Building Safety Bill (Tenth sitting)
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
I will keep my comments brief. I want to touch on whether primary legislation is the appropriate place to set out the specification.
I fully appreciate and do not disagree with the comments that have been made on the need to see the detail. I completely agree with the comments of members across the Committee about the need to consult and to ensure that stakeholders are appropriately engaged. If we put this in primary legislation, I think there might be a slight unintended consequence of pigeonholing it too far.
My interpretation of the ABI’s evidence is that there is a need to ensure that appropriate stakeholder feedback is reflected in regulation. In other areas, it is not uncommon for insurance mechanisms such as those in clause 47 to be delegated to secondary legislation, because it allows time for that engagement and the pulling together of stakeholders. It also allows for drilling down into the detail, because that secondary legislation can focus specifically on those really important points. As my right hon. Friend the Minister has said, it is appropriate to delegate to secondary legislation, but I also agree with the points raised by the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston. There is concern in the industry, as we have heard, particularly about incidences of fire and the inability to obtain appropriate insurance. Clause 47 seeks to remediate that and to interlink that more widely, so that we can have the safety we have been talking about and the cultural change that the hon. Member for Weaver Vale mentioned a moment ago.
This is an important but technical debate on whether primary or secondary legislation is the appropriate place for the requirements in clause 47. Broadly speaking, I think my right hon. Friend is right, but I say to him again, and this has been echoed across the Committee, that Members are seeking to ensure the broadest level of engagement with different stakeholders as this progresses. That will be important in ensuring that the subsequent legislation that feeds off clause 47 reflects accurately what we are trying to bring about and, ultimately, that the clause achieves its aims.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
I share the concerns about what is happening to the insurance industry in the context of building safety. I also share the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston about the Bill’s reliance on secondary legislation for so many elements, including insurance.
I want to highlight a couple of issues that the insurance industry has raised with us. We have had submissions from AXA—one of the biggest insurers in the country—and from the Association of British Insurers, which says that it is
“concerned that significant detail is left to secondary legislation.”
The ABI has raised specific concerns about the availability and affordability of cover for fire safety works, an issue that is already hitting a number of professionals in the construction industry. It is concerned about the confusion over the definition of the accountable person and the building safety manager roles, and how that impacts on their ability to obtain professional indemnity insurance. It wants more detail so that there is no “potential for confusion”. The ABI is also concerned about the
“legal position where there may be multiple APs responsible for a building”,
and it is seeking
“a better understanding of the liabilities that flow”
from the issues of underwriting PI insurance, and particularly how those liabilities are split between the two roles.
The ABI goes on to say that
“the current market conditions make it a sub-optimal time”
—I love the term “sub-optimal”; it basically means “a rubbish time”—
“to be launching any kind of new regulatory framework requiring mandatory PI cover.”
Of course, we all want everyone involved to have adequate insurance cover in some form or another.
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)
I appreciate a lot of the hon. Member’s points and I share concerns about the very difficult situation. Does she agree, however, that if the legislation is too prescriptive, we could end up restricting the industry and as a result make it more difficult for it to adjust to what are actually asking it to do?
Ruth Cadbury
The hon. Member makes a good point. The problem with insurance is that it can dominate discussions about public policy because issues arise that are not covered by the original legislation and regulations. If something does not go ahead—we have seen tabloid headlines like, “Council stops children going on a school trip”—it is often not because it has been proscribed but because of the insurers. It has nothing to do with the council. We must understand the crucial relationship between the private sector and the insurance sector. The Government must be careful that any legislation on safety, such as this Bill, does not have unintended consequences.
In conclusion, the ABI wrote in its submission that
“there is no ‘silver bullet’ solution to the problem of the cost of insurance for un-remediated high-rise residential buildings…However, market-led intervention by itself will not ‘solve’ the problem—there is likely to be a need for the Government to intervene to provide support for the relatively small number of buildings that are simply too risky for the market to insure at prices that are affordable to the majority of leaseholders.”
Is that something that the Government are considering? The last thing we want is to go from the current situation of having many unsafe new homes, to one where we have no new homes.
Christopher Pincher
I am obliged to the hon. Lady, and that is something that we will work through with the Health and Safety Executive and BSR as they work together to build up their specific competencies and responsibilities. That will become increasingly clear as the BSR beds in and builds out.
We will consult local authorities in developing any regulations. As they are subject to the affirmative procedure, Parliament will of course have to approve them.
Ruth Cadbury
I was not sure when it was best to ask this question, so I will ask it now. It is a genuine question that I do not know the answer to. The hon. Member for North Devon rightly raised the concern of small districts. “Saddled” is the wrong word, but they will have increased responsibilities, require increased technical knowledge, and have a wider range of responsibilities. There is also the crossover with their other responsibilities mentioned in the clause. Many authorities, particularly small ones, share functions, departments and teams across more than one authority. Does the Bill take account of that—for instance, where an authority does not have its own building control team or one of the other safety teams, but shares it with another authority? Has the Bill taken this issue into account?
Christopher Pincher
I am obliged to the hon. Lady. Yes, I believe it has. As we know, local authorities share services and a variety of functions, some of which are statutory. They are able to share those functions across geographies and still execute their statutory responsibilities, and I do not foresee any issue here. She is quite right to say that smaller authorities often have challenges with resources that do a multiplicity of things. One of the reasons why we want in the Bill to see the development of multidisciplinary teams—the Building Safety Regulator and its functions, fire and rescue services, local authorities —is to ensure that even smaller authorities that have in-scope buildings are able to use those multidisciplinary teams to do the work that the Building Safety Regulator will require of them.
I hope that Members will agree that these regulations serve an important purpose and will support the clause. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Rachel Hopkins
It is appropriate that I mention my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
I welcome the opportunity to move this amendment. The Minister will recognise my deep interest in housing and in ensuring that everyone can live in a good-quality, secure, safe home that they can afford to live in. The amendment would place in the Bill, rather than in regulations, an exemption for social housing from the levy introduced by the clause.
The levy is designed to meet building safety expenditure. That expenditure is not the ongoing cost of the new building safety regime, which is met through the building safety charge; it is designed to cover the cost of Government support for the remediation of unsafe cladding. That support is provided to leaseholders in buildings with unsafe cladding systems, either through the Building Safety Fund or through a system of low-cost loans for buildings under 18 metres, the details of which are yet to be announced.
For the most part, that support is not available to social landlords, other than to alleviate costs that they may otherwise have to pass on to leaseholders. With the exception of buildings with aluminium composite material cladding, social landlords have been denied access to those funds. For councils, remediation costs therefore fall on the housing revenue account and must be recouped either through rent increases or by diverting funds away from improvements to council housing or the provision of new council housing.
In contrast to many private developers and freeholders, social and council housing providers were the quickest to react post Grenfell. Analysis has shown that housing associations have paid six times more than developers to remediate dangerous cladding. According to G15, the group of London’s largest housing associations, overall, associations have set aside nearly £3 billion for historical remediation costs, far more than the half a billion pounds that the private sector has provided.
Ruth Cadbury
My hon. Friend is making really powerful points. I have a number of blocks in my constituency managed by housing associations, but they were generally built by volume house builders, and the housing associations are having to deal with the costs that she mentions. Ultimately, as she says, those costs are falling on leaseholders, many of whom are shared owners and people on fixed incomes, and on the future social tenants of the housing association, because the costs impact the association’s capital programme. Does she agree that that means a slowdown in what is already a very slow social housing new build programme, and concerns about other repairs and capital works to existing social rent homes in the portfolios of the housing associations?
Rachel Hopkins
I thank my hon. Friend for making those key points so well. I will reiterate them: the Local Government Association and housing associations have warned that building safety costs will put at risk their ability to build much more affordable housing, as she pointed out. The required subsidy per affordable home currently sits at approximately £50,000; £3 million spent on remediation costs would mean 58,000 fewer homes over the next 10 years. Shelter also estimates that we need 90,000 new social homes a year to fix our housing crisis, and that does not go into what is needed to get social homes to a decent standard or reach our net zero targets, which the Minister will know we discussed in the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee earlier this week.
The Local Government Association—or should I say the Conservative-led Local Government Association—stated in its written evidence:
“Imposing the developer levy on councils would leave council tenants paying for the failings of private developers. If the Levy is imposed on social providers, their ability to deliver the improvements and additions to the housing stock that the Government requires will be put at risk.”
Building Safety Bill (Ninth sitting)
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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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?
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—
Christopher Pincher
Or I will commend it shortly, after I have given way to the hon. Member for Brentford.
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.
Building Safety Bill (Seventh sitting)
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Christopher Pincher
Clauses 28 and 29 are quite short, and concern how documents will be validly served by the Building Safety Regulator. Clause 28 is a technical provision, setting out how documents will be validly served, whether physically or electronically, on and by the regulator, in connection with its functions under parts 2 and 4 of the Bill.
It may assist the Committee if I point out that service of documents under the Building Act 1984, as amended by part 3 of the Bill, is dealt with in section 94 of that Act. Section 94 is itself amended by paragraph 58 of schedule 5 to the Bill, to modernise it and take account of the regulator’s role as a building control authority. We are amending an amendment to another Bill. The effective provisions of clause 28 essentially mirror what is already in the Building Act, but updated to reflect changes in practice since 1984.
Turning briefly to clause 29, this provides key definitions used in part 2 of the Bill, and provides for a specific place within part 2 as a helpful index of the terms contained within it.
Christopher Pincher
Without pressing the Committee further, I shall conclude my remarks there and commend it to the Chamber. The hon. Lady may wish to make a speech.
The Chair
If you put it in the form of a speech, then I am sure the Minister will have the courtesy to respond to you.
Ruth Cadbury
I thank my hon. Friend, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I wanted to pursue the question, which I raised with the Minister last week, on the definition of a residential building. Is it anywhere where one sleeps overnight—whether temporary, permanent, or one’s sole residential home? I listed a series of residential spaces that do not come under the definition of a normal tenancy or leasehold property, such as student accommodation, other forms of residential licences, hotels, guest houses, and so on. I wondered whether my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale could pursue this with the Minister in his contribution, referring to subsections (1)(a) and (1)(b) of clause 29.
Building Safety Bill (Fifth sitting)
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd, to participate in this Committee and to follow the hon. Member for Weaver Vale. His contribution was fascinating, and I want to pick up on one of his points about clause 2. I hear what he is saying about not necessarily dealing with the present, but clause 2 is also focused on the future. I am sure he will agree that we have to ensure that we do not see a repeat of what we have seen thus far. We have to ensure, as we heard in the evidence sessions, that the housing market and the industry is fit for the future and keeps people safe, and that we do not allow this race to the bottom to continue or put vulnerable people at the risk of individuals who seem to think it acceptable to create unsafe places to live. Clause 2 is part of the patchwork to do that.
My right hon. Friend the Minister talked about the importance of the Building Safety Regulator sitting within the Health and Safety Executive. I absolutely agree with him. He particularly mentioned the importance of collaboration. HSE has 45 years of experience in dealing with health and safety, and will now be focused on building safety too. That is the right approach. As the Building Safety Regulator is developed, we have to ensure that the right expertise is there, because it will have such a crucial role in the future of the housing market, probably for the next generation.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
I agree that the Bill is better than what we had before. The hon. Gentleman talks about working for the future and future buildings. Is the system going to be resourced adequately to deal with both the future and the mistakes of the past? It was only through the Grenfell fire’s exposure of flammable cladding that the cladding was removed from the Paragon development in my constituency, which was built by the Berkeley Group 18 years ago. Two years after the cladding was removed, after a series of inspections, it was found that the structure of the building was fundamentally unsafe and the 800-odd students and 150 shared owners and leaseholders were given a week to leave. Should HSE and the Building Safety Regulator not be sufficiently resourced to find those buildings that are already occupied, by all sorts of different users for different purposes, to ensure that they are safe for future use, as well as being resourced to deal with the future?
Shaun Bailey
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East made a similar point about resourcing to the Minister. The Minister referred to a funding uplift, and I am hopeful. Obviously, I have no control over those levers, but I would be hopeful that part of the resource uplift would go into that. I do not disagree; the hon. Lady is absolutely right: if we are going to put in this regulator, it has to have the resource to do the job properly. We cannot have it cutting corners, because that only adds to the problems that many of her constituents have already had to deal with. It has to come with a commitment to ensure that the resources are there to adequately deal with the issue.
I am sure there will be debates on what that actually looks like and what the numbers are, but the hon. Lady and I can both agree that the fundamental, core principle is that the regulator needs to be resourced properly. The intervention on the Minister by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East was absolutely right. We can talk in high-level terms about how great it is to have a new regulator, but we have to make sure it can do the job day to day. That is the important part. The one thing I would raise with my right hon. Friend the Minister, while I have his ear in Committee, is that we have to ensure that the system works properly.
I broadly welcome clause 2. It is right that we have a regulator that draws on existing expertise. It is also right that, broadly speaking, the regulator has the ability to make the decisions unimpeded. I welcome what my right hon. Friend the Minister said about not being able to bring about ministerial directions to overturn decisions of the regulator. That is the right move. Given what we have seen in this space to date, having an empowered regulator that can stick up for the most vulnerable is absolutely vital. Those lives that we have seen destroyed by incidents such as Grenfell—that cannot happen again. This plan ensures robustness.
Returning to the point raised by the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth, the resource has to be there and the regulator has to be allowed to do its job. I am hopeful, from the overtures that we have heard today, that that will happen.
I welcome clause 2. It is the right move. I think it ensures, in the longer term, the future of this market, and ensures that people looking to buy a home can live there safely, knowing that there is the oversight that they need and that we have an organisation in the Building Safety Regulator that draws on existing expertise but equally has independence. That is the key thing: the independence to do that job properly and ensure that those people are safe.
Siobhan Baillie
Forgive me—I hear the point again, in a new form, but I still do not think that that is necessary. We have to rely on the expertise of the regulator and everybody who will be involved. We are so focused on building safety risk at the moment, and rightly so, given everything that has happened. I feel that the work is there.
I had my own mini-experience of coastal erosion growing up. It was not in Stroud, which is landlocked, save for the River Severn. I grew up in Yorkshire and went from Filey to Scarborough to school on a school bus. As we were going along, a hotel called Holbeck Hall fell very steadily into the sea. Many Members may know about it. It went on for many months. It was completely fascinating to school children, but even those many decades ago it was known about, thought through and seriously considered. Everybody was focused on it. Given the work that has been done in the Bill, I do not believe that, were a building in that state of peril, the regulator would not pick up on it and be able to help.
Ruth Cadbury
The hon. Lady feels confident that the regulator’s powers cover high-risk buildings and the risks to buildings from flooding, overheating and the other aspects of climate change that my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale covered, but the Bill as drafted defines a higher-risk building in clauses 58 to 62 and onwards as being residential buildings over 18 metres in height. That will exclude many buildings built on flood plains, and many flats, such as those in my constituency that get dangerously overheated—
The Chair
Order. Ms Cadbury, please sit down. I exhort Members to make interventions short and sharp. People have the opportunity to speak to the substantive issue if they wish. Please keep it short and sharp and to the point. I do apologise for being direct.
Building Safety Bill (Sixth sitting)
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Christopher Pincher
My hon. Friend makes a valid point, which I will come to later in my remarks. We want to ensure that the Building Safety Regulator has a clear remit and that its responsibilities are not confused or occluded by too much unnecessary verbiage.
The future homes standard will mean that homes in this country are fit for the future, better for the environment and affordable for consumers to heat, with low-carbon heating and very high fabric standards. We will be introducing a future building standard that will ensure that buildings that we use every day—cafés, shops, cinemas—will also be better built to ensure that they are more energy-efficient and produce fewer CO2 emissions.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for assuring us that the building regulations will be amended to take account of climate change. He mentioned addressing the issue of the heating of buildings in the future being low carbon. Many of the flats built in the last 20 years in my constituency suffer from the opposite problem and are impossible to cool. Will the building regulations also take into account the cooling of residential accommodation and buildings for other uses to ensure that they stay within a reasonable temperature for human use?
Shaun Bailey
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Again, I find myself being slightly repetitive. I do not disagree with the sentiments of the hon. Member for Weaver Vale. On this point, he and I will probably find a lot of common ground. However, the amendment strays slightly into the planning space—I almost get the impression that the hon. Gentleman is perhaps trying to tease the Minister to give us a sneak peak of what might be in the planning Bill in the Queen’s Speech. Our local planning authorities should consider these matters when they determine planning, and I know from the local councils I deal with that they do. They do have conversations when they look at the design of a particular development. They consider what impact it will have, whether there will be space to live, and whether people will feel they can live there meaningfully.
Ruth Cadbury
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s belief that the amendment strays into planning, but it talks about the
“risk of harm arising from the location, construction or operation of buildings which may injure the health and wellbeing of the individual.”
Where, particularly in the construction or operation of buildings, are the planning issues? If a building is operating unsafely or the construction is unsafe, irrespective of the height or what the building is used for, the lack of safety is not a planning issue, but a construction issue.
Shaun Bailey
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, and I see her point, but I maintain the point that I made: we are slightly straying here. I see what she says, because if a building is fundamentally unsafe, of course the new Building Safety Regulator would need to intervene. I question whether we need the amendment to say that, though. I am concerned that perhaps these conversations are happening before time. Broadly speaking, although I agree with the sentiments behind the amendment, I just think that operationally—
Siobhan Baillie
I absolutely agree with that point.
As I said regarding an earlier amendment, the definition of the requirements and the core functions as set out to the Building Safety Regulator will require it to go out to a range of different agencies. The hon. Member for Weaver Vale made a point about the Health and Safety Executive. I am a member of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions. The Health and Safety Executive is world-leading in many ways, and is going in and out of businesses looking at, for example, issues surrounding covid. It is very much people-focused, and I believe that giving the regulator the absolute ability to determine safety is important. I do not think that the amendment is necessary; I think it could end up creating more confusion and issues, particularly surrounding what health and wellbeing means to individuals. As such, I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
Ruth Cadbury
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Davies. The Minister has said that this Bill will bring in a new era for building safety, but will it? I agree that it is better than nothing—it is definitely an improvement on the legislative framework that we have had until now—but I am concerned about all of the gaps where people are working in, living in and occupying the many buildings that are outwith the scope of the Bill as currently drafted. That is why amendment 10, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale, needs to be in the Bill. As many witnesses have told us, the safety of a building depends on a range of factors, including its location and what it is used for. If a tower block is located underneath the arrival path of an airport, for instance, that is a safety issue as well as a planning issue. As we will see in later clauses, so many occupants and so many types of buildings are excluded from this Bill. It is called the Building Safety Bill and, in my view, a building safety Bill should be about making all buildings safe.
It is not clear whether the Bill will protect students in student accommodation. We all remember when fire ripped up the sides of The Cube in Bolton, so are student residences protected? Are care home residents covered by the scope of this Bill; will they be protected if a fire rips through their building or up its sides? Of course, care home residents are, almost by definition, among the least mobile in our communities, perhaps superseded only by occupants of hospital beds. They cannot move quickly in the case of a fire, and my understanding is that they are excluded from the scope of the Bill.
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss amendment 6, which is a minor and technical amendment that will ensure clause 4 works as intended.
Clause 4 places a duty on the Building Safety Regulator to assist and encourage those responsible for the safe construction and management of high-rise residential and other in scope buildings, as well as residents, to secure the safety of people in or around those buildings. The intention of clause 4 is to ensure that the Building Safety Regulator proactively engages with those with duties around the safety of high-rise residential and other buildings in scope, to encourage them to do the right thing.
The purpose of this amendment is to ensure the list of classes of “relevant persons” that the Building Safety Regulator should encourage is complete. The current list of “relevant persons” includes residents. However, the key duties on residents of high-rise residential buildings at clause 95 of the Bill also apply to owners of residential units, even if they are not resident at the time.
Amendment 6 adds owners of residential units to the list of “relevant persons”, bringing this clause into line with the approach to residents’ duties elsewhere in the Bill. The effect of this amendment is that the Building Safety Regulator will be under a duty to assist and encourage owners of residential units in higher-risk buildings to do the right thing, for example through guidance and communications.
I turn now to clause 4. At the heart of our proposals to transform the building safety environment is the implementation of a more stringent regulatory regime for high-rise residential and other in scope buildings. This new regime will be implemented and enforced by the Building Safety Regulator. The details of the new regulatory regime for high-rise residential and other in-scope buildings will be set out when the Committee deliberates over parts 3 and 4 of the Bill, so I will not detain the Committee on those matters now. These create powerful enforcement tools for the Building Safety Regulator to hold duty holders to account.
However, a good regulator does not rely on enforcing breaches in the law after they have occurred. A good regulator proactively supports and encourages those it regulates to comply. This principle is reflected in the regulator’s code, which highlights that:
“Regulators should provide advice and guidance that is focused on assisting those they regulate to understand and meet their responsibilities.”
To ensure that this best practice approach to regulation is taken by the Building Safety Regulator when regulating the safety of high-rise residential and other in scope buildings, clause 4 places a specific statutory duty on the Building Safety Regulator to take this approach.
Clause 4 places a duty on the Building Safety Regulator to assist and encourage those responsible for the safe construction and management of high-rise residential and other in scope buildings, as well as residents, to secure the safety of people in or around those buildings. It will require the regulator to take proactive steps to enhance the safety of people in high-rise residential and other in-scope buildings. The regulator could fulfil this duty by developing and publishing best-practice guidance, setting up information services to advise duty holders, or running workshops for those responsible for developing and managing such buildings. The regulator could also test materials aimed at residents of such buildings with a residents panel, to help ensure that its communications are well targeted, effective, digestible and understandable. The shadow Building Safety Regulator is already liaising closely with stakeholders and will be releasing a series of guidance documents over the next 18 months to help duty holders understand what is needed of them in order to meet their new duties.
Once the regime is in place, the Building Safety Regulator will encourage, but ultimately will be able to force, duty holders to do the right thing in a proportionate way. Requiring the regulator to take proactive steps to encourage the construction and management of safe high-rise residential and other in-scope buildings is a vital part of creating the culture change we need, to which Committee members have referred. I commend this short clause, and the short amendment to it, to the Committee.
Ruth Cadbury
We do not have an issue with the amendment, because it seems logical to bring leaseholders within the scope of the clause so that it is consistent with other references to leaseholders elsewhere in the Bill, but I will take this opportunity to probe the definition of “resident”. The Minister talks about high-rise—another definition that we will talk about later—residential and other in-scope buildings. Who is a resident? I understand that resident leaseholders, assured shorthold tenants who are leaseholders, and social rent tenants are all obviously residents, but what about residential licensees in other forms of tenancy; guardians; students in student accommodation, particularly if that is their sole home; residents of care homes, for some of whom that is their only home; hotel guests; hospital patients; people renting holiday lets? Those are just the ones I can think of, off the top of my head. Is one a resident if one puts one’s head to sleep overnight in a building, or is there only a limited form of occupancy status in order to fall into scope of the Bill?
Shaun Bailey
I will be brief, because I think this clause and the amendment to it are relatively straightforward. The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth makes an interesting point. I will explain my understanding of how that will work—forgive my ignorance if I get this wrong. For some of the scenarios that she highlighted, such as student accommodation and holiday lets, I imagine that a structure will be in place so that someone above that will manage the building that falls in scope of the clause, but we would also hope that within that there would be a responsible landlord, whoever that might be, who has that relationship and can articulate those messages. I do not disagree with her scepticism about those groups engaging in the way that we would expect them to.
Shaun Bailey
Absolutely, and the hon. Lady made a really interesting point that allows us to think about how that would operate. We talk quite abstractly about things, and the clause in particular sounds very nice, but when we consider the detail of its operational function, we realise that a lot of people caught by the provision will have someone above them in the ownership chain. How can we ensure that those obligations are met?
Broadly speaking, I agree with the clause. It is absolutely right to ensure proactive engagement between the regulator and the relevant persons. As my right hon. Friend the Minister touched on in his contribution, the regulator should not be there just to slam down when things go wrong; it should be proactive in ensuring that things are done correctly in the first place. I will listen very intently to his response to the hon. Lady’s interesting points. From an operational perspective, it is important to remember that there will be people between those relevant persons, and that the regulator, as it carries out its engagement practices under the clause, will encourage best practice from those people as well.
Christopher Pincher
Clause 8 relates to the establishment and operation of a voluntary occurrence reporting system about building safety.
The Government recognise the success of voluntary occurrence reporting systems in improving the safety of industry the world over, including in the UK built environment. We agree with recommendation 1.4 (c) of the independent review, which asks that such a system be in existence under the new building safety regime. The clause contributes to its implementation.
The clause requires the Building Safety Regulator to make arrangements for a person to establish and operate a voluntary occurrence reporting system about building safety. Under the system, structural or fire-safety related information that is seen by the reporter as an actual or potential risk to building or life safety will be reported through an online portal. We expect the person operating the system to then receive, anonymise, analyse and publish those reports online. In doing so, the system will allow important lessons learned to be shared across industry, prompting stakeholders to proactively identify and resolve issues before they escalate. To give an example, if a contractor were to report safety issues with a fire door, that intelligence could be shared across industry, allowing others to identify and resolve any issue at their own sites. The person working on the incident can report it through the voluntary occurrence reporting system, where it is then analysed and published by the person operating that system.
I stress that the objective of voluntary reporting is the prevention of accidents and incidents, not to attribute blame or liability, or for it to be used as a tool for enforcement. It is about surfacing issues as quickly and transparently as possible. To ensure that that happens, the system will be operated by a person other than the Building Safety Regulator. Voluntary occurrence reporting will ensure that occurrences not serious enough to be captured by the mandatory occurrence reporting system are still reported, recorded and shared. Those two reporting systems, along with whistleblowing, will complement one another to instil a safety-conscious, just culture in industry. By voluntarily reporting an issue, important details and lessons learned are shared with industry. This release of intelligence will increase industry awareness of issues and enable workers to better identify and resolve them should they occur elsewhere, averting dangers that may otherwise have gone unnoticed.
Ruth Cadbury
This sounds like a very sensible proposal. I am only surprised that it does not already exist in the construction industry—but, then, so many of us are ceasing to be surprised given the sheer mess that has been going on. Under the proposals in the Bill, will the reporting be made public such that users, leaseholders and residents of a building are aware of the reports, in case the building owners do not themselves make the residents or leaseholders aware?
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. We want information to be as transparent and as available as possible. That is one reason for it going through a filter—for it to be properly analysed and assessed before it might be reported on. Whistleblowing is a tried and tested—almost traditionally British—way of doing things when it comes to surfacing unpalatable matters in business, as well as in the public sector. We want to find as many effective means as possible of identifying issues and raising them quickly so that they can be addressed, creating an airline-industry approach to issues, in which we are looking not to blame or point the finger but simply to identify and almost—I use this word advisedly—celebrate errors and issues, so that when people identify an issue it is second nature for them to raise it so it can be fixed as rapidly as possible.
Christopher Pincher
I will give way once more to the hon. Lady, and then I should probably make a bit of progress.
Ruth Cadbury
I recognise that. Let us say that a building owner recognises and realises, for instance, that the Pincher Weaver fire door is not safe—for the record, this is an imaginary scenario; there is no such thing as the Pincher Weaver fire door. If residents in another building realise or suspect that the fire doors in their block may be the Pincher Weaver ones, but their building owners or managers do not highlight this, will they have ways of finding out that the Pincher Weaver fire door that appears to be in their block is dangerous, and that they need to highlight it? That is why I am asking whether this information will be in the public domain.
Christopher Pincher
Indeed: the Opposition are there to quiz, question and probe. The responsibilities that the Secretary of State has with regard to the composition of the committees, the Building Safety Regulator, and HSE in general differ in no way from the existing responsibilities that Ministers have, so we are not trying to create a new beast. What we do want to do, of course, is to make sure that Parliament has appropriate oversight. That is why, as I said in my remarks, any changes to the structure of committees will be made through the affirmative procedure, so both Houses will be able to have their say on any material changes to the committees we have identified and put on the face of the Bill.
In conclusion, I thank the Committee for its consideration of these clauses. I think they are very important clauses for the Building Safety Regulator to have at its disposal, so I am grateful, and I commend them to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 9 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 10 to 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 13
Local Authorities and Fire and Rescue Authorities: Assistance Etc To Regulator
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Christopher Pincher
First, let me speak to clause 13, the first clause in this grouping. Dame Judith’s independent review recommended that the Health and Safety Executive, local authority building control, and fire and rescue authorities work together to deliver the new regulatory regime for high-rise residential buildings. This clause will support that independent review vision, enabling the Building Safety Regulator to secure support from local authorities and fire and rescue authorities when regulating high-rise residential and other in-scope buildings.
As shadow Building Safety Regulator, the Health and Safety Executive is developing an operational model in which key regulatory decisions on high-rise residential and other in-scope buildings are taken through a multidisciplinary team approach. Those teams will bring together the right specialists to take critical regulatory decisions on high-rise residential and other in-scope buildings, and will typically include staff from local authorities and fire and rescue services. That approach reflects the fact that fire and rescue services have expert fire protection teams, experienced in regulating fire safety issues through the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Local authority building control teams contain crucial expertise in inspecting and enforcing against building regulations requirements under the Building Act 1984.
Taking that multidisciplinary team approach has three advantages. First, drawing on the expertise in local regulators will be more efficient and effective than a national regulator employing and training all inspectors nationally. Secondly, this approach will avoid the best inspectors in local authorities and in fire and rescue authorities moving to the national inspectorate. Retaining expertise at the local level is critical to ensuring that the full range of buildings are properly regulated locally. Thirdly, the teams will support co-operation and co-ordination. That is crucial when the Building Safety Regulator, local authorities and fire and rescue authorities are all likely to have legal responsibilities in relation to a high-rise residential building. Under its general powers in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the Building Safety Regulator will also be able to secure expertise from the private sector, where appropriate, to support the work of the multi-disciplinary team.
The clause sets out the process by which the Building Safety Regulator can secure support from local authorities and fire and rescue authorities, and gives local authorities and fire and rescue authorities the legal powers to provide support. The Government want support to be typically provided through co-operation and agreement. That approach respects the fact that local authorities and fire and rescue authorities are subject to local democratic accountability. The new regulator is also committed to a co-operative approach.
Ruth Cadbury
It is welcome that elements of local authority building control are being taken out of the competitive relationship in which they find themselves. I think that the head of building control who came to the Committee said that this is the only regulatory regime where there is competition between regulators—between the public and the private sector. Has the Minister done an impact assessment that shows that the fire authorities and local authority building control currently have the capacity to do the work that the Bill requires for buildings over 18 metres?
Christopher Pincher
The hon. Lady will know that we have spent a considerable amount of public money as a result of our efforts to recruit more experts and more fire and risk assessors over the past 18 months. We have recruited, and are training, a considerable number of experts to ensure that the resources are sufficient for buildings over a certain height to be properly assessed and, therefore, to be effectively remediated. I am confident that we have done, and will continue to do, the work to support the sector.
The hon. Lady was also right to say that it is sensible that we develop a co-operative rather than a competitive approach. That is what we are trying to do, because it is crucial that when the Building Safety Regulator and local authorities work together they do so sensibly and coherently. As I said, the Government want that support to be typically provided through co-operation and agreement, and the new regulator is committed to a co-operative approach.
The Chief Inspector of Buildings chairs the joint regulators group, which brings together the Local Government Association, the National Fire Chiefs Council and local authority building control. Schedule 3 provides for legal duties for co-operation between the Building Safety Regulator and local authorities and fire and rescue services respectively.
In most cases, the Building Safety Regulator will request support under this clause, and local authorities and fire and rescue authorities will respond positively to such a request. Where an authority has a genuine reason not to provide support on a specific occasion, such as when it needs to focus on a serious public safety risk elsewhere, the Building Safety Regulator would seek to accommodate that.
However, it is essential that this new regulatory regime works to secure the safety of residents of high-rise residential buildings, so there must be a backstop enabling the Building Safety Regulator to get the support it needs if all attempts at persuasion are insufficient. Therefore, the clause includes a power to direct local authorities and fire and rescue authorities to provide support. The power to direct is intended to be used only as a last resort—I must stress that to the Committee—so there are significant safeguards to ensure that it is not used lightly.
The power to direct can be used only following a written request from the Building Safety Regulator. The authority must have the opportunity to give reasons why it should not be required to provide assistance, and the Building Safety Regulator must consider any reasons given by the authority not to provide support. Crucially, the Secretary of State has to give consent to any direction.
Finally, I want to reassure the Committee that we will turn to funding arrangements when we consider clause 15. The Government intend that local authorities and fire and rescue authorities will be properly funded for their work in supporting the Building Safety Regulator. Clause 13 is crucial to ensuring that the regulator can call on the expertise it needs to regulate high-rise residential and other in-scope buildings.
On clause 14, the Government intend that the Bill should enable the Building Safety Regulator to work closely with other regulatory experts, bringing together the right specialists to regulate high-rise residential and other in-scope buildings. We have just considered clause 13, and we may consider it a little more in a moment, with other members of the Committee contributing. As I have said, it enables the Building Safety Regulator to secure support from local authorities and fire and rescue services.
The Crown application of the new regime, as set out in clause 141, is, in summary, a more stringent regulatory regime in occupation for high-rise residential buildings and will apply to buildings owned or managed by the Crown, with appropriate modifications. Where the Building Safety Regulator is regulating high-rise residential buildings owned or managed by the Crown, it is appropriate that the Building Safety Regulator can call on the support of inspectors authorised to enforce the fire safety order specifically for these Crown premises. Therefore, clause 15 allows the Building Safety Regulator to request support from inspectors in the Crown premises fire safety inspectorate and to give those inspectors the appropriate legal powers to provide support. So, they are covered, too.
We expect those requested to support the work of the Building Safety Regulator to form part of a multidisciplinary team looking at crucial regulatory decisions, such as assessing the safety case for a high-rise residential building. The clause is intended to ensure that the Building Safety Regulator can bring together the right experts when regulating Crown premises, as opposed to other premises, and is an important addition to the Bill with regard to the work of the Building Safety Regulator and its regime of oversight of buildings owned or managed by the Crown, of which there are a lot.
Building Safety Bill (First sitting)
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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The Chair
I am going to bring in Ruth now, and I know that Mike and Marie have further questions that they want to ask.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Q
Dan Daly: I think you are referring to Worcester Park.
Ruth Cadbury
Yes, Richmond House in Worcester Park.
Dan Daly: There are a couple of things that I think are useful here. One is the competency issue. I think we have maintained right from the start that everyone involved in the build process, right the way through and from maintenance through to occupation, needs to be competent in the role. That is the first part: how these buildings are constructed in the first place and the appropriate measures—barriers, fire-stopping arrangements and so on—being put in place.
There is also the work around product regulation, which I think is really important. We have all seen the evidence at the Grenfell inquiry that products not fit for purpose have been openly sold, knowingly sold. That needs to stop, so that people can build in confidence with the materials they have. I think those two things come together quite well to look at the issues. But there is something, again, about the scope of the Bill. It is starting where it needs to start. I can understand that the new regulator would want to start proportionately and get that right. But I think it is hugely important that we open up the pathways to extending that remit, to look at other types of building.
We have the issue of modern methods of construction. That can be any kind of new aspect of building. I think Worcester Park has an element of timber-frame construction. We are seeing lots of modular construction. We have the highest modular constructed building in Europe here in London. Those kinds of elements need to be looked at to ensure that competency goes right the way through, from the off-site manufacture and the materials used, to the on-site installation. Those are things for the future; that is a good place for us to be. My concern at the moment is this: what are we doing about the existing stock? I think that is part of your question. There is the issue about how we can reach back on building defects. I think there is a slight flaw in that.
There is a welcome extension to the timeframes on this, but the slight flaw is that it is to the date when the building was complete. We have already seen buildings for which even the 15 years proposed now would have elapsed. If it has not elapsed there certainly is not time between it coming in and the point in which it elapses for the legal action to kick in and take place. There needs to be something about whether it is from when the defect has occurred. The defect, if not picked up during the building stage, would then be beyond the vision and scope of the fire service as a regulator. The fire service does not dismantle buildings to understand what was not done properly through the building control process and construction processes. We need to get stronger on that issue as well. Those are the elements we can do more on in terms of reaching back.
There is an issue as well with buildings and planning. Some buildings will already have attained planning permission under the broken system, and they will be allowed to be built going forward, adding to the pile of issues we are trying to address now. Where is the hard stop on those buildings? They need to be reapplied for to make sure the standards are fit for purpose today. That is another important element we would like to see change to make sure we do not add to where we are.
Sir Ken Knight: Can I just add to that? I think that is why one of the important inherent, underpinning foundations of the Bill is that it enables legislation. It is such a large Bill and requires secondary legislation. I am sure there will be some who will sit here and suggest that it is not detailed enough. I do not hold that view; I think, by being enabling, it allows flexibility in the future for additions and to change some of those issues. It allows for the Building Safety Regulator to look at new methods of construction of buildings and make recommendations to the Secretary of State. That is probably where we came from. The Act it replaces is the Building Act 1984—some 37 years ago. That fixing in time of something that needs to be so dynamic according to risk and change enables this Bill to be that opportunity for the next generation.
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.
Siobhan Baillie
Q
Dan Daly: It is very difficult in the context of Grenfell because that is obviously where people’s minds are focused, but in my professional experience you are generally at no greater risk in a high-rise building than you are elsewhere, and the figures bear that out. We see a number of deaths. My experience is in London and if you think about London, we see the commonality of people dying in fires is not where they live, but the circumstances of them, the vulnerabilities and the care they may be subject to, or the lack of care in some instances. That is what drives those deaths.
None the less, it is recognised that people will feel nervous in those homes. There is more that we can do and this regime helps with that. The work of fire and rescue services goes beyond response; we do much more than that. It is also about prevention and protection. The protection element is about looking at the buildings, and the prevention is about the advice we can bring to people in their own homes, and it all contributes to reducing that fire risk.
There is something here that people will recognise, which is that there is limited capability for fighting fires at height. We know that and have experienced that. That in itself will not help with public confidence, but the stats of the matter—this is an emotional argument, so stats are not always the best place to find ourselves—do not support the view that you are at any higher risk. However, we must address the fact that people have and should have the right to feel safe in their own homes. We are spending time on that, and I said I think it is the right place to focus the regime for now to build that confidence, but we must have the ability to extend the scope and make people safe wherever they live.
Sir Ken Knight: In the context of high-rise buildings, the differences are that it can be more dependent on the other measures in place to ensure that compartmentation is intact, such as fire doors, having self-closers fitted, ensuring that smoke ventilations are working—all of which, as we have heard in another place of inquiry, was woefully lacking. I think it is more dependent on that.
What is key is something Judith Hackitt picked up in this Bill: the residents’ voice as well as the residents’ responsibility. That is absolutely key to this as well. They need to be assured that they have the key information, but they also have to understand that they have a key responsibility to ensure that they and the others in the same building are safe as well. I think that combination makes high-rise different from a two-bedroom cottage somewhere, because it is more dependent on others and the compartmentation is more key. That is why I support starting at 18 metres in the Bill—starting at 18 metres for buildings in scope. That is the place to start, from our experience over the last few years.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
In terms of new build, building professionals have told me that in this country we have moved from designing and building for fire safety, as Brentford Towers were built, towards concerns about thermal insulation and energy saving, so have started to lose the focus on fire, whereas in other countries the two have gone together. Do the witnesses agree with that? If so, do they feel that the Bill addresses that challenge?
Sir Ken Knight: I have also heard it said—I have no evidence that it is correct—that the two sometimes seem to be movable objects in ensuring sufficient insulation, and indeed in making the homes and lives of residents much better and much less expensive because of heat loss and energy, and in meeting the very important net zero agendas as well. I think the Bill does address that. It makes it very clear that there are hard stops at each of those gateways that are put in place in the Bill, which the developer cannot pass until they have satisfied the Building Safety Regulator that they have met the fire safety requirements and the fire safety case. That has not ever been the case before. You could have a design and build that would move on and move on in process, and move beyond that gateway before being checked by the appropriate enforcing authority. I think the Bill has gone a long way towards addressing that very point—that fire and structural safety are not left as a second cousin.
Dan Daly: Absolutely. There is the ongoing role of the approved documents that sit behind the building regulations. That is an important part of what will support the endeavour of the Bill. We need to keep working on those. They have fallen woefully out of date with modern methods of construction. That is something that needs to be reviewed with the Building Safety Regulator going forward, and challenged to make sure that the appropriate documents are kept up to the date.
There is something about the competency of individuals as well, in reading those approved documents in tandem. There are documents that talk about how a building is structurally sound and how it is fire-safety sound, before it starts to talk about the thermal performance of the building, but the two should be read in conjunction. What we have seen is people not necessarily with the right competence adopting convenient interpretations of those documents rather than following what the documents are trying to say. That again points back to the competency issue and the oversight by the regulator, and hopefully the oversight of the gateway processes, to prevent those things happening again.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
The Chair
Just before you answer, I will point out that we have two minutes and then I will have to bring this to a close.
Dan Daly: That points back to the competency issue. We have the products stuff that will hopefully be regulated and perform better—people will know that what they are getting will do the job it says on the tin—and then the individuals who are employed to make the determination about what products are used on a building in certain circumstances having the right competency to interpret the building regulations and the approved documents to make sure they are using the right things in the right places.
Sir Ken Knight: The Bill, of course, includes the provision for a new construction products regulator, dealing with the products, which is really important in modern methods of construction. You are absolutely correct that modern methods of construction are important. Of course, modern methods of construction bring with them a precision in construction by pre-forming and pre-making, so modern methods have some advantage. We need to ensure that they have in-built fire safety elements when they are constructed and finished as buildings.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
Graham Watts: The Bill is very welcome. It is a step forward from the draft Bill that we saw last year. The clarification on scope has been very welcome, for example, but it is important to say that the Bill, or the Act in due course, will not be a panacea to ensure building safety. That is a really important point. The Bill is needed to support the paradigm shift that is needed in the culture change of the construction industry, and only that shift in the construction industry will ensure that we have safer buildings.
Adrian Dobson: I basically agree. It is important to say that it is just a piece in the jigsaw puzzle. It is very welcome that there will be a new regime for building regulations, and that the HSE will be placed with oversight of it. Basing it on the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, which have worked quite well in terms of looking after the safety of the people who construct buildings, is quite sensible. Without wishing to repeat what you have heard from previous witnesses, there are other pieces in the jigsaw. Inevitably, the industry relies on guidance. I think you have heard previously that the approved documents still need major review. Obviously there has been discussion about the buildings that are within the scope. You can imagine that other types of buildings may, in due course, need to come within scope, but it is sensible to start with what we know is at particularly high risk of catastrophic failure.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
Q
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.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
Graham Watts: I guess it is an unfair question for now, because the regulator does not exist yet. But I have been impressed by the way in which the HSE has set up interim arrangements. For example, the interim industry competence committee—there is a committee on industry competence on the face of the Bill—has already been set up, and I am already liaising with the chair of that committee to make sure that there is an appropriate transition from the work that we have been doing within the industry for the last four years, to the work that will be eventually housed within the regulator.
Clearly, the staff at the HSE are experts on health and safety, so Peter Baker has to build up his team. He is a long way from being able to do that at the moment, but I am hopeful that the same principles and protocols that have driven the HSE—certainly its ability to consult the industry through bodies such as the Construction Industry Advisory Committee, which has been significant—will be carried over into the new regulator when the legislation is enacted.
Adrian Dobson: At a very basic level, the fact that it will be within the HSE sends a useful signal, because it says that at the heart of the building regulatory process is the safety and welfare of people. It is a simplistic thing, but it is quite an important signal. It has probably been given to the HSE because of the relative success of the CDM regulations. I do not think anybody in the industry thinks the CDM regulations have been perfect, and it has taken quite a lot of iterations to get them to where they are today. There are some weaknesses, particularly in the handover of information at the end of the project. That will also be so important for the safety of buildings under the new Fire Safety Act. But I think HSE has a good track record, which is possibly what is giving people confidence about it.
The Chair
Q
Graham Watts: There are a couple of concerns that I wanted to get across, and I think Adrian certainly shares one of them. The first one is a worry about the unintended consequences of the Act, if they are not carefully thought through. I do have a real worry about the insurability of some of these roles. Adrian has already referred to the narrowing and hardening of the insurance market for anything to do with fire safety and cladding. That is significant. A lot of companies are pulling out of that work altogether, because either they cannot get the insurance or the insurance is too cost-prohibitive. There is an onerous set of requirements on the building safety manager, for example, that I think will make it potentially uninsurable.
There are things that can be done to help that. Clause 91 on residents’ engagement strategy qualifies the requirements by saying so far as “reasonably practicable”. I think we need that kind of codicil to the requirements on some of the roles within the Act; otherwise, they are going to be uninsurable. I was responsible for setting up the designated body for registering approved inspectors after the Building Act 1984, and that legislation was not implemented until 1997. It took 13 years for us to get over the problems—the unintended consequences of the Act—that meant it could not be implemented. One of those problems was the inability to get insurance for approved inspectors. I think that is a warning signal that needs to be taken care of.
Secondly, there is a need for independent scrutiny of construction work. Adrian and I both believe very strongly in that. It came over as a recommendation from the Chartered Institute of Building and others in the working groups within the Competence Steering Group. We have lost that. If we go back in time, it was traditional to have clerks of works independently scrutinising the work on site. It was traditional for architects and engineers to go on site and supervise to ensure that their design work was being correctly implemented. We have lost most of that—they are rarities now—and I think that the requirement to have that independent assessment of construction work is essential. Whether it could be on the face of the Bill is, I understand, a moot point, but it is something that we need to develop, and we do need Government support—particularly as a client, actually—to help ensure that that happens, because it is one way to make sure that the design intentions are properly constructed, and that we get the quality that was always intended.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Christopher Pincher
I am obliged to the hon. Lady, but design codes will apply, including to PDRs. She might note that 72,000 additional homes have been created in the past several years thanks to PDR. That is about double the number of homes that the Mayor of London has managed to build in an equivalent time. We have stipulated that those homes going forward must be of a good design quality, must be of a reasonable space standard and must have light in all habitable rooms. We are building homes for people who need them on the brownfield sites where they need to be built, and she should support our reforms, not oppose them
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Councillor Martin Tett, the Conservative leader of Buckinghamshire County Council, said that planned changes to permitted development will create
“open season for developers to break up”—
the high street. He has said that article 4 directions are vital in enabling local planning authorities to protect town centres such as the medieval streets of High Wycombe and that councils need time to implement article 4 directions to protect their high streets. Therefore, will the Minister agree to Councillor Tett’s request to pause these changes? What does he have to say to Councillor Tett and any other council leaders of all parties who oppose these highly unpopular planning reforms?
Christopher Pincher
I am afraid that the hon. Lady is a little behind the times, because we have already announced our proposals for article 4 directions. We are keeping article 4s as a tool in the armoury of local authorities should they wish to use them. We have also made it very clear that, with permitted development rights, there must be prior approvals in place that local authorities can use to determine whether a planning application should go forward with a PDR, looking, for example, at the height of a building, the aspect of it, and whether there is an aerodrome within 2 kms of a taller-rise building. We made appropriate changes to ensure that we can build brownfield development where it needs to be developed in order to bring forward the homes of the future that people need.
Planning
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship again, Mrs Cummins, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely), both on securing this debate and on the many constructive and positive suggestions he made about how the planning system could be reformed, in contrast to the way it is going to be done by this Government. Like many of the Members who have spoken today, I am extremely concerned that the Government are intent on replacing with a developers’ charter a planning system that, although not perfect, has served this country well. In fact, the process of reform is well underway; regular additions to the permitted development rights, making it easier to change use without scrutiny, have been going on for most of the past 10 years.
The hon. Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb) described an example of what she sees as a failure in what is effectively developer-led planning under the current system. This trend has been going on for much of the past 10 years, and unfortunately, the Government seem to want to complete that process. They seek to silence residents and stifle the voice of communities up and down the country, as many Members have said today. Under the proposed plan for growth and renewal zones, residents, local community groups, civic groups and parish councils will lose their right to object to new planning developments. The power of local people’s involvement has been so well described by the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), as well as by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken)—I should declare an interest in her speech, as my first proper job was with the Covent Garden Community Association. The very people who know their local area—who know what their neighbourhood, village or town needs, and what needs to be protected—will be silenced. We are not saying that people should have a veto, but that they should have a voice.
What can they do once they have been gagged? Well, they could try writing to and meeting their local elected councillors. As my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) said, applications are very often approved by councils—nine out of 10 applications are approved—but the Government have already started to gag local councils as well through the changes to permitted development rights, and will do so further. Democratically elected councillors who understand their communities and the complex and, yes, hard decisions behind planning applications will be denied the chance to stand up and fight for their residents in the way that they have been doing for many years, both with planning applications and through the local plan process, as the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) described.
People and their representatives are being sold down the river to enable a new developers’ charter. In his response to the Opposition day debate last month, the Secretary of State said that the Opposition wanted to “do absolutely nothing”. That could not be further from the truth: just yesterday, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) presented a ten-minute rule Bill to the House—the Planning and Local Representation Bill—that would guarantee the right of local residents to have a say over new developments in their community. It tackles the long-running issue of land banking and addresses the blight of permitted development reforms so that local councils can at least set local design standards on permitted development changes and avoid the cramped, poorly lit, rabbit-hutch housing that we have seen spring up. The Government’s own advisor labelled this process as building
“the slums of the future”,
which is why my hon. Friend’s Bill sought to address it.
The ongoing and proposed planning reforms also make it harder to tackle the challenges facing society now and in the future, whether that is the climate crisis, sustainability—as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe)—or the future of high streets. Surely with the challenges we face, Government should want to work together with local authorities, civic groups, and many other highly skilled groups in the community, locally and nationally, to address those challenges in the planning system. That system grew out of a need over 100 years ago to address public health concerns in the expanding industrial towns and cities, and the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 was introduced to ensure that public good was at the centre of all development. No one would argue that the planning system is perfect, or that it needs to remain frozen in stone. There are many things that can and do improve the system, as the hon. Member for Isle of Wight said, and would enable the high-quality, truly affordable homes that we need to be built, but the Government reforms are wrong and they are the wrong answer to the question of how we build more homes.
I will pause to describe what colleagues have told me about some new housing developments in their patches: housing estates with no other facilities that are a car drive away from buying a pint of milk or taking the children to school; estates with roads with no pavements and massive traffic congestion in the area, no broadband and inadequate water, sewerage and even electricity. What is going to happen when the target number of people in this country own electric vehicles and need to charge them overnight? Will our electricity system be able to cope?
It is not the planning system that is preventing 1.1 million homes that already have planning permission from being built, so why not address that challenge? We know that local councils up and down the country are already taking bold steps to tackle the affordability crisis in housing. My local authority is doing that with new council homes that are built with air source heat pumps and good insulation.
My hon. Friends the Members for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell) talked about the need for planning to deliver affordable housing, but also jobs, transport and schools. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon talked about accessible housing and housing for people in our communities with different needs.
The hon. Members for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) and for Cities of London and Westminster mentioned the need to ensure that the new homes built are not just flats or houses but affordable homes for local people who are not crowded out by the holiday business. Let the planning process decide that determination, not the free-for-all that the market provides.
The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) talked about the loss of basic rural services such as buses and post offices, which need to be protected and enhanced. The hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly) reminded us of the importance of the green belt and the need to protect that.
We need not just bricks and mortar but homes, including affordable homes. We need not just housing estates but communities. The planning system is there to address that and it needs to be protected and enhanced, not decimated, to address not just the numbers game on houses but the climate crisis, the north-south imbalance in this country, traffic congestion and much more.
In fact, the Minister appears to have united many of his Back Benchers against the Government plans and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) said, many voters in a growing number of areas are punishing the Government for this very programme, as described in the White Paper. Surely the Government should listen to the universal condemnation of their proposed planning reforms, drop their developer’s charter and listen to the constructive voices about what needs to be done, not only about planning or in the Minister’s Department.
This cannot be done in isolation. We need to consider development in the context of other issues such as transport, including providing pavements to new stations; the local economy and jobs; affordable housing of decent quality and designed for the different needs of different people; climate change and biodiversity; community services, including schools, doctors, parks and post offices; and basic infrastructure, as I have mentioned, including power, sewerage, broadband and so on. We need to positively change the planning system, not rip it apart.
Draft Business and Planning Act 2020 (Pavement Licences) (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2021
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher.
The Opposition will not oppose the extension to the current regulations, which grant pavement licences to allow for the placement wof outdoor furniture by businesses selling food and drink. We believe that it is a common-sense extension. From eating out in my constituency, I know that the measure will be welcomed by the relevant businesses, neighbouring retail business that benefit from additional footfall and trade, and obviously by people who have enjoyed eating and drinking outdoors, particularly when the weather is nice. The benefit of pavement-based eating and drinking to all sales is the type of boost and support that high streets have needed, and will continue to need. It is ironic that that benefit runs alongside the changes that the Government have made to permitted development rights, which mean that planning permission is not required to turn a commercial business into housing, thus threatening the viability of some more vulnerable high streets and town and village centres.
On the regulations, the Minister will have read the briefing from the Local Government Association. Although it greatly welcomes the proposed extension of the regulations, it has raised some concerns about the fixed and expedited process for issuing pavement licences brought in as a result of the covid pandemic. The Minister will be aware that the process has raised operational challenges for councils, particularly for inner-city and inner-London local authorities, where there are a large number of such businesses. The process has imposed new burdens on authorities, such as when road or footway closures result in additional costs for barriers, road closures and marshals. Those additional costs to local authorities account for far more than the £100 cap charged for such licences. Figures from Westminster City Council for April this year show that the implementation costs to the authority were more than £2 million, and some councils have estimated that they lose around £700 per licence application.
Has the Minister carried out any assessment of the financial impact on local authorities of the proposed extension of the regulations? Has he any plans to provide additional support to local authorities that are particularly subject to a significant net cost arising from implementation of the regulations? Local authorities request that the regulations are brought into effect before the summer recess, and are concerned that they apply only until September 2022. Has the Minister any comments about that proposed timing? Will he commit to working with the LGA and local authorities on a fundamental long-term review of pavement licensing, for which they have asked, which blends the best of the original regulations with the new? They want the proposed extension to last beyond September 2022 because such a review will take longer than the proposed year extension.
I hope that the Minister can address those important issues in his response.
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the Opposition’s broad support for the regulations. We believe that they are important to efforts to support the accommodation and hospitality sector businesses to recover effectively from the coronavirus epidemic, given that they have been hit disproportionately by its effects.
The hon. Lady asked a number of questions. One of the reasons we are introducing the PDR changes is to ensure that people are living and working closer to high streets and services that they may use, because that extra footfall may benefit those high street businesses.
Christopher Pincher
Well, I was just giving that introduction in response to her questions, but I am happy to give way.
Ruth Cadbury
I will say, as I have said before, that one does not need permitted development rights; the planning permission is perfectly adequate for dealing with issues connected with people living and working in town centres, to ensure that a core is retained around the centre of a town and village, even where retail generally is declining.
Christopher Pincher
I will not dwell on that matter, Sir Christopher, because you would soon direct me to do otherwise. We believe, however, that the changes we have introduced will ensure that more properties can benefit from residential accommodation in towns and urban spaces. Some 72,000 new homes have been created thanks to the introduction of PDR, homes that probably would not have been built on brownfield and urban spaces without that change.
On the hon. Lady’s specific questions, she asked me quite properly about the burdens that may be placed on local authorities as businesses unlock, and as a result of requirements to process speedier applications for licences. We will undertake a burdens assessment, as we ordinarily and properly do, of the effect the regulatory changes may have on local authorities. That will be done by September, in accordance with the new burdens doctrine. We will make sure that local authorities will receive the appropriate support to expedite applications in the extended period.
The hon. Lady asked why the date of 30 September 2022 was chosen for the conclusion of the extension period. The answer is simple: this is a statutory instrument, and other changes would require primary legislation. Within the scope of the 2020 Act, all we are able to do with the SI is to increase the date on which the regulations expire. We believe that a 12-month extension that takes us to the end of the next summer season is a sensible date for local authorities to plan for.
We will study the data to assess the effect of the regulations in supporting businesses and the wider effect they may have on consumer behaviour and, of course, local authorities. We will contract to work with local authorities, the LGA, the District Councils Network and other appropriate bodies to see what further and possibly permanent regime changes we may wish to introduce in future. For now, we think that a year’s extension to the current regulations is right and appropriate. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford.
We will not oppose this statutory instrument to introduce new fees for prior approval for some additional permitted development rights that have not already been through this House—those that increase the height of residential homes, those concerning development extensions to universities and those concerning the change of use of commercial buildings to residential use.
Many Members from across this House, as well as many key stakeholders in the planning system, have consistently and articulately opposed the galloping extension of the powers of the permitted development rights system, which I believe started in 2013. However, the Government have persisted. Now that the various PDR changes are law, we cannot argue that additional resources will be required by the local planning authority to assess and process them. Furthermore, this cost should naturally fall on the owner/ developer and not on the council tax payer. It is only right that charges are implemented to address the cost to the local planning authority of assessing changes to buildings that will have a significant impact on future occupants, on neighbours and on the wider community.
I want to take this opportunity to raise a number of wider issues, because many colleagues from all parties in the House share concerns about the extension of the PDR regulations since 2013. We all acknowledge that our planning system is not perfect, but as many Members said in last Monday’s Opposition day debate, the many reforms already introduced or still being considered by the Government are little more than a developers’ and—I would add—a property-owners’ charter.
The process of determining planning applications, as opposed to PDRs, ensures a full and professional assessment of proposals for new buildings, ensures that any change of use or extensions of existing developments are appropriate and provide a healthy environment to live in—one of the primary purposes of the original planning system—and also ensures that public impacts arising from the change are appropriate. These include the use, scale, form and design of a building; access within and around the building; parking and transport; impact on neighbours; impact on the natural and heritage environments; and much more. For future occupants, vital community assets are also considered—shops, schools, open space, transport, and a whole host of other important and necessary services. They must be available nearby or provided through the development, if it is a large one.
Planning is about determining public good, but the PDR system removes the opportunity to make a proper assessment of most, if not all, of those factors. It removes the opportunity for a local authority transparently and accountably to refuse an application that is deemed not to be in the public good.
For the time being, planning applications are subject to public consultation, whereas PDR changes are not. The impact of the PDR changes is already being felt by neighbours of the buildings affected, and our precious town and village centres. The changes affect the viability of key employment activities and the quality of life of future residents of the buildings, especially those who may be stuck out in the middle of an industrial estate.
Another regrettable consequence is local authorities’ loss of ability to negotiate minimum numbers of truly affordable and social rent units in conversions. Property owners are getting off far too lightly. The planning application process has been perfectly capable of responding to challenges in our built environment and delivering the number and affordability of homes we need. It should be improved, not undermined.
Let me move on to the specific issue of fees. Although, as I said, we will not oppose the regulations, the significant expansion of the scope of PDR raises significant challenges and, therefore, costs that LPAs can ill afford. The fee for an upward extension of a home has been set at £96, yet the fee for a planning application for the same extension would be £206. When the Local Government Association conducted a survey in 2018 on PDR changes and potential fees, 85% of local authorities said that the cost of administering each prior approval process was considerably higher than the £96 set by the Government.
When the Government ran a consultation on such changes, the responses were broadly in support of a higher fee. Will the Minister let me know how many of the consultation responses were in favour of a fee larger than £96? I appreciate that he might not have the information to hand today, but he can always reach me by email.
What discussions has the Minister had with local authority leaders about the necessary level of fees? The fees proposed in the regulations are all at or just under £100. Local authorities have said that that is insufficient to reflect the added burden. Although £100 per dwelling would be multiplied by the number of dwellings created in a change of use for commercial buildings, am I correct that £96 would apply to an extension to a university, which could be large and complex, and might have a significant impact on the local area? What representations has the Minister had about that specific aspect of the regulations?
In response to a written question that I tabled, the Government said that an impact assessment of the changes would be done “as soon as possible”. Does the Minister have a date for when that will be published, and will he ensure that I receive a copy when it is?
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her broad support for the regulations, which deal with the fee proposals, not the PDR changes that we introduced in 2014. Before I answer her questions, let me say that I respectfully disagree with her regarding the role and importance of permitted development rights, and the homes that they can create. Since 2014, when PDR was introduced, some 72,000 new dwelling places—homes for people—have been built, and they very probably would not have been built without the introduction of PDR.
There are local controls that local authorities can use to ensure that permitted development right changes take place with appropriate prior approvals, such as the aspect of a building, if it is to be upwardly built, the effect on traffic, the issue of flooding or even whether there is, in the case of building upwards, an aerodrome within 2 km of the site of the application. There are therefore measures that we have put in place to ensure that local authorities are able to control permitted development rights properly. We want PDRs to be overwhelmingly focused on brownfield redevelopment. We want brownfield sites in our towns and cities to become vibrant again, and permitted development rights are a means of ensuring that.
I am sure we all want to see shops open on, and people using, high streets up and down the country. One of the ways of saving those high streets is to ensure that people are living on or close to them. People living locally can use the services that are available. A point I have made, which I think was accepted by the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government when I addressed it some days ago—
Ruth Cadbury
We all accept that our towns and cities must be vibrant, and of course people living in town and village centres are a major part of that—and always have been. There have been major pushes over the years to achieve that. However, does the Minister think that the various initiatives to encourage living above shops represent a way to do that and, secondly, agree that the big risk of PDRs to town and village centres is the pockmarking of properties at the heart of the town or village centre, which is a real risk to the spirit and purpose of that centre? It would be far more sensible—this has been done over the years—to use the planning process so that there is both a local plan and a planning application process. That would enable, when appropriate, and if it fits the local criteria, the local authority to allow a change of use to residential for those properties out of the end—in the less viable part of the village centre—and keep the commercial core vibrant.
The Chair
Order. I am sure that, in the Minister’s answer, he will bring us back to the topic of fees.