Building Safety Bill (Ninth sitting)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Christopher Pincher]

In the sense that we are discussing companies, if a company has dissolved by the point of prosecution, it cannot be prosecuted. However, to address my hon. Friend’s point, that does not preclude the liability of individual company directors or managers. They can be prosecuted individually, even if the corporate identity itself has passed into history and is beyond prosecution.

The potential for criminal liability of directors and managers reinforces the duty of those who direct the actions of companies to uphold and promote building safety throughout the operations of their companies. We consider that it is a key contributor to our stated purpose of embedding building safety at all levels of industry, contributing to residents both being and feeling safe in their homes.

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

I thank the Minister for giving way. It is a pleasure to serve under you again, Mr Efford. I cannot see a problem with the objectives of the clause and we will not object to it, but it gives me the opportunity to ask about the issue of personal liability insurance. We are picking up that construction trade professionals in the UK are increasingly struggling to get appropriate insurance. Have the Government done an impact assessment on the issue of liability insurance and how that impacts construction professionals?

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher]

I am happy to give those reassurances to my hon. Friend. We will need to take care as we plan the transition to the new regime. I assure him that in our discussions with Ministers in Wales, with other Departments and with the Health and Safety Executive we are exploring appropriate transitional arrangements to ensure that the building control sector moves smoothly and safely from one uneven playing field to a more even one, in an orderly way, as I said.

The hon. Member for Weaver Vale asked about the new registration regime. In the clause, we are attempting to create the oversight and the regime that will provide consistency across the public and private sectors, creating a new unified building control profession for all buildings in the sector. The new regime will not only raise standards in the sector, but enhance public confidence by requiring a minimum level of demonstrated competence to provide building control services on different types of buildings. One can imagine that with a high-rise, higher-risk building, the competence levels that the Building Safety Regulator requires could be higher than or different from those for other buildings. We might come to that in later clauses.

In the meantime, I hope that the Committee will agree that the clause is vital to create a more robust and competent building control sector. I commend it—

[Ruth Cadbury]

rose—

[Christopher Pincher]

Or I will commend it shortly, after I have given way to the hon. Member for Brentford.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Cadbury]

Brentford and Isleworth, to be precise, but I thank the Minister for being so generous in allowing my intervention. The submission from the Local Authority Building Control group welcomed this aspect of the legislation and the clause. It expressed one concern, which I am raising as a question, about CICAIR—Construction Industry Council Approved Inspectors Register—which is designated by the Secretary of State to register and provide the oversight of approved inspectors. Has the Minister taken on board its recommendation that immediate action is taken to strengthen the audit process of CICAIR to include the requirement for external independent technical auditing in advance of the Bill being enacted? It wants to do that in order to improve current performance and standards.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am happy to work with CICAIR. We work with it to ensure that, for example, registration fees are proportionate. We will set out more details of that later. Fundamentally, we want to ensure that the registration and regulatory oversight process is sensible. I am happy to have further discussions with it and my officials about any appropriate audit trail. I am sure that the Building Safety Regulator—presently in shadow, but as it builds its approach—will also want to have those sensible discussions.

I will accept no more interventions and conclude by saying that the clause is essential to create a more robust and competent building control sector. I commend it to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 41, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.