Draft Antique Firearms Regulations 2020
Sarah Jones Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, and I thank the Minister for his remarks on the regulations; I do not intend to hold the Committee for long. The Opposition support the proposals to prevent the criminal misuse of antique firearms. I was pleased to hear from the Minister that we will have an annual review so that we can ensure that antique dealers who have no intention of committing any criminal acts are able to carry on and that the process works for them.
We are committed to working with the Government, police and other public bodies to reduce the opportunities for serious violence in our streets and homes. Today, we are discussing a technical piece of legislation that is limited in scope, but it has implications in the important task of reducing the number of dangerous weapons on our streets. As the Minister said, from 2007 to 2020 there were six fatalities linked to antique firearms, and the National Ballistic Intelligence Service found a steep rise in the number of antique firearms recovered from crime scenes by law enforcement from four in 2007 to a peak of 96 in 2016.
The statutory instrument’s principal objective, which the Opposition support, is to preserve public safety by strengthening firearms legislation to prevent the criminal misuse of antique firearms. The aim is to provide legal clarity on which old firearms are to be considered as antiques and safe to be held freely, and those that should be subject to licensing control.
Legislation to define and limit the availability of such firearms to criminals is a good thing. However, I take this opportunity, as the Minister would expect, to remind him that much more needs to be done to tackle the root causes of violent and organised crime, particularly those involving serious weapons. The Government’s approach to reducing violent crime, knife crime in particular, has been inadequate. We need a long-term public health approach to public safety and the reduction of violent crime that includes preventive interventions as well as strong enforcement.
The Minister said that public safety is the Government’s top priority but, as we know, under the Conservatives violent crime has risen by 150%. A decade of under-investment in policing has seen the loss of thousands of officers and a nearly 50% cut in police community support officers. Already overstretched, our police officers are dealing with the impact of cuts across the public sector, from policing to youth services, while enforcing covid measures and trying to maintain a reassuring visible police presence in our communities. The role of the police keeps expanding, but they are not getting the resources they need.
The regulations’ impact assessment estimates that the new legislation will result in approximately 3,800 applications for new firearms licences, 8,900 applications for variations to existing licences, 31 applications for section 5 dealer licences, and 16 applications for museum licences. They provide a total set-up cost to the Home Office and police of just over half a million pounds, with ongoing costs of a quarter of a million pounds over 10 years. The total familiarisation cost to police forces’ firearms licensing units—to ensure that officers have read the new guidance—is estimated at only £1,700. Will the Minister explain any additional impacts on police forces that the increase in applications for certificates for the additional firearms will have? Will he also confirm that the money will be made available to enforcement officers and police forces before the regulations come into place?
Furthermore, the impact assessment notes:
“While the benefits have been robustly assessed there is no robust evidence to indicate that re-classifying antique firearms in this way will reduce firearms offences, serious injuries or homicides and therefore the monitoring and evaluation of these changes will be important.”
While the seven excluded type of cartridges in this legislation will hopefully make their way into the hands of fewer criminals as a result, regular monitoring will be necessary to ensure that the other 23 cartridge types that come under the definition of “antique firearm” to be held freely do not begin to be used by criminals instead. The Government must take every opportunity to ensure that no working firearms are falling through loopholes in the law and into the wrong hands.
To conclude, the Opposition do oppose this draft secondary legislation, but the Government should be doing much more alongside it to prevent violent crime and to keep the public safe.
Protections for Emergency Service Workers
Sarah Jones Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) on securing this important debate. It was harrowing to hear of the incident that he witnessed when he rode out with the police. I have had similar cases in Croydon, and I agree with him entirely in his conclusion that whatever we are doing, it is not working.
As mentioned previously by hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), who made a thoughtful speech, today was the funeral of Sergeant Matt Ratana. He was killed on 25 September as he prepared to search a handcuffed man at the custody centre in my borough of Croydon. Sergeant Matt Ratana, who was just a few weeks away from retirement, served in the Metropolitan police for 30 years, spending his last years in Croydon as a neighbourhood police officer and then as a custody officer, as he thought he could have a bit more of a peaceful time before his retirement. I am grateful to the Minister for visiting Croydon to meet local officers who worked with Matt. The shadow Home Secretary and the Mayor of London also visited. As others have done today, I pay tribute to Matt and all our emergency service workers who have lost their lives in service.
As part of the brief I am so fortunate to hold, I am touring the country virtually to speak to police and crime commissioners about their area and the issues. Recently I was on a virtual visit to Cleveland, where I met police officers and the chief constable from the area of the hon. Member for Stockton South. I heard about the great pressure they are under, dealing with high crime levels and the impact of covid with a much reduced workforce, following 10 years of cuts.
The messages from the Government are undoubtedly confusing and challenging when it comes to this huge covid crisis, but I think we all agree that the police have done an absolutely brilliant job of dealing with what has been a very difficult task. I thank all emergency service workers who have gone above and beyond during the covid pandemic.
At last year’s Conservative party conference, the Home Secretary said, quite rightly, that emergency workers
“need to know they have a Prime Minister, a Home Secretary, and a Government that stands beside them.”
I want to ask the Minister a few questions today about how we are going to make that commitment a reality. As has already been said, over the past five years assaults on police officers have risen by almost 50%, and there has been a 21% increase in officer assaults during lockdown. That is more than 10,400 assaults with injury on the police just last year, and 30,000 including those without injury.
That comes at a human cost, but it also has a financial cost. The College of Policing has estimated that 71,000 days were taken as sick leave in 2018-19 as a result of assaults on police officers, which has an estimated cost heading for £5 million. Between January and July this year, there were more than 1,600 physical assaults on UK ambulance workers. In London, there were 355 physical assaults on ambulance workers and 239 verbal abuse incidents.
As we know, violent crime has risen by more than 150% since 2010, meaning the police are now dealing with 1 million more violent offences with thousands fewer officers. The dramatic cuts to the police workforce have meant that single crew day patrols are the norm for lots of police forces, leaving those officers alone to deal with the risks every time they respond to a situation. Last week in New Zealand, a police officer was shot and her colleagues are asking why she was on her own in that patrol car and not with a co-worker. Heaven forbid we should see that happen here.
Cuts to mental health services mean that the police are very often the ones picking up the pieces, as has been mentioned. Only a few weeks ago, a police officer told me about an incident where a police officer was stabbed after breaking into a home to access somebody who was suffering from a mental health breakdown, having been asked by the NHS to do so.
There are five immediate priorities. First, we desperately need a bigger workforce. We welcome the increase in police officer numbers, but we know that that number will not replace those we have lost.
Secondly, the rising number of attacks on police officers is unacceptable and needs to be addressed. What work is being done to understand exactly why assaults are increasing and what can be done about it? What is the link between the reduction in the number of police officers, the use of single crewing and the increase in recorded assaults? Is there any? What research is the Home Office doing?
Thirdly, the Government need to tackle sentencing—a point that has already been raised. It was a privilege to meet Lissie Harper and I am seeing her again this month. The shadow Home Secretary and I met her to talk about her campaign, to which I pay massive tribute—it really is very powerful. The families of attacked or murdered officers would like to see a much tougher approach to assaults on police officers, and I think they are right. There should be stronger penalties for those who attack the police and the emergency services. What progress have the Government made on obtaining legal advice on the issues that Lissie Harper has raised with the Home Secretary? We welcome the sentencing White Paper, but I ask the Minister to set out a clear timeline for when they will bring that important piece of legislation to Parliament.
Fourthly, the issue of protective equipment has been raised. It has been brought to the surface starkly during covid-19, with horrible spitting at emergency service workers. We welcome body-worn cameras and the use of spit guards in policing. What work has been done to learn the lessons of what has happened during covid to make sure that our police officers are protected in future?
Finally, when will we have the legislation that has been committed to, with proper legal protections for police officers when they pursue suspects on the roads? We know that the police put themselves in incredible danger to ensure suspects are caught, and they should not be criminalised for doing that job.
Can the Minister confirm when the covenant will be introduced? It is incredibly important for the police.
I am running out of time, but I pay tribute to the Police Federation’s Protect the Protectors campaign that has been running for several years, which the hon. Member for Wakefield (Imran Ahmad Khan) mentioned. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who has led a lot of the work done by the shadow home affairs team, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for the private Member’s Bill that doubled the maximum sentence for assaults against emergency service workers. Our brave workers put themselves in harm’s way every day, and they have the right to get all the protection that they deserve from us.
Registers of Births and Deaths Bill
Sarah Jones ExcerptsFriday 16th October 2020
(5 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Registers of Births and Deaths Bill 2019-21 View all Registers of Births and Deaths Bill 2019-21 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to be here today, and it was a pleasure to hear that the last time the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) was here with a private Member’s Bill was in March 1991, with a Bill on exam results. He will be pleased to know that in March 1991 I was revising for my A-level exams. I am grateful to him for making me feel young today, which does not happen very often.
It is a pleasure to speak in support of the Bill. My husband is from the royal town of Sutton Coldfield and it is my second favourite place in the country—second only to Croydon. My mother-in-law very kindly says to me that she votes Labour, but I suspect she actually votes for the right hon. Member. It is good to be on the same side in this debate.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for his hard work on the Bill. We have worked together on it and I am happy to stand and support it. As he explained, the provision for registering births and deaths is principally governed by the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, the Registration Service Act 1953 and the Registration of Births and Deaths Regulations 1987. Those pieces of legislation are based on laws that have been in place since 1837.
The Bill will modernise the way in which births and deaths are registered. It will, as the right hon. Member explained, remove the duplication of processes that has been in place since 2009, since when all birth and death registrations have been captured electronically as well as on paper. It will also remove the need to do quarterly returns. It will pave the way to changing the way we register births and deaths and bring that process into the modern world. It is good to hear that, contrary to the explanatory notes, the savings will be greater than £20 million—somewhere between £90 million and £170 million over the next 10 years.
I have spoken to the staff at Croydon Council who manage the registration processes, and I understand that they would not require new skills to make the changes in the Bill because they are already familiar with the Registration Online system. That has to be a good thing.
Because of covid and by necessity, we have seen different systems in place for registering deaths, and we can learn from this period. In Croydon, as in other areas, the decision was taken that, for a temporary period during the covid pandemic, the registration of deaths should move online, under the Registration Online—or RON—system, or via the telephone. I have spoken to the team in Croydon—they are wonderful and I thank them for what they do—and they say that the system has worked well. Indeed, they do not want to go back to the old system. In fact, they had been innovating before covid and had set up an office at our local hospital, Croydon University Hospital, where people could go to register deaths. The plan before covid kicked in had been to extend that service to the registration of births in the hospital as well.
As we know, the registration of births is far more likely to lead to fraud than the registration of deaths. That is the issue that concerns local registrars. If the registration of births moves online or by telephone, how can we ensure that the system is not susceptible to fraud? That is not at all to say that it cannot be done, but the question to the Minister and the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield is how we can ensure that we avoid an increase in identity fraud. How can an online system be sufficiently secure that there is no risk of records being lost were the system’s security to be compromised? RON, the Registration Online system, has been notoriously unreliable in the past. That could cause significant issues. We recommend that the platform is reviewed and any risks mitigated.
Can we ensure in the Bill that councils do not lose resources in the course of implementing the legislation? Although funds will be saved, as the right hon. Member has said, it is possible that, at a later date, the proposals could impact on income for local authority register offices. If the General Register Office issues copy certificates and takes the income from that, does that mean the local authority does not have the ability to undertake this role? It would be good if we could look into that, please. Will a move to online records in any way risk a lack of accessibility for those who may struggle to access the internet? I was pleased to hear from the right hon. Member that people would still be able to register in person. That is good to hear and we need to make sure that continues.
I want to be brief, so I will conclude by saying again that this Bill deserves the support of the House. It will bring up to date the antiquated process for registering births and deaths, and it will save a lot of paper.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Jones Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
As a Croydon MP and the shadow Policing Minister, I pay tribute to Sergeant Matt Ratana for his years of service in my community. Our community spoke as one on Friday both in our grief, but also in our gratitude for the many years of service from a wonderful officer, who was the very best of us, and we will not forget him.
Community policing is the bedrock of our communities, but it has suffered deep cuts. Those cuts have an acute impact in our rural areas, where vulnerability and isolation can be particularly severe. Only one in 14 crimes leads to court proceedings. Most victims get no justice at all. The Government have overseen a cut in the number of police community support officers by nearly 50%, and there are no plans to replace them. What does the Minister say to the victims of crime who deserve justice but under this Government are just not getting it?
Kit Malthouse
I acknowledge the hon. Lady’s words about the awful events of Friday. I know that it hit home hard in Croydon for her; I think she was due to visit that very custody suite that day or the following day. It was a terrible time, and hopefully justice will follow that awful crime.
On the hon. Lady’s wider point, she and I have had this discussion a number of times over the Dispatch Box. Although repetition is not infrequent in this Chamber, I urge her to reflect on the fact that for the first half of the coalition and then Conservative Government, we were struggling with a difficult financial situation nationally, and crime was falling. That required a different kind of response to the one we see today. She is right to point to the fact that we have seen a rise in crime over the past couple of years, albeit different kinds of crime from those we have seen previously. That is why we are massively increasing police capacity and bringing enormous focus, through the National Policing Board, the Crime Performance Board, which I lead, and the Strategic Change and Investment Board at the Home Office, to the national systemic problems that she raises in the hope that, over the next three years, we can drive them down significantly.
Draft Surrender of Offensive Weapons (Compensation) Regulations 2020
Sarah Jones Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, Ms Elliott, to serve under your chairmanship. I thank the Minister for his remarks. Labour Members do not intend to divide the Committee on these draft regulations and I will not keep the Committee here too long.
The Opposition support the proposals in the instrument to reimburse those in possession of weapons now banned under the Offensive Weapons Act. We will work with the Government, the police, partners and other public bodies to tackle knife crime and serious violence on our streets. Today we are discussing a technical piece of legislation that is limited in scope, but has implications for the vital task of reducing the number of dangerous weapons on our streets. Although we support the provisions in this limited instrument, the Government’s approach to reducing violent crime, particularly knife crime, has been inadequate, as violent crime has continued to rise following a decade of underinvestment in policing, which has resulted in the loss of thousands of officers, police community support officers and staff.
At the same time, demand on the police from recorded crime and non-crime duties has increased substantially. The role of the police keeps expanding, but the resources are not yet there. The Offensive Weapons Act was an opportunity for the Government to make productive changes based on evidence to bring down the decade-long rise in knife crime levels that we have seen under their watch. The Act failed to go far enough. The limited measures outlined in the 2019 Act and in this instrument must work alongside action to tackle the root causes of crime.
I regularly hear from police officers who are worried about how they will manage with the limited resources to tackle rising crime, enforce the Government’s coronavirus restrictions and manage the growing number of non-crime incidents that the police are called to as the service of last resort.
The impact assessment outlines the costs to the police to provide individuals who held weapons legitimately prior to the offence’s introduction with the opportunity to surrender their offensive weapon and claim compensation. It states that police forces have provided an average estimated cost of approximately £8,000 per force to run a full amnesty, equating to a total cost of approximately £0.3 million across all forces in the first year as an upper-bound estimate. Will the Minister confirm the date that the surrender of weapons scheme will commence and whether the money will be made available to the police, and how will it be made available and paid?
Another point on which I would like clarification is the standard rate of £30 for compensation and the fact that no compensation is payable in respect of a claim that amounts to less than £30. Will the Minister explain to the House the reasons for coming up with that figure? Furthermore, can he clarify Home Office plans to monitor and review the compensation process? The impact assessment for the Bill that became the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 says that
“the number of weapons eligible for compensation…is likely to be small”,
given that it has not been legal to purchase most of those weapons for several decades.
The Opposition want to remind the Minister again that this country is facing record levels of knife crime. With incidents continuing to rise across the country, we need a long-term public health approach to tackling violent crime. The limited provision of the Offensive Weapons Act means that this statutory instrument is much more likely to remove from a farmer a weapon that has been in his shed for 20 years than a knife from a vulnerable young person who is carrying it for self-defence.
I conclude by reiterating that we support this draft legislation, even though we are disappointed that the Act with which it is in accordance does not go far enough to reduce the number of people carrying dangerous weapons on our streets.
Birmingham Attacks and Extinction Rebellion Protests
Sarah Jones Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his statement and for advance sight of it. I will first turn to the awful events that took place in the early hours of yesterday in Birmingham. This terrible attack in our second largest city was an absolute tragedy. A young 23-year-old man lost his life, two people—a 19-year-old man and a 32-year-old women—suffered critical injuries and a further five people were injured. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of the man who was killed and all those injured in this senseless attack as well as those affected by other violent incidents in Lewisham and Suffolk, to which the Minister referred.
Like the Minister, I pay tribute to the first responders and emergency services who were on the scene rapidly to attend to the injured. They acted with dedication and bravery, and we are all grateful to them.
I would also like to pay tribute to the people of Birmingham. The police and crime commissioner for the west midlands, David Jamieson, told me this morning how calmly people were getting on with their business, despite this tragedy. That is a testament to the spirit of the people of Birmingham and the hard work of the local police to keep them safe. I also want to thank officers from surrounding forces in Lincolnshire and Staffordshire, who came to the city to help police locally and provide reassurance.
As the Minister said, this incident is the subject of an ongoing investigation, so we must not jump to any conclusions or prejudice any potential investigation or conviction. However, whenever such an incident occurs, there are of course serious questions that must be asked. What was known about the suspect, and when, prior to arrest? What systems were in place to respond to such incidents, and what systems would prevent such an incident from occurring again? As the picture becomes clearer, it is vital that these questions are answered and that any lessons are learned going forward.
More generally, all Members of the House will be deeply concerned about the wider rise in violent crime that we are seeing. As the former chair of the all-party parliamentary group on knife crime and violence reduction, I am all too aware of the seriousness of this issue. I know that West Midlands police, along with David Jamieson, the PCC, is taking this very seriously, and the violence reduction unit is doing some great preventive work in the west midlands. Does the Minister accept that over the past decade we have seen knife crime rise in every police force area in England and Wales, and that easing lockdown restrictions poses particular challenges? Does he further accept that rising violent crime must be urgently addressed?
Turning to the matter of Extinction Rebellion, I trust that the Minister will agree with me, rather than some members of his own party, in recognising that tackling climate change is the challenge of our generation. However, we also know that the free press is the cornerstone of democracy, and we must do all we can to protect it. As a result, actions that stop people being able to read what they choose are wrong. They will do nothing to tackle climate change. Those who break the law should be held to account. As the Leader of the Opposition said over the weekend, the actions of those who deliberately set out to break the law and stifle freedom of the press are completely unacceptable. Stopping people being able to buy the newspapers they choose and hitting small businesses in the process is hugely counterproductive. It does nothing to tackle the vital cause of tackling climate change. In fact, it sets it back.
On the policing response to the incidents, can the Minister confirm whether the authorities had any intelligence that these incidents might occur?
Today in the media, new laws have been mentioned by the Home Secretary. Can the Minister confirm what aspects of our current public order laws he believes are inadequate? Will he also confirm which aspects of the Coronavirus Act 2020 dealing with gatherings he believes leave gaps? Does he agree that we should not forget the many people who are concerned about climate change who wish to peacefully and lawfully protest, and that that right should be protected?
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges that this generation faces, and I am sure that many colleagues across the House have had the same experience as me. Whenever I go into a school, it is the children who want to talk about climate change and who cannot understand why we have not done more to tackle this existential crisis. The Government must do all they can to drive climate change up the agenda, and on this we will hold them to account.
Kit Malthouse
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her remarks and her thanks to the police, which are very welcome, and also for clearing up a little confusion about the Opposition line on the XR protests. Her unequivocal support for the rule of law is very welcome.
On her questions, obviously there will be lessons to learn from the Birmingham attack. Like all these unusual events—and it is an unusual event, thankfully—there will be lots of analyses done post event and post the case that may be brought, if there are charges to be brought. We will then use our general networks and work in the Home Office to try to promote them in similar police forces. It is gratifying, as she pointed out, both with regard to that incident and with the protests in mind, that police forces have honed their ability to co-operate and provide mutual aid to each other very swiftly. Much of that has come out of the covid preparedness work to make sure we are able to deploy large numbers of police officers across the country if and when we need to. Certainly the response of neighbouring forces around Birmingham and Hertfordshire over the weekend was gratifying and very welcome.
In terms of the hon. Lady’s specific questions, the intelligence picture is not entirely clear. The fact that the disruption was successful would indicate there was not a police presence there to prevent the intervention. No doubt there will be questions asked about how intelligence around these protests can be improved. As part of that work, we will be looking at the tactics deployed by the protesters, not least the gluing on and locking on. That is a new phenomenon of the past couple of years, which has required the police to develop specialist teams and techniques, paradoxically using quite unpleasant chemicals to get people unglued. We will ensure that the police have got exactly the tools they need, from a legal and practical point of view, to deal with these kinds of problems swiftly.
Finally, I reassure the hon. Lady that we absolutely believe that peaceful protest is a key freedom and a key part of our way of life in this country, and we will do everything we can to protect it, but that also means protecting those who have different views from a protest group and ensuring that they can express their views, whether that is through the pages of The Daily Telegraph or, indeed, on the streets. Making sure that we have a sense of order around protest and debate in this country is critical to our freedom in the future.
Fire Safety Bill
Sarah Jones ExcerptsMonday 7th September 2020
(5 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Fire Safety Bill 2019-21 View all Fire Safety Bill 2019-21 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 7 September 2020 - (7 Sep 2020)
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 2—Accreditation of fire risk assessors—
‘The relevant authority must by regulations amend the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (SI 2005/1541) to require fire risk assessors for any building which contains two or more sets of domestic premises to be accredited.’
This new clause would require fire risk assessors to be accredited.
New clause 3—Inspectors: prioritisation—
‘In discharging their duties under article 27 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (SI 2005/1541) (powers of inspectors) in relation to any building which contains two or more sets of domestic premises, an inspector must prioritise the premises which they consider to be at most risk.’
This new clause would require the schedule for inspecting buildings to be based on a prioritisation of risk, not an arbitrary distinction of types of buildings.
New clause 4—Meaning of responsible person—
‘In article 3 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (SI 2005/1541) (“meaning of responsible person”), at the end of paragraph (b)(ii) insert—
“(2) Where a building contains two or more sets of domestic premises, a leaseholder shall not be considered a responsible person unless they are also the owner or part owner of the freehold.”’
This new clause aims to clarify the definition of ‘responsible person’ to ensure leaseholders are not considered a responsible person unless they are also the owner or part owner of the freehold.
New clause 5—Waking watch—
‘The relevant authority must by regulations amend the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (SI 2005/1541) to specify when a waking watch must be in place for any building which contains two or more sets of domestic premises and which has been found to have fire safety failings.’
This new clause would require the UK Government (for England) and the Welsh Government (for Wales) to specify when a waking watch must be in place for buildings with fire safety failures.
Amendment 1, page 1, line 16, at end insert—
‘(1C) Where a building contains two or more sets of domestic premises, the things to which this order applies includes electrical appliances.
(1D) The reference to electrical appliances means any appliances specified by Order made by the relevant authority.
(1E) Schedule 1 of the Fire Safety Act 2020 shall apply to paragraphs (1C) and (1D).’
This amendment would clarify that the Fire Safety Order applies to electrical appliances.
New schedule 1—
‘1 The relevant authority must, no later than 12 months after the date on which this Act is passed, make regulations specifying the electrical appliances covered by paragraph (1D) of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.
2 The relevant authority must, no later than 12 months after the date on which this Act is passed, make regulations to amend the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (“the Order”) as follows—
(a) to require the responsible person for premises to which the Order applies to—
(i) carry out electrical safety checks of such type as may be prescribed by the Order at such frequency as may be so prescribed (being no less frequently than every 5 years) at each set of domestic premises, regardless of whether the occupier is a tenant of the responsible person;
(ii) keep records of the checks for such period as may be prescribed by the Order and make them available upon request to such persons as may be so prescribed;
(iii) keep a register of such kinds of electrical appliances as may be prescribed by the Order that are kept in each set of domestic premises, regardless of whether the occupier is a tenant of the responsible person;
(iv) check whether those electrical appliances are the subject of a recall notice under paragraph 12 of the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016.
(b) to require occupiers of such premises to—
(i) provide access to premises and allow action to remedy any failure to meet safety standards identified in a safety check carried out in accordance with sub-paragraph (a)(i);
(ii) provide the relevant responsible person with information about electrical appliances prescribed in accordance with sub-paragraph (a)(iii) and kept in the premises;
(iii) comply with any reasonable requirement made by the responsible person in relation to electrical appliances which the responsible person has reason to believe are the subject of a recall notice under paragraph 12 of the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016.
3 Regulations made under paragraph 2 may—
(a) confer a power to enter premises on such persons as may be prescribed in the Order for such purposes connected with the requirements imposed under the regulations as may be so prescribed.
(b) create offences;
(c) amend the definition of “responsible person” in article 6 of the Order;
(d) make such consequential, supplementary or incidental provision by way of amendments to the Order as the relevant authority considers appropriate.
4 Regulations made under paragraph 2 must provide that any power to enter domestic premises is not to be exercisable unless—
(a) at a reasonable time and with the consent of the occupier of the premises; or
(b) under the authority of a warrant issued by a justice of the peace.”
5 In this schedule the term “relevant authority” has the same meaning as in the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.’
This new schedule would require the Government to make regulations specifying the electrical appliances to which the Fire Safety Order applies. It would also require the Government to amend the Order to impose additional duties on the responsible person and on occupiers. It is consequential on Amendment 1.
Sarah Jones
Let me begin, as I have at every stage of this Bill, by saying that we on the Opposition Benches support the Bill. The Minister knows that. We are keen to be as supportive as possible, but let me reiterate the point that I have also made at every stage, which is that this Bill is a shamefully inadequate response to the multiple problems for fire safety, which were so tragically brought to the fore when 72 lives were lost in the Grenfell Tower fire. The Bill—all three clauses of it—goes nowhere near far enough to prevent a tragedy like Grenfell from happening again.
The Government said that the introduction of the Fire Safety Bill would take them a step further in delivering the inquiry’s recommendations and recently cited the Bill as one of their key priorities in response to a deeply frustrated letter from Grenfell survivors. Yet the Bill does not even include provisions for any of the measures called for by the first phase of the inquiry.
The Grenfell community were failed by a system that did not listen to them. We must never forget that failure. I pay tribute to Grenfell United, the families and the whole community for continuing to tirelessly fight for justice. They should not have had to fight so hard, and hundreds of thousands of people across the country are now being failed by a system that does not listen to them—those stuck in buildings with flammable cladding, those using their income to fund waking watch and other safety measures, and those who cannot buy or sell their flats because the mortgage market has been ground to a halt by confusion and lack of Government leadership.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend starts absolutely with the crux of the matter. She will be aware that, in my own constituency of Cardiff South and Penarth, we have thousands of residents in apartment blocks who are affected by these issues. The failure of companies such as Redrow, Laing O’Rourke and Taylor Wimpey to hold to their responsibilities for fire safety and other building defects is a huge problem. Does she agree that they need to take responsibility for mistakes that they may have made in construction?
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The system as a whole is fundamentally broken, and it is the developers as well as the Government who need to look to their own actions and correct them.
The Government have made many promises to bring justice to the survivors and their families, to change building and fire safety regulations and to do this quickly, but the Government are yet to make their promises a reality. At every stage, we have had to drag them into action. During the passage of this Bill, we have sought constructively to improve it, so that it goes further as a piece of primary legislation towards improving fire safety.
New clause 1 would do what the Government say must come later. It would place robust requirements on building owners or managers and implement the recommendations—the key recommendations—from phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower inquiry. The Government said that they would implement the Grenfell phase 1 inquiry in full and without delay. This new clause, which we are moving tonight, would fulfil that promise. In what is a very complex world of building and fire safety, the new clause is relatively simple. It seeks to do four things: the owners of buildings that contain two or more sets of domestic premises would share information with their local fire and rescue service about the design and make-up of the external walls; they would complete regular inspections of fire entrance doors; they would complete regular inspections of lifts; and they would share evacuation and fire safety instructions with residents. These measures are straightforward and are supported by key stakeholders. Frankly, it is pretty extraordinary that they are not already enshrined in law.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way at this point. She is making a very powerful case. I will be supporting new clause 1, as it is worthy of support. Will she put some pressure on her Labour colleagues in the Welsh Government in Cardiff to bring forward similar proposals for consideration by the Senedd in Cardiff before the elections in May?
Sarah Jones
The Welsh Government have a proud record on fire safety, and I point the hon. Gentleman in the direction of the many actions that have been taken. In this case today, we are looking at the actions of the Government and their failure to act since the Grenfell Tower fire three years ago.
Time and again in Committee, the Minister supported what we were saying in principle but told us that we must wait for a consultation to finish, a taskforce to report, or the experts to tell us what to do. That is not good enough. We have seen with covid what can be done with political will: hospitals built in days, and whole systems restructured to respond where there is a need. If the political will was there, the Government would support this new clause and we could take one step in the direction of keeping the promises that we all made in those days and weeks after the Grenfell fire. The Government have given no timetable for when they will deliver the inquiry’s recommendations through secondary legislation. The Government have continuously pushed back on their promises while thousands of people across the country are stuck still in unsafe flats.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
My hon. Friend will know, and the Minister will recognise, that there are thousands of leaseholders living in flats—I support all steps being taken to improve fire safety—where, as each day passes, more bills are coming in for increased insurance and waking watches. They live in dread of the final bill for the cost of replacing the cladding, which will be completely unaffordable. It is not fair to our constituents to make them live with this nightmare that they did not cause, and I hope she will continue to urge the Government to play their part, because only the Government can solve this.
Sarah Jones
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: only the Government can fix this problem. The lack of action and the lack of clarity about which buildings are safe, apart from anything else, and about what needs to be done has led to huge disruption for thousands of people, huge cost, mental health issues, weddings put off, jobs and opportunities not being able to be taken and all manner of problems that the Government need to fix.
The Government have constantly pushed back on their promises, while many people are still in unsafe flats. The fire safety measures recommended by phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower inquiry are urgently needed. Why would we wait for secondary legislation at an undetermined point in the future to ensure that building owners and managers share information about the design of external walls with their local fire services? Why would we delay the requirement to have inspections of individual flat doors and lifts? Why would we wait to make building owners or managers share evacuation and fire safety instructions with residents?
In Committee, the Minister responding—the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse)—said that the Government intend to legislate further, but we need more than vague commitments about secondary legislation. At the very least, we need a clear timetable from Government that sets out when further changes to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 will be delivered.
The fire safety order requires regular fire risk assessments in buildings, but it includes no legal requirement for those conducting the assessment to have any form of training or accreditation. I could call myself a fire risk assessor, set myself up with a logo and be responsible for one of the most important safety measures we have. No other sector would accept that. No one would accept electricians with no qualifications or gas engineers making it up as they go along. It is absurd. Any one of us could carry out fire risk assessments on schools, hospitals or care homes with no test or accreditation needed. The lack of training and accreditation in such an important area is completely unacceptable.
The Bill’s changes to the fire safety order clarify the inclusion of external wall systems such as cladding and insulation, which makes the competence of fire risk assessors even more important, as they will need to understand the more complex elements and materials found in cladding systems. That hugely important issue has been raised by Members from all parts of the House on Second Reading and in Committee.
The Government should be using the Bill to legislate for higher standards and greater public accountability in fire inspections. New clause 2, tabled by the Opposition, would bring into force an accreditation system for fire risk assessors, rather than waiting for more secondary legislation. In Committee, the Minister responding referred to the “industry-led competency steering group” in relation to fire risk assessors. I hope that the Minister today can provide an update on when the Government plan to bring forward changes to address the issue of unqualified fire risk assessors.
Turning to new clause 3, we have talked to many experts and stakeholders who have significant concerns, which the Minister will be aware of, about how the Bill will be implemented. The Minister responding in Committee referred to the building risk review programme, which looks
“to ensure that local resources are targeted at those buildings most at risk.”––[Official Report, Fire Safety Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 62.]
We would like to see a similar provision in the Bill. New clause 3 would require the schedule for inspecting buildings to be based on a prioritisation of risk, not an arbitrary distinction of types of buildings. Local fire and rescue services know their areas and the buildings where there is greatest risk. Let them decide what to prioritise first. They know better than Whitehall.
Many Members from all parts of the House have been contacted by desperate leaseholders who have been left to foot the bill for urgent fire safety works, despite not being the building owner. That is a huge challenge, as we have already discussed. The definition of the responsible person in this legislation needs to be made clear.
The Fire Safety Bill is intended to be a foundational Bill. Its purpose is to provide clarity on what is covered under the fire safety order, which will inform other related and secondary legislation. New clause 4 would be an important example of that kind of clarification. Its purpose is to clarify the definition of “responsible person” to ensure that a leaseholder is not considered a responsible person unless they are also the owner or part-owner of the freehold. The draft Building Safety Bill places various requirements on the responsible person, and refers to the fire safety order for the definition. It is vital that the fire safety order makes it clear that there is no ambiguity around the definition of “responsible person”; otherwise, there is a risk of confusion and misalignment between the two pieces of legislation, and a danger that the responsible person might seek to use that ambiguity to avoid their responsibilities under the Bill.
The definition of the responsible person has been raised by many Members from across the House at each stage of the Bill’s progress. Without clear definitions, there will be new questions of interpretation, and we will not achieve what we are setting out to achieve. The Opposition do not understand why that is controversial. Perhaps the Minister could help by explaining why he is comfortable leaving such dangerous ambiguity.
New clause 5 refers to another important issue, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) raised. Struggling leaseholders across the country have been forced to pay extortionate fees for interim fire safety measures—most commonly, waking watch—while progress on remediation work has been too slow. New clause 5 aims to clarify when waking watch should and should not be in place. The Government still have not published the findings of their audit of external wall systems of high-rise buildings, and are therefore unable to say how many buildings are covered in dangerous non-ACM cladding. However, we know from their latest figures on aluminium composite material cladding that more than 80% of private sector residential buildings, and nearly half of social sector residential buildings, wrapped in Grenfell-style ACM cladding have not had it removed and replaced. The Government deadlines of 2019 for social sector blocks to be made safe, and June 2020 for private sector blocks, were both missed. Progress has been painfully slow, and the coronavirus pandemic has hindered it even more. The impact on residents is terrible. Tens of thousands of people have been locked down in unsafe buildings for months on end.
The National Fire Chiefs Council says that waking watch should be a temporary measure, but some blocks have been paying for it for three years, which has cost residents thousands of pounds and ruined lives. Given that the safety status of many buildings across the country remains uncertain and the timelines for cladding removal keep getting extended, clarity on when and for how long waking watch should be used would bring much-needed consistency on how the measure should be applied.
I will speak very briefly about amendment 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), who has persistently campaigned on fire safety for many years. I pay tribute to him and Jim Fitzpatrick, who is no longer in this House, for their campaigning work and for writing to Ministers time after time, including only weeks before the Grenfell fire, to implore them to act on fire safety. The issue of electrical safety, which amendment 1 raises, is hugely important, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing it to the House. The additional requirements on the fire and rescue service to provide a higher level of inspection and enforcement on the communal parts of buildings with two or more domestic premises, which this Bill introduces, should be accompanied by a rigorous approach to safety checks of electric appliances inside the premises. It is vital to ensure that the risk of faulty electrical appliances in multiply occupied residential buildings is minimised.
Last month, I wrote to the Minister seeking urgent action on the rising number of fires caused by faulty appliances in high-rise blocks. The number of electrical fires caused by faulty appliances has risen in England. Based on analysis of Government figures by Electrical Safety First, The Times has reported a rise in the number of electrical fires caused by faulty tumble dryers and fridges. The number of accidental electrical fires in tower blocks has risen in each of the past three years. If these measures cannot be included in the Bill, we will scrutinise any proposals that the Government bring forward to ensure the best possible standards of electrical safety. Will they set out a timetable to deliver that?
In conclusion, there are many issues around improving fire safety that we would have liked to see included in the Bill. However, due to its limited scope, many will have to be addressed through the draft Building Safety Bill and secondary legislation. The amendments we have tabled are straightforward; most of them are on issues that the Government have stated their intention to address but have not shown the political will to move faster on. For those living in unsafe buildings, the risk of fire will not wait for the Government to choose an appropriate date for the Bill’s commencement. After Grenfell, the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), said that her Government will do “whatever it takes” to keep our people safe. Three years on, we urge the Government to honour the commitment to keep people safe, and to act as quickly as they can to do that.
Sarah Jones
Ahead of setting up the Grenfell Tower fire public inquiry, the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), said that she wanted
“to provide justice for the victims and their families who suffered so terribly”
and that
“we cannot wait for ages to learn the immediate lessons”.—[Official Report, 22 June 2017; Vol. 626, c. 168.]
However, despite being long delayed, the Grenfell Tower fire phase 1 inquiry’s recommendations are now nearly one year old, and they have not yet been implemented.
The Minister will have heard the frustration from across the House: it is not just on the Opposition Benches but coming loud and clear from the Government Benches, and the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) put it best. It is always never the right time for these things to be implemented with this Government—there is a consultation, a taskforce and the dreaded roundtable followed by another roundtable. It is simply not good enough.
New clause 1 attempts to press the Government to deliver on the first set of recommendations from the Grenfell Tower phase 1 inquiry. The Minister is a good man, but his response is not good enough. We must lead. That sense of momentum he talked about has to have meaning. We have to act to do what we can, three years on from the Grenfell Tower fire. The official Opposition therefore want to press new clause 1 to a Division.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
On Third Reading, I reiterate that the Opposition support the Fire Safety Bill, but we are desperately disappointed that the Government have not gone much further and much faster on improving fire safety.
I regret that the Government did not choose to support Labour’s new clause 1, which would have implemented the key recommendations of Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s Grenfell Tower inquiry phase one report, published in October. It is difficult to understand why the Government, who promised to implement the recommendations in full and without delay, have not chosen to make the concessions to include provision for them in the Bill. It is difficult to understand why responsible owners should not have to share evacuation plans with residents or undertake regular inspections of flat doors or lifts. It is difficult to understand why the Government are content with a situation where a fire risk assessor needs no qualifications whatever. It is difficult to understand why we cannot define the responsible owner in such a way to avoid leaseholders, who are already paying so much, footing the bill for things that are not their fault.
Endless promises of action, statements, consultations, taskforces and roundtables without any real change have tied the entire building safety world in knots, with hundreds of thousands of people paying the consequences, living in unsafe homes or unable to sell their flat because there is such confusion over which buildings are safe and what pieces of paper are needed to prove they are safe and who is liable. At every stage, the Opposition have sought to be constructive and to help the Government to improve the Bill. There is a lot more work to be done and we hope that as much of it as possible will be achieved now through secondary legislation.
Having debated our amendments on Report, I want to raise an important point about the implications of the Bill for our fire and rescue services. We welcome the high level of inspection and enforcement that the Bill requires, but we need clarity about the funding and resources provided to carry out such work. Over the past decade, we have seen devastating cuts to firefighter numbers, amounting to 20% of the service. Fire inspectors have seen some of the largest cuts, yet the Bill requires much more of them, and many more of them. I would like the Minister to set out what additional funding will be provided to the fire and rescue services to undertake this work.
I pay tribute to our fire and rescue services, as the Minister did, who go above and beyond to keep us safe and have worked tirelessly to protect us throughout the covid pandemic. I am grateful to the Ministers, the officials and the House staff who have worked with us on the Bill, and I give particular thanks to Yohanna Sallberg and Kenneth Fox, who have brilliantly supported me through the passage of the Bill. I also pay tribute to the hon. Members who have made such important contributions today and at previous stages of the Bill. There is much expertise in this House—either built over years of work in this place or personal experience in jobs that people have done before coming to this place—that the Government should listen to with more urgency.
In July 2017, I made my maiden speech during the first full debate in this Chamber on the Grenfell tragedy. I never would have thought that three years later, I would be facing a Government that are still yet to pass a single Act of Parliament to deliver on the clear promises made in the wake of that tragedy. The most important aim of the Bill is to clarify fire safety rules to prevent loss of life or damage to buildings from fire. It is to ensure that our constituents can live safely in their homes. I want to say to all those stuck living in unsafe blocks, but in particular to the Grenfell survivors and the victims’ families, that Opposition Members will not rest until every measure necessary is in place to prevent a fire like Grenfell from ever happening again.
Windrush Lessons Learned Review
Sarah Jones Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is a point of reflection, not just for the Home Office but for the whole of Government, when it comes to treating individuals not just with compassion, but with the respect that they deserve. As we are all honourable Members of this House and Members of Parliament, we are all familiar with people engagement—casework. It is important that in the Home Office, casework is not seen through the lens of process—that we understand the situation of individual people, that we understand their circumstances, that we treat them with respect, and listen to them, especially, and we support them. That is absolutely my aim and determination—that caseworkers in the Department who are working now to turn around compensation schemes and claims, spend time with individuals, learn of their backgrounds and give them the respect and the service that they deserve.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
Callton Young was the first black senior civil servant in the Home Office and is a Croydon councillor; he contributed to the Wendy Williams review. Twenty years on from his appointment, the Home Office still does not have senior black civil servants helping to better inform policy development. Can the Home Secretary tell us more about how she will rapidly address that failure?
Lunar House and many of the Home Office buildings are in my constituency and a lot of my constituents work there. I welcome what the Home Secretary said about seeing a face behind the case. Some of the staff have told me that it is not just a cultural issue—that it is very difficult when they have so many cases to deal with. Is the Home Secretary confident that she has enough people to do the job properly?
Priti Patel
The hon. Lady has raised some important points. She first acknowledged the lack of senior leadership, and diversity in senior leadership, particularly in the Home Office. If I may say so, that is a feature, sadly, across Government—across the civil service; it is something that the Government are collectively trying to change. As the leader of the Home Office, it is my responsibility to look at what more we can do to support diversity, even by mentoring—something that I feel very strongly about, from my previous career—individuals from across all backgrounds. Specifically, it is absolutely wrong—I have raised this at a senior management level in my Department—that our own staff members from black and Asian minority ethnic communities are stuck at certain grades in my Department. That is really not acceptable. We should find mentoring schemes to grow them and develop them and their careers. I absolutely believe in that and I want to achieve much more on that front.
The hon. Lady specifically references Lunar House and the remarkable work that individuals and colleagues from the Home Office undertake there. If I may say so, even in Wendy’s report, references to Lunar House were not necessarily made in a positive light. There are a lot of cases. We deal with people. The Home Office is a caseworking Department, dealing with thousands of people day in, day out. In terms of staffing, it is not just about numbers; it is about training and support around our personnel. That is really important, and that is why I need to do more, and my Department—my permanent secretary—needs to do more as well, in terms of investing in people. I fundamentally believe in that, and I think that is the right approach for the future. We will grow and develop our staff, so that we can work in a fundamentally different way with people who come to us.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Jones Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Kit Malthouse
It is very heartening to see that one of my hon. Friend’s priorities as a new Member in this House is to stand with and defend her local police, and she is quite right to do so. I join her in offering our thanks and praise to them for the work they have done. In fact, I was able to do so in person because I was on the phone with her chief constable just this morning. She is quite right that Nottinghamshire is a forward-looking police force, and we will be supporting it in its endeavours to innovate and challenge crime in the months to come.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
On the one hand, the Prime Minister has hailed an end to austerity and promised 20,000 new frontline police officers, and on the other, we had alarming reports at the weekend of forces facing up to 15% cuts. Covid, on top of 10 years of austerity, has created a perfect storm for police funding, with lower council tax coming in, the costs of PPE and lower income from some of their sources, such as airports and large events. I have heard from multiple sources that essential staff jobs will have to be cut, meaning that frontline police officers will end up covering non-frontline roles, which is completely the opposite of what the Prime Minister intends. One senior police officer said to me this morning, “This looks like austerity by the back door.” Can the Minister commit today to plugging the funding gap from council precepts to guarantee there will not be a need to cut police staff?
Kit Malthouse
First, on a technical front, perhaps the hon. Lady misunderstands how the precept works. The primary liability, if you like, is covered by the precepting authority, which has by law to pass on the precept in full, notwithstanding any issues it might have with collection. And perhaps, alongside her many skills, she has acquired telepathy and foresight, because she seems to be pre-empting a spending review that has not even started.
Fire Safety Bill (First sitting)
Sarah Jones ExcerptsThursday 25th June 2020
(5 years, 9 months ago)
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The Chair
I should explain that you have Members of Parliament in front of you and behind you, because we are socially distanced and the room is not quite big enough to allow us all to sit around the horseshoe table. We will start the questioning with Sarah Jones, who leads on this issue for the Labour party.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
Q
Dan Daly: We have had a debate on whether these are clarifications or new aspects, and we have settled on them being clarifications. I am fine with that, but it suggests to us that the buildings to which they apply are those buildings that are currently there. I do not think that the Bill is attempting to grow the range of buildings that come within scope. We are seeking some clarification on certain definitions, to ensure that there is no creep in the scope of what the Bill is intended to do.
With regard to the pressures on fire and rescue services, the onus is on us to maintain skills and competencies in the sector, and we have a body of work to do in order to move forward and deliver that. Where we have a preference for the service, it is that we bring the legislation forward as it is, all together at one time, rather than putting in arbitrary height restrictions and things like that. I know that you will hear from industry that there will be pressures on competent persons to provide extendable assessments, and things like that.
I think that what we can offer is a risk-based approach to help the people with those responsibilities manage the ask in a way that targets the highest risk buildings first. There was a model that we used—in the London fire brigade we termed it the Croydon model, as you may be aware—which was to help those large portfolio holders understand where we expect them to apply their initial assessments with the new legislation. I think we can adopt a similar approach here. I think that will help to ease the pressure across the board. Certainly, as they are clarifications, it would imply that the legislation applies to those buildings already, so it does not appear that now is the time to bring in arbitrary height allocations.
Sarah Jones
Q
Dan Daly: I would certainly welcome a register for fire risk assessors and third-party accreditation for that. In a similar way, we are working towards a competency standard for fire inspection officers within the fire service. That is a bit of the work that the building safety team is doing at the moment. Certainly, the service will be working with them over the coming years to develop the skills within their own workforce to achieve that. Again, with the new building regulator, we are looking to bring in a level of competence to interact with more complex buildings.
Sarah Jones
Q
Penny Pender: That certainly picks up on some of the points we have made in our submission about ensuring that the different pieces of legislation speak clearly to each other. The first example is the term “building”: one concern we had was that if it was not clearly defined, the default setting would be to refer to the definition in the Building Act 1984, which is referred to in the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.
Picking up on Dan’s point from earlier, that would be a much wider definition than the scope of the fire safety order currently covers, so that is the type of thing we are hoping to iron out. We just want to ensure that there are opportunities, maybe through secondary legislation or in guidance, for those types of thing to be spelled out clearly, to ensure that all the different pieces are interpreted clearly when they all come together in the future.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Q
For example, if you have leaseholders in a block of flats owned by a local authority that is responsible, what the leaseholder does within the property that may create risk to others may not be something to which the local authority can readily gain access. I am interested in this point about how the different pieces of legislation interact. Do you have a view on how we might collectively move towards a resolution of that problem?
Dan Daly: We talked earlier about how the clarifications in this Bill are really useful in terms of ironing out some of the overlaps we have seen that have caused us difficulties before, both in holding people to account, and in people’s understanding of their duties.
This is a bit of legislation that underpins a self-regulatory regime, and we must ensure that at the end of this we have something that makes it very clear to those people what their responsibilities are. It must also help residents and leaseholders to understand what they can rightly expect from the people with day-to-day responsibility for the safety of their buildings. That is the sort of thing that we are working closely with Home Office colleagues on. The Bill has been presented as it is today, but I know we have taken some assurances in the background that we will work together on providing secondary legislation and guidance to pick up those areas where we might still seek further clarification, to ensure that it is absolutely clear to those people who it most directly affects day to day.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
My question comes from somebody who was a local government elected member for some 21 years, who has sat on planning committees and dealt with building regulations, and someone who has built properties and who is currently a landlord. I would like to ask a more specific question when we are considering risk. Much of what you talk about is about taking a risk-based approach. In your written submissions, you talk about how you would like greater resources and investment to be put into the enforcement side of things. Clearly, that is something for the Government to respond to.
Do you agree that construction and sign-off are potentially the points at which there could be the greatest risk of errors or non-compliance, either wittingly or unwittingly? Do you also agree that even after a structure has been signed off—whether it is by building control or by the local council—the time soon afterwards is still a point of high risk, because that is when door furniture can be changed, carpets can be fitted and all sorts of other things can happen that might have meant that the structure did not pass the certification in the first instance? Do you agree that perhaps a more dynamic monitoring role is required over how new buildings are being addressed from within existing structures—therefore, no extra body is particularly needed because we are approving buildings as we speak—but that looking at the timeframes might be a useful thing to do?
Dan Daly: I suppose that speaks more to the work that is being done around building safety—the Bill that is coming forward and the work on designing a new building safety regime. We cannot escape the findings of the Dame Judith Hackitt review. They were very damning about the existing system, and they speak to why we find ourselves with the built environment that we do and the challenges that that poses—not just for RPs in managing it, but for residents who have to live in the buildings, for us as enforcers and for firefighters in terms of their safety when they attend the buildings. We are fully engaged in that process.
It is equally important that we get this legislation absolutely right so that during occupation, the duties of whoever is responsible, day to day, for the fire safety in those buildings is very, very clear and it does not allow people to pass the buck—so that it is absolutely clear who is responsible, and they will be held accountable. That is what we are seeking.
Sarah Jones
Q
Dan Daly: On the first point, we suggest that the Bill should be amended to make sure that it has the flexibility to encompass the Grenfell phase 1 and phase 2 inquiry recommendations. I think that is entirely appropriate, because I think people expect the Bill to pick up the lessons and the learning from that, so we absolutely support that. Can you remind me of the second point?
Sarah Jones
The insurance issue—if you take a risk-based approach, what about all the people who do not have the right pieces of paper?
Dan Daly: Our role is to be fully engaged with insurers and those who support people to invest in and take out mortgages on properties, to give them an understanding of what that risk-based approach means. If we are able to convince those partners that the lower-risk buildings present a lesser risk, that should, hopefully, help with some of those challenges.
At the moment, when we have a slightly less finessed version of what risk looks like in these buildings, it is very hard for people in those circumstances to make accurate judgments and assessments. Part of our role is to support that, and I think the risk-based approach that we propose will help with some of that, because we will absolutely identify those more high-risk buildings, put resources towards them and focus the remediation efforts on them. By design, that would allocate other buildings to a lower threshold of risk.
The Chair
Penny, did you want to come in at all on that question?
Penny Pender: No, thank you.
The Chair
Thank you. We have a number of questions for you from Members of Parliament on the Committee. We will start with Sarah Jones, who leads for the Labour party on this matter.
Sarah Jones
Q
Mr Carpenter, one of our amendments is about how the definition of responsible persons should not include leaseholders. One issue that has been raised with us is how you implement a Bill when you are looking at a building in its totality and, as a freeholder, you have a responsibility to look, for example, at doors that might belong to the flat owner rather than you. How on earth can you do that? How do you know if changes are made or things happen when parts of the building are not in your control? How does that work?
Dennis Davis: The first thing to say is that the built environment—the part we are concerned with—is very complex. Buildings, of course, are infinitely variable, from a small single-storey dwelling to a block of flats on top of a commercial development that has got car parking, leisure activities and so on. So the environment you are looking at is complex, but fire risk in particular is holistic. By that, I mean it is about the way people interact with the building, the building itself, the structures and the way the whole process is put together. One big issue that often arises is that when the way you design, construct and build—the professional leadership in the process—is transferred on to the ground, and more importantly into the life of the building, you find that things you thought had been constructed, developed and managed in a certain way are not.
The first point I would like to make, therefore, is that in trying to look at the competence of individuals, you are first trying to ensure that there is a common platform of understanding about fire and its behaviour, and about people and how they behave, before going into the complexities and granularity of buildings themselves. You could have a fire engineer—I am a qualified fire engineer—who specialises in a particular area. You might have someone working offshore, in the radiation industry or on high-rise buildings. You cannot take one simple snapshot and say, “Oh, he or she is qualified as such and therefore is able to develop himself or herself into all these areas.”
Secondly, many of these things are not mandated, in terms of qualification. You can become qualified, but when it comes to applications in the real world, often there is no specific legislation that says, “You must use one of these people.” Because of the need for flexibility, the legislation has to ensure that it asks for competent people and, on that basis, you become reliant on a definition of what is competent. If we can pass through that, we can start to understand how difficult these issues can become.
Most of what we do in more complex environments involves a team-based assessment, rather than an individual one. We are talking about fire risk assessment or fire engineering. An individual may be capable of handling a project, but if that project evolves and becomes bigger and more complex, you add more skills and colleagues, and there is more team-based working. That has to be applied through the life of the building. The built stock is the difficult bit. New buildings should be well regulated, but once a building is occupied and used, it becomes a different environment again.
The Chair
Mr Davis, thank you for that. We have a lot of questions to get through in the next 25 minutes. That was an excellent and comprehensive answer, but I would be grateful if we could have slightly more concise answers.
James Carpenter: I think the key point is around access and, as you mentioned, doors. With residential housing, a lot of buildings might be fairly straightforward in their basic design. The complexities come with the various management arrangements, lease agreements and so on.
The biggest question and challenge for housing providers is one of access. We cannot have it, we do not have it—there is no right of access. With tenants, we might be able to go to court and get injunctions to gain access to a home, but with leases, that challenge becomes even more difficult. It is their private space and we cannot touch it. When it comes to self-closers and checking inside doors, it is optional and voluntary for the leaseholder to listen or to comply with what we are asking. That is a big concern.
As we submitted in the evidence, in my view and in that of others, it would be useful if the law would allow leaseholders to be held responsible for their actions. That could allow building owners some leverage in getting leaseholders to co-operate. Also, if we got to that final point, action could be taken directly against them by enforcing authorities, which would solve the challenge that there has been in housing for the last 13 years or so.
The Chair
Thank you, Mr Wrack. You will now be asked questions by a number of Members of Parliament. We will start with Sarah Jones on behalf of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition.
Sarah Jones
Q
Mr Wrack, you have already set out for us quite a lot of the concerns about funding. We know that the fire service has had significant cuts over the past 10 years. Can you, again, tell us what “good” looks like in terms of how we implement the Bill? What do we need in terms of resourcing and the joined-up approach that you talked about?
Adrian Dobson: We certainly recognise that the Bill is important legislation. I will pick up on the point that Mr Wrack made on joined-up thinking. It is a piece in the jigsaw. We are still concerned about having strong and clear functioning building regulations and a proper enforcement regime. Obviously, our main expertise is in the design and construction of buildings to the point at which they are handed over to the owner or occupier, or where there is major refurbishment.
Our essential concern is the relationship between this Bill and the Building Safety Bill. The two must join together. We would support most of the provisions in this Bill, particularly giving enforcement powers to local fire services in relation to the structure and external walls of buildings, fire doors and so on. I note Mr Wrack’s point, however, that the resources must be in place to do that.
On joining the Fire Safety Bill and the Building Safety Bill, I can highlight a danger whereby gaps might exist. For example, the fire safety order talks about a “responsible person”, but the Building Safety Bill talks about an “accountable person” and a “building safety manager”. What would be the lines of communication between those roles? Are they fulfilled by the same person? There is a risk there.
Dame Judith Hackitt has been a prime driver of the content of the Building Safety Bill. She talks a lot about “the golden thread”. We are aware that the quality of information handed over at the end of construction work is often poor. If the fire service is looking at evacuation plans and wants to know what materials have been used in the building, that information is not as readily available as it should be. We would like an amendment that says that the fire service and the occupier should be entitled to accurate, as-built information. Members of the Committee are probably aware of some of the dangers in procurement when materials get changed during the design and construction process.
While we welcome the Bill, we await an improved enforcement regime in relation to building regulations and changes to the approved documents. To illustrate the importance of that, for example, the Bill talks about the need to review evacuation plans, but we know that some of the legislation around escape routes is ambiguous. We need to ensure that the two tie together.
Matt Wrack: On the question of what “good” would look like, I am approaching this from the point of view of firefighters and the fire and rescue service. For us, there must be a joined-up approach between the specialist fire safety teams and firefighters on stations.
If you look at the question of resources—unfortunately, a lot of this does come down to resources—we need a greater understanding of fire safety in the operational workforce. Unfortunately, over the past 15 or 20 years, we have seen a reduction in initial training courses to cut costs. Courses that might have been 16 weeks 20 years ago are now reduced to 13 or 12 weeks, or less than 10 weeks in some cases. There needs to be a greater understanding at the station level of fire safety risks.
There needs to be an end to the reduction in fire safety teams. Fire services that have been financially squeezed have found it easier to cut specialist fire safety teams than fire stations. I am not in favour of cutting either, but they have cut fire safety teams. We have reports of fire safety teams being cut by 25%, 50% or more over the past decade.
We need a joined-up approach between the two wings of the fire service in that respect. We need to prevent fires from happening, if we can. We need to mitigate the spread of fire where it does occur. We need to know how to fight fires when they occur—we know that they will occur. That is what we mean by a joined-up approach.
There are concerns among fire safety specialist officers about the levels of training, both at the stations and among their peers. There are concerns about refresher training. If new materials come on to the market, such as cladding, there needs to be adequate resources to enable people to be updated with the latest developments.
The final point I would make about what “good” would look like is that we need a much more joined-up approach nationally to the whole question of fire, fire policy and how we deal with fires. That means proper research. It is alarming that many firefighters and many fire services apparently did not know what was being put on to buildings. They therefore had not researched how they would inspect such buildings to be aware of the risks, for example, at Grenfell. They were also, therefore, not aware of how such fires might be tackled if necessary.
We used to have a body in the British fire service called the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council, which would have addressed such matters. Sadly, it was abolished in 2004, and nothing similar has been put in place to replace it. That is what we mean by a lack of a joined-up approach, and that is what is desperately missing in the fire safety regime in Britain today.
Daisy Cooper
Q
“the impact assessment ‘does not include any additional enforcement costs’”,
and you suggest that fire inspectors would need to spend
“a great deal of time and effort”
to focus on getting cases through the courts and so on. I suspect this question might be like, “How long is a piece of string?”, but in the absence of an impact assessment, can you give an estimate of your own assessment of what those additional enforcement costs might be?
Matt Wrack: I am afraid I am not able to give that. I do think that, on the question of enforcement, there have been cases of ministerial pressure to reduce the enforcement role of the fire and rescue service, which is something that Ministers need to think carefully about. Fire services have been criticised subsequently for being slow to act on their enforcement role.
The whole question of fire services’ enforcement role ties in with the more general points I have made, in that they need adequate specialist fire safety teams, and that is possibly the area, or certainly one of the areas, where we have seen the largest reductions in staffing levels, with all the knock-on concerns about training and refresher training. I am not able to answer that question directly, but I think it is very much a resource question.
Andy Slaughter
Q
Adrian Dobson: I think I would answer broadly yes, in those aspects that have now effectively been covered by prescriptive regulations. In relation to combustible external wall materials on high-rise residential buildings, we have at the moment a fairly prescriptive piece of legislation that makes best practice pretty clear. As you say, however, there is a certain element of lobbying to say that we need a more flexible approach, so you can already see attempts to row back on that. In terms of what has actually been regulated, fairly good practice is in place. We know there is quite a lot of good retrofitting work happening on buildings above 18 metres, even if it is very slow, but we do not really have much idea in terms of combustible materials below 18 metres.
Matt Wrack: I would like to comment on the lobbying that was mentioned by a building developer recently and in some earlier comments in your session. One of the voices we are keen to hear are those of tenants. The lesson of Grenfell is that the voices of tenants were ignored. The voices of tenants are often ignored in relation to building and modifications to the places where they live. The vast majority of tenants are respectable, sensible people and their views should be heard. They were not heard at Grenfell. I think they, us and firefighters would have greater respect for a risk-based approach if we could have the confidence in such a risk-based approach. Unfortunately, experience shows that risk-based approaches are often driven by commercial and financial interests, and that is why people have scepticism about them.
Sarah Jones
Q
Matt Wrack: We oppose a deregulated system of fire risk assessors. Sadly, much of the work we end up doing arises out of tragedies. One of our experiences in that regard relates to the death of one of our own members. It emerged that the fire risk assessor in the case concerned had few or no qualifications in that field and had simply set up in business as a fire risk assessor. That highlighted to us a disgraceful state of affairs, so we would support the better regulation of fire risk assessors. However, the best protection we have, in terms of the delivery of advice to occupiers and building owners, and the best mechanism for inspection and enforcement, is a well-resourced and highly skilled workforce in a publicly accountable fire and rescue service.
Adrian Dobson: Clearly, on the specific issue of cladding and insulation, retrofitting is possible. The very reason those materials were used for cladding is because they are lightweight and external—they do not form part of the structure of the building—so the practicality of making buildings safer is definitely there. We have seen some, albeit slow, progress.
As I think one of the witnesses in your earlier session said, the cost can be very significant indeed. While steady progress is being made in the social sector, I think your Committee has today discussed some of the issues when it comes to private leaseholders in privately owned blocks and the ultimate issue of where the funding will come from. That, of course, is what set off secondary problems within the insurance and mortgage markets. One of the problems we face is professional indemnity insurance. Although the cladding can be identified through testing and so on, it tends to require intrusive testing. It requires specialists to look at it and that requires insurance for them, so there is a potential blockage.
The bigger concern is that following the fires we had in Barking and Bolton, attention has naturally turned to whether these sorts of materials pose a very significant risk on lower-rise buildings. There has been discussion about what height threshold might apply. Some people have suggested 11 metres—indeed, 11 metres is the height chosen by the Government for sprinklers—but one of the problems there is that you have got a whole different order of magnitude, potentially, of properties that could be affected. That may also be a factor that is driving some of the movement in the insurance sector, because there is probably a realisation that this is potentially a much larger problem than was first thought.
Sarah Jones
Q
Mr Dobson, do you agree with Mr Wrack’s frustration about the time that it has taken to do all of that? Grenfell was three years ago. What should we be doing? Clearly, there is huge complexity and hundreds of working groups at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government are working through all this. Equally, there is a real hunger for going faster. Is there any way in which you think we could and should be going faster?
Matt Wrack: No, I do not think that we grasp the scale of the problem at all. If I can refer back to Grenfell, the focus of the country has been on ACM cladding, but what we found at Grenfell was that virtually every single element of fire protection in the building failed. So if that has happened in one building, what is the scale in every building in the country? It is immense. There has been a lot of renovation, refurbishment and modification of buildings over the past 20 or 30 years, which has altered the building as it was originally designed and constructed, so we will therefore have altered fire behaviour in such buildings, particularly for compartmentation, in relation to the response of firefighters.
That brings me back to our frustration with the Bill’s impact assessment, because it is based on the current way that buildings are looked at. In our view, we need a much better way of looking at buildings. That would require time for an upskilling of firefighters in fire stations so that they recognise risks and can then refer them to specialist teams within the fire service. That would require training for both groups of staff and adequate powers to undertake the necessary inspections on a scale that, at the moment, we do not currently grasp in full detail.
The Chair
Thank you. Mr Dobson, we will finish the sitting at two o’clock, so you have two minutes to answer.
Adrian Dobson: I will try to rise to that challenge. I think that we see the problems as threefold. There is an issue around how we procure buildings in the first place and procure alterations to buildings. I imagine that when the final report of the Grenfell Tower inquiry is written, it will have much to say about that. Then, there is an issue of competence and expertise, which you have already touched on. Of course, the UK construction industry is a relatively deregulated industry with very few regulatory competence requirements—they are mainly voluntary systems—so the industry will really have to put its house in order if it is going to regain public confidence.
There is also a regulatory problem. We have seen movement on the introduction of requirements for sprinklers being extended, and on combustible materials—from the consultation, that is likely to be extended. However, although we have good movement on the building safety Bill and on the Fire Safety Bill, we have not seen a comprehensive review of the actual guidance that people work to, so we are essentially working to the same approved documents that we worked to previously. That is disappointing because, although people recognise the need for research on some of those issues, we seem reluctant to get on and commission it and, as Mr Wrack said, reluctant to learn from colleagues in other countries who have experienced similar problems.