Building Safety Bill (First sitting)

Marie Rimmer Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Daisy Cooper]

Q I have been struck by the approach of the Australian Government, particularly in the state of Victoria. Rather than just treating this as an issue to do with buildings, they have treated it as a public safety emergency issue. They have looked at the safety not only of people living in the buildings but of their neighbours, fire safety officers and people who might attend a fire. Do you have any reflections on whether this should be considered simply through a buildings lens or whether there is a broader public safety emergency issue here?

Dan Daly: There is a lot to be admired in what other countries have done, and certainly in that particular example, but you have to remember that they were some way ahead of where we are and where we started from. There was already a single regulator in place in Victoria that was able to be instructed to take on some of this work. The number of buildings and the scale of the issue were much smaller than where we are. I think in total there were around 2,300 buildings, looking at a much broader spectrum of buildings—healthcare buildings and schools above two floors, and all other buildings above three floors. We know that, when we are looking in this country at buildings above 18 metres, we are already talking about 12,000 buildings—that is just high-rise residential. When we talk about buildings above 11 metres, we are probably closer to 100,000. If you take on the full range of where they were in Australia, the numbers just keep increasing exponentially.

There is something to admire in where they were—certainly the fact that sprinklers and alarm systems were in much wider use in those buildings, so that, in the fires that they saw, nobody died. There were measures in the buildings to tackle those instances early, and equally to alert people to the fires. It is certainly something that we have been talking about and pushing for: the wider use of sprinklers and alarm systems. It is good to see that there has been some change and movement in that, as part of the work that we have gone through so far. You cannot discount what has gone on. We should always look to learn, but there is something about scale and scope here that is different.

Sir Ken Knight: Can I just add to that, Chair? I had the privilege to host both a political head and an official head from Victoria very early on after the tragedy at Grenfell. Remarkably or not, they were very complimentary about the work taking place in the building safety programme—as you will recall, the Victoria high-rise fires occurred several years before Grenfell itself. They were impressed, even though none of us is satisfied that the pace is enough on all of these things. Of course, they had the luxury that they had no fire deaths at all. It was a wake-up call for Victoria as well—to realise that they could not wait for the tragedy of the 72 fire deaths that we saw here to do things.

For all of us who have been in touch with other countries, there is lots to learn from them. However, it is also about the capacity: the numbers of buildings, and the significant number of high-rise buildings, that will be covered even in the first-stage proposal in scope in the Bill, compared with the total number in somewhere like Victoria.

[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

Q Good morning to you both. Will the reforms to the building control profession fix the problems identified by Dame Judith Hackitt? In particular, are the Government right to return the power of duty holders to choose their own building control body?

Sir Ken Knight: It is quite a significant part of Dame Judith’s report, of course, and that mixed economy has come through into the Bill. It is actually something that I support, providing that there is a level playing field in the competency, ethics and assurance of those doing the work. That is covered in the Bill, in a great deal of how the Building Safety Regulator will need to bring that to bear. The Bill makes the point, though, that in those buildings of higher risk the Building Safety Regulator is the enforcing authority for building control purposes—not either of those two bodies. I think that that is right. However, it is about levelling up the playing field for the competencies and assurances that are in place with some bodies and not others at the moment. There is a bit to go, but I personally do not object to that outcome, providing that the private sector actors involved in that are not directly employed by those for whom they are doing the work in seeking the outcome for the approvals.

Dan Daly: I do not have much different to say. The inability to choose your own building control body is important, particularly for developers that have wrapped up a number of those services within their overarching companies. Having some independence of that is important. There needs to be some robust checking if there is private sector involvement; that is the important element, and hopefully that is part of the role that the Building Safety Regulator will be able to take on. I suppose that is something to come in the guidance that will follow this Bill. We have issues of competency and capacity across the sector, so we need to keep our mind open to all those avenues, but with the appropriate checks and balances in there and the appropriate safeguards to ensure there is no compromise on safety in favour of profit.

[Ian Byrne]

Q It is good to see you both again. Is height the best measure of risk? If so, is the threshold in the Bill appropriate?

Sir Ken Knight: I am sorry; I missed some of the early part of the question.

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[The Chair]

Marie, did you have a supplementary question on this?

[Ms Rimmer]

No.

[The Chair]

Then I will bring in Brendan, who is just catching my eye.

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[The Chair]

We have got just under 15 minutes, and there are three more questions to go through. Keep that in mind, if you could.

[Ms Rimmer]

Q Under clause 84, an accountable person

“must take all reasonable steps for… preventing a building safety risk materialising as regards the part of the building for they are responsible”.

The definition of the part for which they will be held responsible is to be defined in regulation. Should it not be defined within the Bill itself?

Sir Ken Knight: That is one of those examples where getting this huge piece of legislation through the Parliamentary process, which will itself be 12 months away, will it not, will allow that regulation to come swiftly afterwards. I am pretty relaxed, personally, that regulation and secondary legislation will follow and build up the basis of this very quickly indeed with the experience that needs to be held. I am not the expert in that area, but I am very convinced that going down this enabling route is the way forward.

[Ms Rimmer]

Q You just mentioned it coming forward very quickly after the Bill goes through, but there is nothing to guarantee that.

Sir Ken Knight: No, there is not, but I think the Building Safety Regulator is already on the case. He has issued a document only this week about what safety cases will look like. He and his team will be having the same capacity issues as everyone else, but nevertheless I suspect he is not waiting for the Bill to happen. Nor are the major people out there responsible for buildings in the future, which is pleasing. They are already looking at what they need to do now to make people feel safe in their homes, rather than waiting for the Bill to pass through Parliament.

Dan Daly: I do not have much to add. The detail will come. I would like and welcome the opportunity for NFCC to be part of those discussions, as some other stakeholders are, to keep the promises that are made here. I do agree that there is an awful lot left to trust, and there needs to be some oversight to ensure that that trust is not betrayed and that, if the Bill is put through as an enabling piece, the guidance that follows is suitable to bridge the gaps in the information that is not there at the moment.

[Mike Amesbury]

Q Will the new regime stop resident leaseholders being fleeced by the mediation costs—the EWS1 process, the astronomical insurance costs? The list goes on and on—not to mention waking watch, of course.

Sir Ken Knight: I can deal with some of that shopping list, which you are right to highlight. EWS1 has been one of those areas. The external wall system 1 form is the surveyor form for evaluations. I would argue that it has been misused on premises where it has added cost to the leaseholder. I have seen real examples where people trying to sell a bungalow have been required to have EWS1 for an external wall, which frankly is nonsense. Again, that is about the proportionality of lenders and insurers recognising that some of those building heights and risks do not need that.

The other reason for me saying that about EWS1 in principle is that I believe it will quickly be overtaken by the external wall assessment of the Fire Safety Act 2021, because everyone will require that. One of the advantages is that you will have one risk assessment for the whole building and not every leaseholder having to have an EWS1 form to satisfy their lender when they want to sell, adding to the cost for each leaseholder in turn. Will the Bill address that? I think the combination of those other things I have just mentioned will certainly assist that, but it does mean needing to get back to an approach that is both risk-based and risk-assessed, and people being competent, and the culture has to change. It is going to have to change very quickly because Dame Judith recognised that both culture and competence were key issues. I think they still are.

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[Ian Byrne]

Q I have really enjoyed the evidence so far; it has been really good, but will the Bill improve levels of competence and, just as importantly, listen to the Grenfell inquiry and the shameful evidence that we have heard? Will there be accountability in the construction industry?

Graham Watts: I think the answer to that is yes, because competence is in the Bill and it underpins and supports all of the work that the industry has done over the last four years—some of the things that Adrian talked about earlier in the different sectors. As I said before, I would personally like the Bill to go further in defining the levels of competence and in making sure that the people who are registered actually have the competencies. I think that is absolutely necessary.

Adrian Dobson: I would tack slightly along the same line. I think the Bill is very good at trying to address the competence issue, although, for example, there are weaknesses in other areas of the industry. Procurement is complex in construction. I know that has been discussed in the Select Committee and various places. There is a duty on the principal designer to monitor design work for compliance, and a similar duty on the contractor. “Monitor” is quite a weak term. In design and build procurement there is no requirement for independent inspection, or no duty on the designers to return to the building and say, “Has this building been designed and constructed in accordance with that design intent?” So I think it is stronger on competence than it is on addressing some of the realities of the construction industry. Will the hard stop at gateway 2 really be a hard stop, because the commercial realities of the construction industry will tend to want to keep the project moving forward, and that is a risk? So it is good on competence and perhaps a bit weaker in other areas.

[Ms Rimmer]

Q The Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to regulate construction products. Does it contain enough information about the new regime? Is there enough certainty about what types of products would be regulated by the Secretary of State?

Graham Watts: We are obviously at an early stage in the development of the new powers for the product regulator. As we have discovered from the Grenfell evidence, it is an absolutely imperative aspect of the Bill, so I certainly welcome that side of it. The work that has been done in the industry to ensure integrity in the marketing information for construction products has been scandalously shocking in the past. As somebody from the industry, I am ashamed of the fact that we did not wake up to that, but I welcome a rigorous attention to the regulation of construction products and also the Government’s recent decision to postpone the implementation of the conformity assessed mark for a year, because that was causing huge problems in the construction sector. Personally, I think a year is not enough, but at least it is a step forward.

Adrian Dobson: My answer is probably similar to before. There is an inevitability that there will have to be secondary regulation. Maybe an area that it does not address is that once we get to the stage of developing revised guidance, we have some questions about how much different sectors of the industry have been able to influence the testing process. If you are going to rely on testing to give you confidence about the performance of products, that genuinely needs to be independent testing. I will be interested to see what the regulations say about that and how they keep that independence of the testing.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

Q Obviously, the success of any legislation depends on how it is enforced once it is implemented. I am keen to understand from your perspective, how far in any enforcement regime is it about industry buy-in and co-operation? How far should the Government go in terms of really strict, hard enforcement regulation to ensure that it is not simply a case of the industry having to do it, but that there is actually buy-in from the industry to do it and to respect the regulations?

Graham Watts: Both of those things are equally vital. I think the industry welcomed the decision to place the Building Safety Regulator within the HSE, because it is a well-respected agency and people take notice of its interventions. We understand that the regulator is likely to have somewhere in the region of 750 staff. It is not going to be an insubstantial body, and I am sure it will take effective enforcement action, but it needs buy-in from the industry. That comes back to my earlier point about a culture change within the industry, and not just in terms of the scope of the legislation—it must go beyond that. As people have said, the twin-track approach to regulations could be confusing and complex. We understand why there needs to be a limitation on the scope to begin with; otherwise, the system will not cope and will collapse. But there will be confusing areas at the margins, and it is essential that the industry adopts the same approach to its work on buildings that are not in scope and on buildings that are in scope. We cannot have a twin-track approach as far as safety is concerned.

Adrian Dobson: In fairness to the Government, it is difficult for the Government to regulate the competence and behaviours of the industry. Without the industry acting as a willing partner, it is virtually impossible, and the Bill tries very hard in that area. A more contentious issue is to what degree you have an element of prescription in what is done. We have had an element of prescription, and it was probably agreed that that was necessary because we had a stock of buildings that there were serious doubts about. I know that the Mayor of London has introduced an element that has been quite controversial, but I suspect that working out where the balance is will be quite difficult. When it comes to fundamental elements of fire and structural safety, I wonder whether you will inevitably end up with some firmer guidance. It might become prescriptive regulation or just clearer guidance on the basics of means of escape, compartmentation, alarms and sprinklers. Those are the fairly basic safety systems that buildings rely on.