Building Safety Bill (Second sitting)

Marie Rimmer Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Q28 We now move on to our third panel of witnesses. We are joined online by Peter Caplehorn, who is the chief executive officer of the Construction Products Association, and in person by Dr Scott Steedman, the director of standards at the British Standards Institution. We have 45 minutes, colleagues. Before we start, may I ask the witnesses to introduce themselves for the record?

Peter Caplehorn: Good afternoon, everybody. I am delighted to be part of this session. I am Peter Caplehorn, the chief exec of the Construction Products Association. I have held that role for the past two years. I have been with the CPA for seven years, and prior to that I spent 38 years in practice as a commercial architect, involved in technical matters and regulations, and involved with British standards and a lot of building regulation development. I hope that that is of help.

Dr Steedman: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am Scott Steedman, director general of standards at the BSI, which incorporates the director of standards role. In my early career, I was an academic in civil engineering. I then spent around 20 years in industry on major building projects. Since 2012, I have been in the role of director of standards at the BSI, so I am responsible for the national standards body and all British standards.

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

Excuse me, Mrs Miller, but a number of us are having difficulty hearing on this side.

[The Chair]

Yes—when I chaired a Select Committee, I always used to remind everybody that these microphones are purely ornamental. They do not really amplify very much, so projection is always good at these events. I thank our witnesses for being with us today. Obviously we are hybrid. We have Peter online and Scott here in the room, so bear with me. Perhaps we will take this slightly slower to ensure that we include Peter in our conversation. Please just shout at me, Peter, if I have not quite seen that you want to intervene.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Q I asked the previous panel this question about construction products, but I should have held it for these two witnesses. By the way, I think that far too much plasterboard is used in homes anyway, and not for safety reasons but just because of quality of life, but that is another issue. The Bill does address construction products and future-proofs for products that we do not yet know about. That is fine, but quite a few historical building failures have resulted from the interrelationship—chemical, physical or whatever—between products that only emerged over time, or that should have been tested in the past. The products are safe on their own but not when put together in a certain way with other products. Could the Bill do more in that regard?

Peter Caplehorn: Thank you for that question, because it is of concern and it has been historically, as you said. The Bill as set out does start off in the right place. We have the structure to pursue those issues. In parallel, a lot of work is being done on the quality of testing and on verification of product quality. We are starting a new road that will start to address some of that, but equally, I would raise the move towards greater competence across the industry. Clearly, some product combinations will cause trouble and they can be seen by somebody fairly early on in the process who is competent in analysing those criteria. I would put designers and engineers firmly in that spot.

Some more difficult inherent problems that occur over time are in the province of the testing and research and development areas of product manufacturers themselves. They do a lot on research and development on products because, clearly, it is in nobody’s interest for things to emerge later on that will cause problems. None the less, we do see them.

Back to our central subject of the Bill, it does set out the framework, and I believe that with the secondary legislation coming along behind it, it will give us more opportunity to ensure that products are fully tested in combinations, to ensure that we reduce the prospect of any failure like that happening in future. None the less, it is a challenging arena.

Dr Steedman: It is important to remember that we are focusing on safety here, and that means human safety affected by a physical object, and not necessarily quality. The Bill will not necessarily transform the quality of the industry—that is a different thing all together. You are absolutely right that if you look at historical failures of engineered structures, in many cases it is to do with communication between different parties involved in a very complex industry and the long chain that Peter described. The failure to understand the consequences of the assumptions of the person who did that piece of work leads to an issue in years to come that people cannot diagnose. There are some very famous examples of that.

Perhaps one of the additional points worth making is on the digital information. New standards are being developed today on digital management of fire safety information, for example, and new tools—there is a BSI identifier tool to allow a persistent and enduring identifier to be applied to individual products, so that downstream, you could walk around a building in years’ time and identify precisely what that was, and if an issue had arisen you would be able to trace it back.

Dame Judith Hackitt’s recommendation on the “golden thread”, the digital trail of construction products and how they are assembled, and the ownership of the building through life management are a vital part of the culture change that will enable a much easier identification of problems in future. As Peter says, the physics is relatively well understood; if people do the right tests, they will find the problem, but sometimes things surface many years on and we want to catch that at the earliest possible stage, to make sure we avoid safety issues.

[Ms Rimmer]

Q I am particularly interested in the building safety fund. It is not accessible for properties that have social tenants in them. How does that impact on housing associations? I understand that 40% of all social housing built last year was without grant. If the building fund is not accessible, how do they finance it?

Dr Steedman: I am very sorry, but I cannot really address any questions about the funds. I am not an expert.

[The Chair]

I would even go so far as to say that the funds are slightly outwith the Bill, so it is slightly out of scope. Was there something else?

[Ms Rimmer]

Q My concern is whether, under the Building Safety Bill, there is a risk of building safety being built for tenure, rather than risk.

Dr Steedman: Sorry, for?

[Ms Rimmer]

For tenure. If you own a property or if you are a social tenant, it is not available for your home.

Dr Steedman: I would anticipate that the building is designed, constructed and managed regardless of who the occupants are, or how the occupancy is structured. I would sincerely hope that the outcome of this Bill will be to achieve a building that meets our national expectations for public safety, regardless of who is in it or the ownership structure of the apartments inside. It would be entirely wrong if the Bill were to somehow separate out buildings on those grounds, and I would be very disappointed. I have not seen any evidence of that in this Bill, which is focusing very much on the technical aspects of safety, not on the occupants.

[Ms Rimmer]

It is about building safety systems, the priorities, and if the owners of properties just put in for any grants that they are eligible for—they are, for instance, eligible to claim from the building safety fund—they are not allocated according to risk. It is allocated based on eligibility, or is available according to eligibility, not risk.

Dr Steedman: It is an interesting point.

[The Chair]

Yes, it is an interesting point, but we are drawing Dr Steedman into things that are probably outwith the Bill.

Dr Steedman: It is outwith the Bill, I am afraid.

[Ms Rimmer]

Sorry, I am not hearing you.

[The Chair]

It is something that would be outside the scope of the Bill.

[Ms Rimmer]

Okay.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

Q I am going to be quite blunt, Dr Steedman, having just listened to the evidence you have given. You mentioned safety and you mentioned culture change, so will the Building Safety Bill as it stands fundamentally improve the building safety regime in this country and change what many see as the corrupt culture that led us to the tragedy at Grenfell?

Dr Steedman: This Bill gives us the architecture, ultimately—it will take time—to change and improve the culture of the construction industry. The construction industry in the UK dates from around the Napoleonic times: the structures, the people, and the professions that work in the industry date from hundreds of years ago. I do not want to comment on the history or any assertions about the culture, but I am very confident that the structure of this Bill—the way it is laid out, with the supporting statutory guidance—will effect change. However, in the end, it has to be the industry that makes the change, and the industry needs to lead that process. It is no good simply writing it all in a Bill and expecting some magic wand to make it happen. In the end, the industry has to step up.