Building Safety Bill

Mike Penning Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

We certainly want to ensure though the Bill, that the building control mechanism and the industry are improved. I think that a suite of measures, including the introduction of better building control measures, the retrospection of the Defective Premises Act and further work that we may choose to do, working across parties, will help ensure that a very complicated and detailed set of challenges, which have emerged recently but have been developing over many years, are properly addressed.

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

I want to clarify, should I be lucky enough to catch Madam Deputy Speaker’s eye later, where my speech might be going. This is retrospective legislation, and that is fantastic—if we can track down the freeholder, the developer and the insurer. If they cannot be tracked down, where does that burden come? Surely we can find a way—I may suggest this in my speech, but I wonder whether the Minister has thought of a way—by which the unfairness of the impact of what we are now prescribing in the Minister’s legislation on those in cases where we cannot find them, as opposed to where we can, can be resolved.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the forewarning of what his speech may contain. I would say to him that quite apart from the body of case law that exists with respect to the 1972 Act, and quite apart from the fact that even if a company has become defunct directors can still be held liable for the decisions made, as it were, “on their watch”, the challenges that he has described are the sorts of things that we will want to discuss in this place and in the other place, across parties, to ensure that such challenges are addressed.

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[Daisy Cooper]

When we started on the Fire Safety Bill, I tabled the first amendment to the Bill to try to protect leaseholders from these unimaginable, eye-watering costs. The Government said repeatedly that that Bill was not the place for it. Eighteen months on, we have had a huge cross-party effort, and while we are considering this second piece of legislation there is still no guarantee to protect leaseholders from those costs in law. The Government’s tone has changed, and I welcome that, but their position has not. I welcome talk about working cross-party and collaboratively, but I urge the Minister and the Government to make clear assurances on the record today, because I do not believe that the good will displayed in the House will last much longer if we do not get better answers.

The Secretary of State announced last week that the loan scheme will be scrapped and that cladding costs will be covered for buildings over 11 metres. Where is that statutory protection? It should be on the amendment paper today, and we should be discussing it in this House, not kicking it into the long grass.

On non-cladding problems and fire safety defects, the Minister must be aware that since the Secretary of State made his announcement last week there has been a huge rush of bills and enforcement notices because freeholders think they can get away with suddenly asking leaseholders to pay for these first safety defects. Will the Minister make a strong statement at the Dispatch Box today that he intends to issue a moratorium on freeholders issuing such enforcement notices, as that is what is needed?

I welcome that action under the Defective Premises Act will be extended to 30 years, but the Minister knows as well as I do that, as we showed in Committee, the current legislation is condemning leaseholders to years and years of litigation, litigation, litigation. In some cases, they may have to take their freeholders to court twice before they can take those responsible to court. That is not a satisfactory situation.

The Government keep saying that they want to work with freeholders and developers to find a voluntary solution, but cladding victims and fire safety victims have given the Government the answer time and again. They are asking the Government to stump up the cash to make homes safe and to use their power to go after those responsible.

I listened very carefully to the Minister’s carefully crafted answers on when we might see some of these legal protections. I note that the Bill’s Second Reading in the House of Lords is scheduled for the start of February, yet the Secretary of State has indicated that he wishes to continue his discussions with those responsible until March. When questioned by other hon. Members on whether the House of Lords will see these amendments, the Minister said it “may include” in the other place, not that it “would include”. Will he make a clear commitment from the Dispatch Box today that the statutory protections announced last week will, in fact, be amendments to this Bill, that those amendments will be introduced in the other place, and that sufficient time will be provided in this House for us to discuss them? If the Government make any attempt to railroad this Bill through without those protections in place, he will have a very significant cross-party fight on his hands.

[Sir Mike Penning]

I do not think there is a conflict, but I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. As an ex-fireman, although my concerns and thoughts are with the victims of the Grenfell fire and their families and loved ones, I say that we must put on the record our thanks to the emergency services, and particularly the firefighters, who have to live with what they saw—most of them will never have seen such an incident in their life. They went in one direction while, quite understandably, the public went in the other.

I do not disagree with anything I have heard in the House today. My constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), and I are as one. If this is not sorted in the other House, as promised, we in this House will sort it. That is not a threat but a promise. The Minister, the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, as we heard, have been brilliant in changing direction. They realised the risk that no thought at all had been given to leaseholders.

I declare an interest because my daughter has a leasehold property. When she bought it, why would she have dreamed that this situation would occur and she would face such penalties?

When I intervened on the Minister, I said I would mention a way out. Those hon. Members who have been here long enough will remember that I took the Mesothelioma Act 2014 through this House. The Act compensated people whose lives, through no fault of their own, had been devastated by asbestos. We could not fine the insurers, the companies, the directors or the shareholders, so they had suffered and they had not got compensation. This Bill is an opportunity to resolve the problem for leaseholders where we cannot impose fines.

There is no reason why leaseholders should drag themselves through the courts. We are trying to sort the matter out in this House. We should put a levy on the insurers. Without any doubt, the insurers got the premium from these companies, because otherwise they would not have been allowed to build the properties, so liability insurance was in place. The fact that we cannot find the developers—some have gone offshore in parts of my constituency—is irrelevant now. If we can find them, fine, but if not, we will levy the insurers.

We do not need to reinvent the wheel. We have already done it with the mesothelioma Bill. Originally, we gave the victims 80% of the compensation that they would have got through the courts. Eventually, we gave them 100%. This House was unanimous in its support of the Bill as it went through its stages. It was probably one of the easiest Bills that I have taken through the House—apart from having to pronounce mesothelioma, which, to this day, still troubles me, as Members may have notice.

This is an option that I have mentioned to the Minister before. I have said that his civil servants can come and talk to me, or to anybody at the Department for Work and Pensions who took that legislation through. I am more than happy for that to happen. Sadly, though, no one has talked to me about this—I am gently looking towards the civil servants in the Box, which I am not meant to do. This is a great opportunity to right a wrong that we can see coming down the line here.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

Were claims to go through the courts, they would be aimed at the developers, the builders, the architects, the surveyors, the component suppliers, the building controllers and the building regulations specifiers, all of whom were insured or operating under Government. We need to get them altogether around the table and say, “What will be the total liability?” We would save the lawyers’ costs and get the money in very fast. Leaseholders will be protected. Their homes will be safe and they will be saleable.

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[Sir Mike Penning]

The Father of the House is absolutely right. When we put to the insurers this idea that they should compensate those people whose lives and loved ones had been affected by the asbestos, did they like it? No, they hated it. They fought tooth and nail not to do it, but we did it, and we did the right thing. When we come to part 5, Mr Deputy Speaker, I hope to catch your eye again.

May I just touch on a point that many colleagues have raised today? If people, in fear of threatening letters from lawyers and bailiffs, paid the remedial costs on their lease in good faith, how can it be right for us in this House to say that they did the wrong thing, while the people who held off paying those costs did the right thing? That sticks in my throat. It cannot be right that we penalise people who feel that they did the right thing. I said this to the Secretary of State during his statement. I am not saying that he dismissed it; he probably just thinks it is very difficult. Yes, it is very difficult, but that is what this place is for—when things become difficult, we resolve the problem. We have an opportunity with the insurers.

As we have heard from Members across the House, these bills are dropping on people’s doorsteps now, and it is happening in my constituency. They are innocent people who have done nothing wrong other than wanting to get on the housing ladder. Today we have an opportunity to address this. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) that we do not need to move these amendments now. We will wait to see what happens when the Bill goes to the Lords, but by golly we will move them if it comes back.

[Hilary Benn]

The one thing that has united the House today has been support for the principle embodied in new clause 13. There is a huge burden of expectation now on the shoulders of the Minister and the Secretary of State because of the commitment that was given in the recent statement, and we are all anxious to see how the Government intend to fulfil it.

The right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), whom it is a great pleasure to follow, asked earlier what happens if the funds are not forthcoming from those who are still in existence who were responsible. The answer is that there is a mechanism already in place, which is the levy that the Government previously announced. I have no objection to adding insurers to those who are levied, because it is a collective failure on the part of the industry. That is the point. Even if we put on one side debates about cladding, for every one of the buildings that have been discovered to have missing fire breaks, I can guarantee that the plans specified that the fire breaks should be installed, but they were not. As a result, we have a generation of shoddy, unsafe buildings and it is our constituents who are feeling the pain.

Secondly, once we have sorted out who is paying, we really have to find a way of getting the work done. I must say to the Minister that having observed, as we all have, the back-and-forth between managing agents, freeholders, developers and the building safety fund, we can see that that is not a very efficient way to solve the problem. That is why the buildings works agency approach that my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) spoke about earlier is such a good idea. It is a good idea for two reasons. First, we would have a body whose job was to find, fix, fund and then recoup through the levy that we have discussed, which would be quicker. Secondly, it would avoid the stand-offs that are taking place. I have seen one case where the expert advisers to the building owners have said that the zinc cladding on wooden battens is not safe, but the building safety fund has said that it is.

Another reason that the Government should adopt our proposal for a buildings works agency is that it would be the perfect vehicle to review the safety assessment of all of the buildings, which the Secretary of State spoke about last week, and in the end be the referee—the judge and the jury—that says what is safe, what works and what work needs to be done.

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[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I want to thank hon. Members across the House for the work they have put in. I also pay tribute to the Minister, whom I have spoken to on a number of occasions about the issues facing my constituency. I know that the Government have been listening and working really hard with colleagues to get to a place where people can be satisfied. As has been mentioned, the landscape is really complicated and the Government are trying to right some wrongs of the past.

I very much welcomed the Secretary of State’s statement last week, but I want to echo what has been said by colleagues across the House about what comes next and the protection that we will give to leaseholders. For example, at the Wharf in my constituency there has been a lack of clarity and transparency from the management company about the cladding and fire safety works that need to be carried out. The management company, Y&Y, is in the process of taking the leaseholders to a first-tier tribunal to award costs, adding a 5% commission. Since the statement last week, I have asked the management company if it could please pause this activity until the Government have moved further, but it has said that it will continue to go to the first-tier tribunal for costs. That will put some of the leaseholders in a really difficult position. Some of the people occupying those properties will not be able to pay those bills if the management company goes ahead with its actions before they have been given any security by the Minister, so I want to labour that point. We are also talking about historical payments that have been made, but this is happening as we speak.

[Sir Mike Penning]

One option for someone with a freehold property is normally to claim on their buildings insurance’s legal protection. A leaseholder has to pay the premium to the freeholder but does not have any protection. This is another area of the law that could be changed.

[Kelly Tolhurst]

My right hon. Friend is quite right. I welcome many of the amendments, and I welcome a lot of what is in the Bill. I am pleased with the extension on limitations.

During covid, a fire ripped through a building on the Causeway in my constituency. Again, it is not a high-rise block and is under 18 metres. Other hon. Members have mentioned firebreaks and the lack of such work. Coincidentally, further structural defects have been found in the investigation work carried out after the fire. They would not have been found if the fire had not ripped through the building in 2020.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said, these buildings have been signed off. I was a marine surveyor in a previous life, and if I had signed off the builds of boats that had major defects, my professional indemnity insurance would have had to pay out and I might not have got insurance next time around because of my poor performance. How is it acceptable that people can sign off such buildings and give certificates to the residents—our constituents—who buy them? That gives the residents confidence in the quality and safety of what they are buying. We need to look at the insurance argument; it is a valid point. To be frank, it is a scandal that those poor individuals have bought those buildings. The profession has a lot to answer for, as far as I am concerned.

Ultimately, I want to press the Minister on what assurances and comfort he can give my constituents who are watching the debate and who have been following the Bill with bated breath for many months, hoping that it will be their salvation.