Building Safety Bill

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I will give that further thought and revert to my hon. Friend on it.

It was clear after the fire at Grenfell Tower that action was required to address safety concerns with respect to existing buildings, and my predecessors rightly took a safety-first approach, as I have also tried to do. We have provided expert advice and accelerated inspections of all high-rise buildings, and that work continues, with substantial progress having been made by the National Fire Chiefs Council on the building risk review, which is likely to be concluded by the end of the year. We have provided £5 billion in grant funding to carry out vital remediation work targeted at the buildings we know to be at the greatest risk from fire spread—those over 18 metres—and we have banned the use of combustible materials on the external walls of high-rise residential buildings, providing industry with a clear standard for the construction of new builds.

Some 474 buildings have been identified as having Grenfell-type ACM—aluminium composite material—cladding. We are now well on the way to remediating all of those buildings. Over 95% of the buildings identified at the beginning of last year have either completed or started remediation work; 70% of those have now been fully remediated, and that is rising every week. That means that around 16,000 homes have been fully remediated of unsafe ACM cladding, an increase of around 4,000 since the end of last year. Despite many building owners failing to provide adequate basic information, almost 700 buildings with other types of unsafe cladding are proceeding with a full application to the building safety fund. We have already allocated £540 million, which means that owners of 60,000 homes within high-rise blocks can be reassured that their remediation will be fully funded.

We currently forecast that over 1,000 buildings with non-ACM unsafe cladding will receive support of the same form through the building safety fund, providing a guide to the cohort of high-rise buildings where remediation is actually required. That is being progressed by a dedicated team in my Department and our two delivery partners, Homes England and the Greater London Authority. The Government have played their part: the unprecedented £5.1 billion we are providing gives assurance to leaseholders in eligible buildings that unsafe cladding on their blocks will be replaced at no cost to them.

I know that there will be strong feelings across the House about industry needing to fix and pay its fair share for problems that is has helped to cause. I recognise that some house builders have stepped up, too, thus far committing over £500 million for remediation since my statement in February. But some have not stepped up, or at least not in the way I expect them to. Ballymore, for example, has yet to commit to fully funding the remediation of its buildings.

The industry needs to go further. That is why we are introducing a new levy on high-rise residential buildings. We have published today a consultation document on the levy and I welcome views from all interested parties on its design. The levy will sit alongside a tax being developed by the Chancellor to raise at least £2 billion to contribute to the costs of historical remediation. This Bill also introduces the building safety charge to provide residents with clarity and certainty on the costs of building works, and we have listened and ensured that that charge only includes the cost of management of building safety in their building.

As I said at the outset, in bringing forward this new building safety regime we need to take a sensible, proportionate approach driven by expert advice. The Bill ensures that the building safety regulator will regulate in line with best practice principles, be proportionate and transparent, and ensure that the interests of leaseholders are protected. In 2020, only 9% of fires were in flats of four storeys or more. In 2019-20, only 7% of fires spread beyond the room of origin in such buildings. And, while every death is of course tragic, thankfully only 10 people died in 2020 as a result of a dwelling fire in flats of four storeys or more. We strongly believe that our proportionate approach is in line with these facts, ensuring that remediation works are undertaken only where absolutely required, and leaseholders should not be landed with bills for unnecessary work.

Unfortunately, that is not the position today and we need a significant reset. Too many people living in lower and medium-rise buildings have told us of feeling trapped in their properties, held back from selling their homes because of excessive caution in the lending, surveying, insurance and fire risk assessment markets. Understandably, this has caused residents to worry over safety and has led to unnecessary costs. I want to be clear that the vast majority of residents in all homes in this country, including blocks of flats, should not feel unsafe. Driven by these concerns, earlier this year I asked a small group of experts on fire safety to consider the evidence and advise me on the steps that should be taken to ensure a proportionate, risk-based approach to fire safety in blocks of flats. I thank them for their time and their expert advice, which I will publish later today.

The key finding of the experts’ advice is clear: we cannot and should not presume systemic risk of fire in blocks of flats. I quoted some of the statistics earlier, but let me repeat them. Dwelling fires are at the lowest point that they have been since we started to collect comparable statistics in 1981, despite the fact that in 2020 people spent significantly greater amounts of time in their homes as a result of covid restrictions. On that basis, the expert advice includes five significant recommendations to correct the disproportionate reaction that we have seen in some parts of the market. First, EWS1 forms should not be a requirement on buildings of less than 18 metres.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

If I may, I will finish this point. I am also conscious of time, as many Members want to contribute to the debate.

Secondly, in the small number of cases where there are known to be concerns, these should be addressed primarily through risk management and mitigation.

Thirdly, there should be a clear route for residents and leaseholders to challenge costly remediation work, and to seek assurance that proposals are indeed proportionate and cost-effective.

Fourthly, the Government should work with the shadow building safety regulator to consider how to implement an audit process to check that fire risk assessments are following guidelines and not perpetuating the risk aversion that we are witnessing and which in some instances are taking unnecessary costs to leaseholders.

Finally, fire risk assessors and lenders should not presume that there is significant risk to life unless there is credible evidence to support that. This will ensure that they only respond to the evidence and adopt a far more proportionate and balanced approach.

This advice is supported by the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Institution of Fire Engineers. The Government support and will act on the recommendations. Delivering real change for leaseholders requires a concerted effort from all those actively involved in the market. The Government have in recent weeks been working intensively with lenders, valuers and fire experts in this regard. We welcome the expert advice and support the position that EWS1s should not be needed for buildings of less than 18 metres.

I am pleased that all major lenders have today welcomed this advice, with Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and others agreeing that the expert advice and Government statement should pave the way for EWS1 forms no longer to be required for buildings below 18 metres, which will further unlock the housing market.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

I welcome that the UK Government have accepted all the findings and recommendations of the independent review of building regulations and fire safety, and I am glad to see the Bill establish the Health and Safety Executive as the new building safety regulator and a more stringent regulatory regime for higher-risk residential blocks. However, I draw the UK Government’s attention to the recommendations of Zurich Insurance, which notes that limiting the scope for regulation to just those blocks risks missing a generational chance to improve the regulation environment overall.

To ensure that tragic disasters such as Grenfell never befall us again, we need a culture change in the building industry, with clearer lines of accountability and responsibility—a more responsible building industry at all levels, from design through to construction, management and refurbishment. I will focus on the specific aspects where greater responsibility is needed and where the Bill does not go far enough—the construction product testing process.

In the Bill, we find a much-needed renewed focus on construction products, and their regulation and testing, as had been signalled by the Hackitt report. The aim of the Bill to create a statutory list of defined safety-critical products is welcome, but it should be accompanied by an associated examination of safety-critical applications and product systems. The Hackitt report criticised the product testing and marketing regime for being too “opaque”, which could be resolved by making the results of some product tests publicly available. A system of reliable third-party certification and accreditation for those performing construction product testing would also go a long way to ensuring greater trust in the system, and would prevent the risk of testing being carried out by those not competent to do so. This third-party certification should benefit from an extensive oversight process, including an impartiality committee at a national level to ensure an even playing field and even application of certification across schemes.

The Bill takes important steps at last to make the changes to building regulation that we have long awaited since Grenfell, although it is important to note that many of the changes stipulated by the Bill will take until the year 2023 to take effect—a delay of frustrating length to these much-needed reforms. I hope that the Government continue to engage with the all-party parliamentary fire safety and rescue group, of which I am a member, with the aim of ensuring a future regulatory regime that is efficient, gives residents a greater voice, and enjoys the trust of communities and industry alike.

Building Safety Bill

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Apsana Begum]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point strongly. I share his concern that there is too much of a free pass in that situation and such buildings should just not be allowed to be presented. On his point, the Cuba Street development has been withdrawn for now, but it is only paused. It will come back and there is no guarantee that all the problems will be addressed, so it would be helpful to know whether the Government have any plans to address that issue and, if not, whether they will commit to a national independent review of stay put policies, particularly given that the Cuba Street proposal was allowed under existing building regulations.

At present, there are insufficient fire safety inspectors after decades of cuts and increased workloads. It is urgent that the fire and rescue service is properly funded and resourced, because people have a right to be safe in their own homes. The Bill is a small step forward, but it does not resolve the overall building safety crisis across the UK. In the words of the Fire Brigades Union, it is at best

“a sticking plaster over a gaping wound unless the whole regime rebuild around need rather than profit.”

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

I rise to speak in support of new clauses 1, 2, 15, 16 and 23. The events at Grenfell Tower were devastating, with the tragic loss of 72 lives, which shocked us all. Words will never adequately describe the pain felt by the families and friends of the victims. Later, though, as light was shed on the extensive preventable failings that led to the disaster, justifiable anger followed.

I am glad to see the Bill progress through this place, but it should not have taken almost five years. I welcome the Secretary of State’s recent announcement that leaseholders in England will not face the astronomical costs of remediating unsafe cladding. I am pleased that the Government have taken a moral stance on the issue.

Unfortunately, there are still gaps that must be plugged, and I hope that the Minister’s promise of statutory protection against all building safety defects will materialise. For my constituents, I hope that the Government will engage in a constructive dialogue with the Scottish Government to ensure that leaseholder protection can be extended across the UK fully funded.

There is still a glaring lack of clarity and the Government must facilitate funding being available across the devolved Administrations to achieve an equal standing. Although much of the Bill has limited territorial extent, there are some key areas that apply across the UK and in Scotland, such as the testing and inspection of construction products.

Early last year, it was announced that the independent panel on the safety of construction materials would review the testing system and how it can be strengthened so that product safety confidence can be restored. The industry is still awaiting the report’s publication, which prompts the question of how we can fully scrutinise the Bill’s measures without knowing what the review found. Can the Minister provide a definitive date for when it will be available? Will he also provide an update on the establishment of a national regulator for construction products?

As it stands, there are a limited number of private product testing companies, and fewer still of the accredited bodies’ testing sites, which means limited access to the furnaces that are used to test all combustible building materials and products. Subsequently, there are huge delays in products moving through the testing system.

Some companies are reporting delays of up to six months to test their products. The accredited sites are managed by private sector companies, and as demand increases and supply decreases, the price set by those bodies climbs. Concerns have been raised that that model incentivises the maximising of profit over the quality of testing.

The Government must also be cautious not to create widespread quality disparity between existing buildings and new ones of any height. While preservation of life is of course the most key consideration, the lifespan of buildings must be protected too. Buildings such as schools, hospitals and care homes, which hon. Members have mentioned, should have a mandatory requirement for sprinklers. By making such buildings as safe and resilient as possible, human life is protected, yes, but many other things too. Schools are pillars of the community. Where do those students go to learn if their school burns down, or for a hospital, where do the patients go? What delays will essential services suffer?

The Bill is a mammoth piece of legislation and it is easy to look at each single part in turn to make it digestible, but a key finding in Dame Judith Hackitt’s review was that there needs to be a holistic, whole-building approach to fire safety. We ought to apply that principle here and take a whole-Bill approach, to truly understand how it will work in practice.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to all Members across the House for their contributions to the debate. I will speak in response to the non-Government amendments first and then, as I progress through my remarks, pick up the points that have been raised about the Government’s amendments.

New clause 1 was tabled by the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), who is not in her place; we wish her a swift recovery. I thank her for raising the matter, and I recognise that the issue that she has embedded in her amendment is intended to address the fact that the poor adversarial practices in the way that payments are charged and made within the built environment can lead to unsafe, low-quality building safety outcomes as well as poor value for money.

I assure all hon. Members that we agree that the issue is important. There is already work across Government to ensure that fair and prompt payment practices are addressed with industry—such as the construction playbook, which captures commercial best practice and specific sector reforms, outlining the Government’s expectations of how contracting authorities and suppliers, including in the supply chain, should engage with each other. That is resetting the relationship between the construction industry and the Government. It is focused on delivering a more sustainable, modern industry, better able to deliver high-quality built assets for its clients.

We published guidance as a result of work set up with the Construction Leadership Council and the procurement advisory group, alongside our recent announcement. We will now work with industry to implement the principles of that guidance as widely as we can. We support industry to lead its own important culture change to deliver the very significant changes being brought forward in the Bill. There is existing legislation—part II of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996—that aims to create a framework for a fair and prompt process of payment through the construction supply chain and the resolution procedure for disputes. The intention in that framework is to ensure that it is implemented throughout the construction contract.

Turning to new clause 2 and amendment 1, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), our assessment is that the new Building Safety Regulator has the right two objectives to deliver this critical mission, and adding a further objective around property protection would not be necessary or beneficial.

The Bill provides the Building Safety Regulator with a broad statutory objective to improve the standard of buildings, which enables it to consider the overall performance of buildings. Meeting this objective could involve the regulator looking at such specific areas highly relevant to property protection such as security, resilience and fire safety. Therefore, we do not believe that an additional objective is necessary. Adding a specific Building Safety Regulator objective on property protection would also confuse and dilute its mission—that issue was raised in Committee. I think there was agreement across the Committee that we do not want to confuse or obfuscate the responsibilities of the Building Safety Regulator as it is set up and beds in. We want a proportionate regulatory regime that avoids putting undue and unnecessary pressures on leaseholders, but we also want to make sure that the regime builds in and beds in effectively, so I hope my hon. Friend will feel able to withdraw his amendments.