a different debate.

Clearly, if the Bill is to be a success, not just in its initial moments but in the ensuing years, there needs to be a steady stream of well-trained and fully experienced professionals—not just in the white-collar sense, but professionals who can deliver and install changes to buildings on a very big scale. It matches the parallel demands being placed on the construction industry from the move to improve the energy performance of homes and buildings in general. Again, a massive programme of investment is in train and planned by the Government.

This skills audit is urgently needed. I dare say the Minister will talk about the Construction Leadership Council and the various work being done on that front, but it needs a level of intensity and urgency that cannot be held by just one trade association or government advisory body. It must be a central driving initiative of the Government themselves. Although we all sincerely hope the current economic circumstances will turn and improve dramatically next year, they strongly suggest that there will be opportunities to recruit and upskill people who have to make career changes. The Government can and should seize this moment to make sure upgrading skills and recruiting new entrants is taken as a serious opportunity, consequent upon the passage of the Bill. I strongly support what is set out in Amendment 12.

Fire Safety Bill

Lord Stunell Excerpts

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

[Lord Stunell (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is right that we should remember the 72 victims of the Grenfell fire, their families and neighbours. It is right that we should remember the first responders, the emergency services, the public servants and volunteers, who came forward to help and have been helping in the weeks, months and now years since. We also need to remember the righteous anger and deep frustration of that community as more time has passed and more compelling evidence has come to light about the institutional and corporate failures that caused this fire. We must make sure that it never happens again.

I know the Minister takes this issue deeply seriously and I very much welcome his remarks in introducing this Bill. I know that his predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, did so as well and I look forward to hearing his words in a few minutes’ time. I thank the Minister for reaching out to those on the other side of the House to gain a broad consensus for this Bill and to make sure that the foundations are firmly laid and progress made briskly. We support the Bill, but it is a matter of regret that it has taken 38 months since the fire to bring it to your Lordships’ House. It will be another four months at least before the building safety Bill reaches us.

Meanwhile, that compelling evidence of failure mounts up. I give just two illustrations from the last couple of weeks of Grenfell inquiry evidence. Last week, the project manager of the cladding subcontractor told the inquiry that he had no knowledge of the existence of key product safety regulations relating to the cladding he was installing. Yesterday, the senior building control officer at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea told the inquiry that he had received no training in technical industry guidance and had not considered at all the lessons about the fire risks of cladding systems. The brutal reality is that the only people who noticed what was going on were the residents of Grenfell Tower and they were dismissed as malcontents and trouble- makers. That must never be the case again.

That is the context in which the Minister has brought forward the Fire Safety Bill today. I thank him for setting out so clearly what it is intended to do when it comes into force and for making the point very clearly that it is a start, not the finished product. I thank him too for the letter that he circulated to your Lordships today that sets out other measures that the Government have taken and plan to take.

The Liberal Democrats certainly support the Bill’s intention and will be supporting it in its passage through your Lordships’ House. It plugs some gaps and removes ambiguities and, crucially, it makes a named individual responsible for fire safety reports in every building in England and Wales, regardless of its height. There will be a formal assessment.

This Bill has thoroughly good intentions, which we support, but we should also be quite clear that it would not have stopped the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire. That would require not only this Bill but also the building safety Bill to come into force urgently. It will require a complete change in the culture of building safety from the construction industry, clients and building owners, designers and contractors, national and local regulators and building users too. It is going to require a massive investment in the training of fire engineers and fire assessors and of all those in the industry who, up to the night of the Grenfell fire, had just been winging it and keeping their fingers crossed. At every step of design and procurement and every level of contracting and subcontracting, there have turned out to be fatal gaps in knowledge and skills that must be plugged. The Government have a serious responsibility to enable, facilitate and drive that process relentlessly.

In considering this Bill, I and my colleagues will be urging the Minister not to confine himself simply to the routine task of steering an uncontroversial Bill on to the statute book, but to undertake to put a rocket booster under the process of delivering a complete package of reform. I hope that he will take back to the Government the intense concern from right across your Lordships’ House on all the progress needed to make sure that things happen “at pace”. That catchphrase has been used repeatedly over the last three years from the Dispatch Box and we need to see it happening, not just in the Home Office, where this Bill sits, but also in MHCLG in relation to regulations, in BEIS in relation to the Construction Leadership Council and the work it is doing, and, indeed, in the Department for Education on apprentice training and graduate training to fill some of the gaps in knowledge and manpower.

The reform the whole building regulatory system, the proper staffing and training of qualified personnel to operate that system and the restoration of confidence of local communities caught in the eye of the storm all remain to be done three years after the fire. We take this Bill as some evidence of progress but it is also, to some extent, evidence of delay so I hope the Minister will convey the sense of concern in this House and the anger of local communities right to the very highest level of government, to which, I know, he has good personal access.

I have some questions. Will the Minister undertake to provide your Lordships with a detailed report on the number of fire engineers the Government estimate will be needed to properly deliver the regulatory system set out in the Bill? Can he tell us what estimate he has of the current shortfall and the steps he is putting in place to overcome it? Does the Minister share my fear that the implementation of the Bill will have to be delayed because of that shortfall? Has he taken note of the fall in the number of fire safety officers employed by fire and rescue services in the last 20 years? Does he believe that the current number is sufficient to take on the new duties that the Bill sets out? Perhaps he can say a little more about that. Can he confirm that there is to be a publicly accessible register of all fire assessments?

I know that the Minister will want to honour the often-repeated promise that tenants and residents would be at the heart of the new post-Grenfell regulatory system, with their concerns and their practical experience of day-to-day life in their own home being taken seriously. Does he agree that every one of them should be able to read a copy of the assessment for their block and be told exactly who is responsible for monitoring the risks and delivering the necessary changes? That needs to be a person with actual responsibility, not a distant corporate body registered in the Cayman Islands or an anonymous helpline. We must never again have residents’ legitimate concerns ignored or simply dismissed as troublemaking. We shall certainly want to return to this in Committee.

I am sure the Minister will have read the useful briefing prepared by the LGA, setting out its concerns about some of the practical matters of implementation. It is not at all surprising that, in view of the cuts local authorities have suffered to their income because of Covid-19, they have also raised serious concerns about where the cost of inspection and enforcement is planned to fall. No doubt other noble Lords will expand on that point in the debate.

The Bill is wholly silent on the question of costs and the impact assessment is vague too. The struggle to safeguard leaseholders and tenants who face huge bills directly arising from the replacement of ACM shows just how easily the individuals with no prior knowledge or professional background get left carrying the can, while the contractors and the paid professionals just move on to the next job.

What are the Government’s intentions when it comes to meeting the costs of any remediation that the Bill shows is necessary? Has the Minister any assessment of what those costs are likely to be? How does he intend to safeguard leaseholders against being saddled with yet another huge bill caused, as they might see it, not by them doing something wrong but by a new piece of well-meaning legislation dumped on their heads?

The Minister may feel that these are small details and that we should focus instead on the bigger picture, but I say, as a former Minister, that it is often the small details that trip up and spoil the big picture. Even more to the point, if we look at the big picture, this Bill is not the big picture; it is a small part of a much bigger picture, where reform and challenge is urgently needed to put right past wrongs and prevent future tragedies.

So we do welcome this Bill, but it has to be seen as only a small step in a long journey, one that has taken a long time to get started, where the pace is still too slow and the urgency to bring forward legislation seems to have been somewhat lacking. Those 72 Grenfell residents and their families and neighbours have waited far too long to see justice and to see meaningful change and action. I very much hope that the debate today can put some extra energy back into the campaign to achieve that change.

Housing: Cladding

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I agree that it is unacceptable. That is why I wrote to all owners of buildings where there is no remediation plan currently in place, to let them know that we will look to enforcement action if they do not remediate and get on site by the end of this year.

[Lord Stunell (LD) [V]]

At the Grenfell inquiry yesterday, Mr Bailey of Harley’s, the cladding contractor, said that he had had no training in building regulations, no training in fire protection of buildings and no awareness of the industry guidelines. Day after day we are getting mounting evidence of the catastrophic failure of the industry to deal with this problem. The Minister has an oven-ready Building Safety Bill. Will he please give us the date that it will come in front of your Lordships, so that we can very quickly put in place a far more effective and stringent regulatory regime?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord points to the woeful culture in the construction industry. All I can say is that the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Building Safety Bill has started, and we look to get this through as quickly as possible with the support of Members of this House.

Housing and Construction Sector

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh]

I thank my noble friend for that question. I will take it away and ensure that, where there are breaches in social distancing, we take it up with the appropriate authorities, and I will look specifically at HS2.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

The government guidelines this week are very welcome indeed, but they are silent about the need for Covid testing for construction workers, and they do not say too much about the availability of hygiene and sanitary products either. Can the Minister give an assurance that it is possible for the construction industry to open and function, and to draw down on tests and equipment, without putting at risk the NHS or the care home sector, which is clearly pressing hard on the same issues?

[Lord Greenhalgh]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I will work with ministerial colleagues to provide the appropriate guidance and ensure that there is availability of both personal protective equipment and testing to enable construction work to be carried out safely.

Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Fire and Rescue Functions) (Amendment) Order 2020

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Tuesday 5th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, to the Front Bench and to the House. I congratulate him on making an effective maiden speech in very difficult circumstances. He set out clearly his background and the contribution that he will make. I echo my noble friend Lord Goddard of Stockport in saying that he is joining a strong local government team here, alongside the noble Baroness, Lady Williams. We very much look forward to them defending local government inside the Government—as well as defending the Government in the House, no doubt. I look forward to not a virtual meeting but, in due course, a real meeting.

I thank the Greater Manchester Combined Authority for the briefings that it sent to me—and to other Members, no doubt—which outline some of the circumstances. At first sight, there is no doubt that this is a common-sense, tidying-up operation. It aligns the police and the fire and rescue service across Greater Manchester, which is definitely a good thing. It aims to produce a joined-up senior leadership structure to replace the one that was examined and criticised by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, in his report; it also aims to get a joined-up scrutiny function to go with it. I have no quarrel with that alignment. It will make those forces—the fire and rescue service and the police service—better able to co-ordinate their actions and to respond effectively in the face of major incidents, as they failed to do in the aftermath of the suicide bombing at the Ariana Grande concert.

I want to question the Minister on what might, at first glance, appear to be a minor and trivial part of this not very significant statutory instrument: the silent reduction in the capacity that there will be to scrutinise the fire and rescue service properly as a direct consequence of this statutory instrument. The Explanatory Memorandum tells the truth about the proposed new scrutiny process—of course it does—but it does not tell the whole truth. It says that:

“Provision is also included to give the Police and Crime Panel the authority to scrutinise fire and rescue functions in the Greater Manchester Combined Area.”


It certainly does that. It says what the new scrutiny arrangements will be, but it is silent on what the old scrutiny arrangements have been up to now in the fire and rescue service, and in that silence is the mischief that I want to comment on.

Let me fill in the gap for noble Lords. At present, by law, the fire and rescue scrutiny panel must be chaired by a member in opposition to the mayor’s party. The panel must be balanced in accordance with the pattern of overall elected party representation across the 10 constituent boroughs. As the Minister will know, this is very much in line with local government practice that scrutiny should be led by poachers and not gamekeepers; it avoids state capture of the scrutiny process and the subsequent reduction of scrutiny to token box-ticking. The chair of any scrutiny panel sets the agenda and can choose what to focus on and what to put to one side. In Greater Manchester, there are no directly elected representatives to hold the mayor to account. The scrutiny panels do that job, and they give some assurance to minority parties and dissenting voices that the difficult questions will be raised, and the truth published.

The problem with this statutory instrument is not that, in future, it proposes to combine the two scrutiny bodies; that is sensible. The problem is that the provision sets aside that existing assurance of challenge and inquiry, and substitutes for it the police and crime panel.

In the municipal year 2018-19, that body was made up of 10 Labour members and two co-opted independent members. No opposition members of any party served on that scrutiny body. Of course, those 10 Labour members will always behave with integrity and absolute objectivity in carrying out their scrutiny functions—one would expect nothing less from Labour councillors in Greater Manchester—but I put it to the Minister that compared to the existing situation that this statutory instrument takes away, he is proposing something that is inherently less satisfactory. In place of a multi-party scrutiny panel with an opposition chair, we will have a body made up of members of one party—the mayor’s own party.

How does the Minister see the robust challenge that is needed for major budgets and vital services, such as the police service and the fire and rescue service, being delivered by a model of scrutiny that can—and in 2018-19 did—produce a single-party body in charge of operating it? I will be interested to hear the answer. That is a function that must be exercised on behalf of all residents and all electors across Greater Manchester, which is very diverse. With the best will in the world, a body with such a narrow membership cannot do that as effectively as a more diverse and representative one.

Does the Minister agree that it would have been better to continue to require the joint panel to work on the same procedures and statutory requirements for membership of the existing fire and rescue service panel, rather than the closed membership of the existing police panel? In other words, given the choice of which way to amalgamate the two bodies, the Minister has chosen the one which produces the least accountability.

Unfortunately, as keenly as everyone now shares the Liberal Democrat passion for the devolution of powers and responsibilities from Whitehall down to local communities, the bit about people with power being held accountable for the exercise of that power has a lot less traction. Whenever it has been a 50:50 call, it always comes down in favour of less accountability, not more. The Minister may say that this is not a big step away from better scrutiny, but rather just a very small baby, and that there is no threat to anything here; perhaps he will say that it is an incidental consequence of a necessary reform—a fishing bycatch, or collateral damage. It is not. Somebody made the choice and, intended or not, that choice has consequences that could easily have been avoided if anyone in the decision tree had thought of doing so.

There is something strangely appropriate in this widening of the accountability deficit in Greater Manchester coming into force through a statutory instrument in your Lordships’ House—itself hardly an ideal mechanism for accountability. A Virtual Proceeding on a statutory instrument, where there is at present no opportunity to intervene to seek clarity or explanation from the Minister when he winds up, adds insult to injury. However, I have a feeling that the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, with his local government background and understanding of these matters, will be able to address my questions and give me direct answers. Perhaps he will get his officials to reflect that, the next time that a 50:50 call on accountability lands on his desk, they should advise him to go the other way and enhance accountability at every opportunity—and not, by accident or design, to slim it down.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Sometimes, the price of it is listening to me complaining about something quite small which has big implications. On this occasion, I fear that that vigilance was not exercised at the ministerial desk. Somebody blinked and we have an answer which is not the best that was available.