Building Safety Bill

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I want to come on to the written statement by the Secretary of State, which was delivered with breathtaking speed. Before I do so, I remind the House that my husband owns a property that might be affected by the cladding issue.

I want to focus on part 5, which includes provision to establish a new housing ombudsman scheme, with parts 1 to 4 focusing on matters applicable to England and Wales only. While housing is a devolved responsibility, consumer affairs are not, which creates challenges for the housing ombudsman scheme. There are benefits in delivering that scheme on a UK-wide basis, because there are concerns about the fact that 90% of new homes have defects and a quarter of those who move into a new home are unhappy with aspects of the property.

The existing new homes standards code is industry-led and voluntary, so it is welcome that it will be replaced with a mandatory, statutory code to ensure similar standards to those that developers are obligated to meet, topped by an ombudsman, which we hope will have teeth, with powers to require builders to resolve issues or face fines, which will give the code authority and credibility. It is important that the system is established on a UK-wide basis, because builders operate across the UK, so it makes sense to have a single body of rules and standards to ensure improvement across the board.

Because that uniformity across the board will benefit consumers across the UK it is important that Governments across the UK, and in all parts of the UK, are at the table and that their voices are heard. We all want a raising of standards in the building of new homes, so that is an eminently sensible way forward, and we expect that legislative consent would be requested from the Scottish Government. That consent would be granted if it were in the interests of the people of Scotland. Consent and dialogue with the Scottish Government must not be a box-ticking exercise—it must be genuine.

I want to say a few words about the written statement that was delivered breathtakingly quickly today. The Secretary of State said in his statement that addressing the risk in the cladding of properties should focus on “management and mitigation” instead of “costly remediation work”. We do not know what he means by “costly”, because people in some properties below 18 metres face costs for the stripping of cladding that are more expensive than the properties themselves. We are told in the statement that costly remediation work can be challenged, but there is no detail about how that can be done, so the content of the statement is quite vague. We are told that lenders have welcomed this advice, but we do not know how quickly those affected by the cladding issues will see a change in the behaviour of lenders and insurers.

Has the Secretary of State had specific talks with the insurance industry? Has he had discussions with the Association of British Insurers? We simply do not know, as the statement does not tell us. In February this year, the Secretary of State said:

“Insurers should be pricing that risk correctly and not passing on those costs or even profiteering”.—[Official Report, 10 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 342.]

However, having read the written statement, it is not clear whether he had any dialogue with insurers before publishing it.

The statement says that there will still be repayment costs not exceeding £50 a month, so there is still no cap and we do not know what the final bill will be for those affected. I wonder whether the Secretary of State has actually been looking at or taking an interest in what is happening in Scotland. The Scottish Government have moved towards a single building assessment for properties that may be affected by the cladding issue, which will provide clear evidence of the total need for remediation. That allows the Scottish Government to identify the buildings that are at risk and inform their owners exactly what measures need to be taken.

That could release people from safety and mortgage lending concerns. It may, in the end, save homeowners hundreds of thousands of pounds that they might otherwise have had to pay for individual external wall fire review forms. The cost of the single building assessment is to be met by the Scottish Government, and once it has been established, remediation will be targeted to the buildings most at risk. That is an important innovation. I see echoes of it in what the Secretary of State has said today, but it was too vague for me to be sure.

It is interesting that today’s statement focuses on buildings below 18 metres. When we debated this very issue at the end of June, I challenged the Secretary of State, because The Sunday Times reported that a key civil servant was recorded telling fire engineers that 18 metres was the cut-off point in the first place because the Government

“haven’t got time to come up with a better number”.

I wonder whether the randomness of 18 metres is behind much of what we have heard today, but of course no one in the House, except the Secretary of State, has had time to properly digest it.

The new housing ombudsman in the Bill is welcome, provided that it is implemented in a way that is respectful of devolution and, in the future, prevents some of the shocking problems we have seen in the cladding scandal, which has turned so many lives upside down. It is important that we understand that the powers of the housing ombudsman will not be retrospective, so it offers very cold comfort for those living through the cladding and fire safety nightmare right now. I fear that the Secretary of State’s statement today has done nothing to properly address that.

For all those reasons, it is clear that more needs to be done to address the current safety scandal, which the Bill does not do. This scandal continues to blight the lives of those living in flats that they have been told are dangerous, but we are told today, “Well, do you know what? That might not really be the case. We’ll need to think about it a wee bit more and talk to the banks.” That is not good enough.

People are living in flats that cause them concern, we still do not have any answers on insurance, and we still do not have any proper insight into how the scandal will be resolved fully. The £5.1 billion that the Secretary of State likes to trumpet does not even touch the sides, and whatever else the Bill offers, it offers nothing to the people currently living in homes that are making them lose sleep and that they cannot sell.