Fire Safety Bill

Lord Whitty Excerpts

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

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I strongly support these amendments and the requirement for a regular mandatory check on electrical appliances, broadly for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, explained to the Committee. I pay tribute to the campaign group Electrical Safety First, which has given me some information on the issue. As the noble Lord has said, the fires at Lakanal House in Camberwell, Shepherd’s Court and Grenfell were all triggered by faulty electrical appliances. Whether it was dangerous cladding, compromised firewalling or poor evacuation procedures that led to multiple deaths, electrical appliances triggered the fires in the first place. Indeed, more than half of the fires in dwellings in this country are related to electrical appliances.

These amendments would require regular checking of the standards and appropriate use of white goods in all multi-occupied properties. There are already mandatory gas checks on most such buildings for gas supply and the correct use of gas appliances. That is largely because people and regulators have long recognised that gas is dangerous. Yet, these days, electricity is the greater hazard. In multi-occupied multi-storey buildings, if there is a problem in one flat or unit, that is a potentially lethal problem for everyone in that structure.

We should explain that the amendment to regulations would in no way reduce the central responsibility and liability of the manufacturers to ensure the safety of their products; nor should any responsibility be taken away from users to follow instructions and not use equipment irresponsibly or inappropriately. However, the continued use of recalled products, dangerous wiring arrangements, damaged circuits and inappropriate placement of white goods requires regular inspection. There is also a requirement on landlords, tenants and leaseholders to have knowledge of that inspection to help reduce hazards. Failure on their part to facilitate inspection or to take action in the light of that inspection will rest primarily with the owner and manager of the building. That is how it should be. I strongly support these amendments.

[Lord Shipley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, first, I remind the Committee that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I support both amendments in this group. My noble friend Lord Tope, who is a signatory to Amendment 1, is unable to take part today but I know that he is looking forward to debating the issues raised in both amendments when we reach Report.

As we have heard, evidence from Electrical Safety First tells us that electrical faults cause more than 14,000 home fires a year. That is almost half of all accidental house fires. Logically, therefore, the more electrical appliances are checked, the lower the risk will be of a fire breaking out and then spreading to other people’s properties. This is not just a matter of building safety but about preventing fires breaking out in the first place.

I suggest that the general public have a right to expect that Governments of all persuasions should be willing to legislate to ensure high standards of regulation to improve public safety. Those who live in blocks of flats have a right to expect that they are living in a safe environment and that the owner of their block has undertaken the necessary safety checks within it, in this case to electrical appliances within that block.

The proposal in this group of amendments is for checks at least every five years. That is justified. If I drive a car that is over three years old, I have to prove every year that it is roadworthy by having an MOT check. This is to protect other road users, not just me and my vehicle. The same principle should apply in shared buildings where electrical appliances that are a fire risk could cause damage to other properties and to their occupants in that shared building.

I therefore conclude that the fire safety order should apply to electrical appliances where a building contains two or more sets of domestic premises. That seems reasonable. For high-rise residential buildings, in particular, it is important that a responsible person should keep a register of white goods in the building for which they are responsible, that they ensure that white goods are registered with the manufacturer for recall, should that be necessary, and that safety checks are conducted at least every five years.

Any privately rented home in a block of flats of mixed tenure will now be subject to electrical safety checks. It seems odd that in a high-rise block of mixed tenure, only the privately rented properties will be subject to the 2020 regulations. I would be grateful for the Minister’s explanation as to why that is, and to know whether the Government will act now to address that anomaly.

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The longer this issue of payment hangs in the air, the more risk there is that yet another terrible tragedy will occur; the costs of that would quickly overwhelm any budget it may cost to help lubricate the repair and restoration process. The Bill, as we have discussed, extends the reach of the assessment regime much more widely, so the likelihood of problems similar to those we have heard about—of leaseholders and renters being stuck with huge bills—is likely to grow, not shrink, with its passage. Again, I hope that the Minister can give us, and millions of leaseholders, some words of comfort and support.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I have added my name to most of the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Kennedy. He has explained the objectives of the proposed new clauses extremely well, so I will not add much to that. I particularly emphasise the need for the accreditation and professionalisation of fire assessors to instil some degree of confidence in the advice which owners, tenants and leaseholders receive. On the definition of responsible persons, this takes us some way forward to adopting my noble friend’s amendment. It is also important that the Government ensure that the terminology used here is the same as that in the draft building safety Bill, and in existing regulations, so that we avoid any confusion or ambiguity over who is responsible for what.

I did not sign up to Amendment 9 in the name of my noble friend Lord Kennedy. That is not because I disagree with the wording on the Marshalled List. I support that but it could be misinterpreted. My noble friend has already referred to the concerns in this respect, and the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, referred to them in an earlier debate. This amendment deals with waking watch and the whole concept is that if a building has been designated as a fire risk, we need constant checking on the safety of that building. But many tenants and leaseholders find that the waking watch arrangements are used as a reason to delay improving the basic physical safety of the building. Moreover, they are faced with substantial costs on the operation of a waking watch. I do not intend to undermine my noble friend’s Amendment 9. However, it needs to be put in a context where the cost does not fall on the tenants and leaseholders but on those who are genuinely responsible for the lack of safety in the building. Waking watch is not an alternative to the amelioration of that physical condition.

[Lord Shipley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I strongly support all the amendments in this group because they would help improve standards immensely. My name is attached to Amendments 15 and 17.

The purpose of Amendment 15, which is also in the name of my noble friend Lady Pinnock, is to secure an up-to-date public register of fire risk assessments, to be kept and made available on request. I see this proposal as a matter of significant public interest and of vital concern to those who live in a shared accommodation block, particularly one which is high-rise. As my noble friend Lord Stunell pointed out, they have a right to know that their building is safe. I raised this problem previously when I discovered that such publication can be excluded under freedom of information legislation. Surely all those who live in tower blocks have a right to know about the fire safety of their block, so I wonder what further assessment the Government may have made of the rights of those who live in such blocks to further information.

On Amendment 17, there is a clear case for a prohibition on freeholders of a building passing remediation costs for their building on to leaseholders or tenants. We know that following Grenfell, as we have heard, so many leaseholders have found themselves being asked to meet huge remediation costs. In addition, many owners cannot sell their homes because they have not got—and cannot get—the right certification on the construction of their building. Preventing the provisions of the Bill, when it becomes an Act, leading to further costs for leaseholders or tenants must be an absolute priority for government.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. He is not responding, so we will come back to him. I call the noble Lord, Lord Whitty.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in relation to the responsibilities of leaseholders. It is important that this is reflected in the terms of the Bill. Leaseholders are not the responsible person unless they happen to be co-owners or co-freeholders, and as we heard in the debates on earlier amendments, leaseholders are being faced with quite substantial costs. It would be wrong if the legislation allowed an interpretation whereby in certain circumstances they were the responsible person. They are not. The owners or their agents are the responsible person and we should make that quite clear.

I also strongly support the principles of the amendment tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Berkeley. Like him, I am astonished that at the moment, the regulations relating to domestic dwellings and indeed other buildings do not include a requirement on new build and major refurbishments for the installation of sprinklers.

Perhaps I may divert slightly from the question of high-rise domestic buildings. When I was at primary school in the 1950s, the school burned down. The fire actually started in my classroom. The report on that fire suggested that a simple sprinkler system would have quickly suppressed the fire and saved the building. As a result, when we returned to school, we were accommodated in temporary huts. Those temporary huts, in 1952, were required to have a rather crude sprinkler system. I was astounded to find out that in the year 2020, there is no such requirement for school buildings and no such requirement for high-rise buildings and premises in multiple occupation. That is something that should be addressed, if not in this Bill, at least in the batch of measures being brought forward by the Government in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy.

I am grateful to my noble friend for raising this issue because it needs to form part of the Government’s thinking in relation to the overall response to fire safety problems. I hope that at some point the Minister can indicate where that proposition will end up. I would strongly support such an addition.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I apologise that I could not participate at Second Reading. I had wanted to raise carbon monoxide detection—a silent killer production of combustion—with fire detection, but I understand it is outside the scope of this Bill. I would like to speak to Amendment 8, to which I have added my name. Let me explain why.

I remain haunted by seeing the blazing Grenfell Tower from my daughter’s window, and I have every sympathy with those whose flats all over the UK find their leasehold purchases are now valueless and are still paying out their mortgage and charges. Back in the 1970s, we financially squeezed ourselves to buy our first flat, only later to find it was built with high alumina cement and, until deemed safe, completely worthless. That is why I feel a commitment to others caught in this plight. This amendment would bring further clarity to the meaning of a “responsible person”, and ensure that leaseholders who are not also freeholders are not made liable or responsible for any remediation work needed as a result of poor building and development decisions on flats which they believed, and were told on checks, comply with building regulations. I want to read the Minister’s response to the previous amendment very carefully, as I hope that it allays some of my concerns, but I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, has raised some ongoing questions.

The huge costs of fire safety checks, materials testing, removal and replacement of dangerous materials, and the retrofitting of sprinklers and other fire safety equipment, all currently fall to leaseholders. Let me illustrate this with information from one such leaseholder. For residents of three blocks of flats in Baltic Avenue, Brentford—which probably should never have been signed off—fire safety checks have been quoted between £15,000 and £24,000, the mock testing of current cladding and insulation will cost £50,000, and rectifying all identified issues has been initially quoted to be at least £6 million. The previous group of amendments highlighted the huge burden on leaseholders, so who is responsible? This is surely the responsibility of developers and their team of architects, builders, et cetera, and the freeholders—and what about the banks that earn an income from the loans?

As the Minister has pointed out, he is well aware of the crippling costs, and he is clearly committed to doing something about the many leaseholders living in flats that are currently valueless, that cannot be sold or re-mortgaged. Many leaseholders are already financially stretched and bought their flats using the Help to Buy scheme, but if they cannot afford to pay for the fire safety checks they need to obtain an ESW1 form, Homes England will not value any properties bought under the scheme. Despite living in flats that are valued at zero, many leaseholders still find themselves having to cover interest payments on a loan that was given on the basis that if it fell in value you paid less. If the flats are worth zero, have all these loans been reset to zero, and are we sure that that has happened?

Even more seriously, these leaseholders are now suffering real mental health problems, not only from the financial burdens but because they know they are stuck in flats tonight that could go up in flames at any moment. The removal of cladding and other dangerous materials really is a matter of life and death. All this means that insurance costs will be sky high for buildings that are still considered to pose such a high risk. Can the Government give us some evidence of really speedy action?

In July, the housing Minister agreed that all costs should not have to be met by leaseholders and should be met by the developers or building owners. Many leaseholders believe the Government have changed their position, saying that leaseholders would still have to foot some of the bill, but they just do not have the money to do it. This amendment rectifies this by being absolutely clear about who is responsible for what, and that is why I support it.