Building Safety Bill (Ninth sitting)
Debate between Siobhan Baillie and Christopher Pincher(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Siobhan Baillie
Revoking anything can lead to fears of an inadvertent reduction in standards. Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the clause and the work behind it will achieve exactly the opposite?
Christopher Pincher
This is no back-door attempt to reduce standards now or to introduce poorer standards in the future. It is simply a necessary technical means of allowing standards to be introduced by overriding a now defunct Act; otherwise, we would not be able to repeal or change standards and regulations relating to it. For example, our future homes standard and, indeed, the future buildings standard go way beyond anything that was required of us when we were a member of the European Union or that is required of us under the European Communities Act. I assure the Committee that this is a technical change—a necessary legal and technical change—and not an attempt to reduce standards by subterfuge. With that, I commend the clause to the Committee.
Building Safety Bill (Tenth sitting)
Debate between Siobhan Baillie and Christopher Pincher(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Christopher Pincher
Clause 48 aims to bring the process for checking plans when work is supervised by a registered building control approver more into line with the process when local authorities are the building control body—another example of our trying to level the terrain. Currently, section 50 of the Building Act 1984 enables an approved inspector, or registered building control approver as they will be called in the future, at the request of a person intending to carry out building work, to issue a plans certificate to the local authority. That can be issued if they have inspected plans of work covered by an initial notice, and are satisfied that if the work is carried out in accordance with the plans the work will comply with building regulations’ requirements.
At the moment, plans certificates are voluntary, and we know that only a small proportion of initial notices are accompanied by plans certificates. In contrast, where a local authority is the building control body, plans of building work have to be deposited for building work to be carried out on a building subject to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. These plans have to be approved or rejected by the local authority.
Although approved inspectors or registered building control approvers will undoubtedly do a diligent job in checking plans, it is right that we seek to bring the processes more into line with each other. That will ensure greater transparency, bolster assurance that plans have been properly checked, and avoid any suggestion that those carrying out building work may get an easier ride depending on whether they use an approved inspector or registered building control approver, or a local authority. This will also provide a better basis for consultation between registered building control approvers and fire and rescue authorities on the fire safety aspects of plans.
We consulted last year on the principle of making plans certificates mandatory in specified circumstances. There was strong support for that, and clause 48 provides the framework for doing so. The clause inserts proposed new subsections (1A), (1B), (1C) and (1D) into section 50 of the Building Act 1984. They set out that if certain conditions are met, and the person carrying out the work so requests, a registered building control approver must issue a plans certificate and that these must be provided in the prescribed form.
Clause 48(2)(c) inserts proposed new section 50(7A) into the Building Act 1984. It enables building regulations to prescribe circumstances in which a plans certificate must be issued, and the consequences if a plans certificate is not issued.
Christopher Pincher
I will just finish this part and then I will give way to my hon. Friend, who I know is champing at the bit.
We can prescribe, for example, that plans certificates must be issued for buildings covered by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.
Siobhan Baillie
The Minister may be coming to this, but it would help my learning and understanding if he could clarify why we are not mandating plans certificates for all building works. It would be helpful to have a few more examples of where there will be mandated plans.
Building Safety Bill (Seventh sitting)
Debate between Siobhan Baillie and Christopher Pincher(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Christopher Pincher
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West and concur with his sentiment that we must ensure that the Building Safety Regulator has the flexibility to do its job properly and the enforcement powers to ensure that all players across the in-scope sector recognise the importance and veracity of those powers.
As we move through the Committee’s deliberations we may disagree on matters of scope, but I hope that as we build the Bill—clause by clause and schedule by schedule—the House, of which this Committee forms a part, and the sector will recognise the powers that we are creating for the Building Safety Regulator and the importance of the law.
The hon. Member for Weaver Vale asked a couple of questions about clauses 21 and 22. He will know—he has heard me say it before in this Committee—that it is the responsibility of the Building Safety Regulator to build multidisciplinary teams that include local authority resources, fire and rescue service resources and those of others. We believe that the duty on them to co-operate will ensure the right level and that the right skills and expertise are available to the regulator.
We are working closely with the Health and Safety Executive to identify appropriate training arrangements for authorised officers. The powers available to authorised officers are very similar to existing powers available to local authority building control, the HSE and so on. We do not believe that new and further training and skills will be required, but I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s point about training.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned enforcement and penalties. We believe we have struck the right balance in the penalties that apply to the obstruction or impersonation of an authorised officer of the Building Safety Regulator. If he rereads the explanatory notes, he will see that impersonation of an enforcement officer acting on behalf of the Building Safety Regulator is subject to a fine not of £1,000, but to an unlimited fine. If someone were to obstruct the regulator or an enforcement officer, the fine is £1,000. We have created that differentiation because we want to make it clear that impersonating an enforcement officer is a much more grave offence than obstructing an officer, even though that is an important offence in itself.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
I am interested in the point that the Minister is making and in how the penalties for obstructing and impersonating compare with those for obstructing and impersonating other officials.
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for asking that question. For example, if an authorised officer of the Building Safety Regulator is obstructed, a level 3 fine of £1,000 may be levied. That compares with a similar fine for impersonating a police officer. However, given the nature of policing, the warrants held by police officers and the threats and difficulties that police forces can sometimes encounter, it is also possible for one month’s imprisonment to be imposed on an obstructer of a police officer. We have tried to make sure that the penalties are proportionate, and I trust that the Committee will agree that they are.
Having said that, I trust the Committee will see that clause 21 and schedule 2 enable the Building Safety Regulator to carry out its functions effectively, drawing on the expertise and involvement of local authorities and fire and rescue services. Clause 22, which we have just debated, enables the punishment of those who seek to obstruct or impersonate authorised officers, and I hope that the Committee will agree that these are good and proportionate clauses. I commend them to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 21 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Clause 22 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 23
Provision of false or misleading information to regulator
Question proposed,That the clausestandpart of the Bill.
Siobhan Baillie
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I am a lawyer, so I would say this, but I agree that it is super-important for disputes to be dealt with properly. That was a key plank of the Minister’s explanation of the clauses. I am also pleased that a right of appeal to the court remains, but I will be interested to hear from the Minister how the Government will ensure that the regulator reviews decisions and whether there has been any assessment of how long reviews can take. We know that the issues are incredibly complicated, so there should be some investigation into that now and an ability for the regulator to check their own homework and for us to do so too.
When a developer lodges an internal review against the Building Safety Regulator’s decision within the prescribed period, the explanatory notes to the Bill say:
“The Building Safety Regulator decides the most appropriate form of review and how comprehensive the review will be.”
If the developer is not content with the final decision of the BSR, it can appeal that decision to the first-tier tribunal and that is what we were discussing earlier. The thing that shone out for me when we heard from the witnesses, particularly those affected by building safety concerns in their own homes, was the lack of trust in a range of policies and the legislation. It is therefore incumbent on us all to create the trust so that those people are able to rely on what we are doing. We have talked about transparency in the dispute resolution process and that is obviously key, but I would like to know a little more about how we will ensure that good transparency runs through the disputes process.
Christopher Pincher
I am obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud and the hon. Member for Weaver Vale. We are clear that the process should be as collaborative as possible. We want it to be fair and transparent. When disputes arise, we envisage that the first stage of that dispute will be an informal discussion between the parties. That is normally part of the process that the HSE employs in other examples. If there is an internal review and if that is followed by an appeal to a first-tier tribunal, all those discussions and decision points will of course be publicly aired in the normal way.
What we want fundamentally to ensure is that the BSR has the flexibility to do its job effectively and to build casework and a casebook of knowledge and expertise that it can then use in cases as they develop. That is one of the reasons why—to answer the question from the hon. Member for Weaver Vale about secondary legislation—we are employing statutory instruments largely through the affirmative procedure. That will give the Commons in Committee and in the full House the ability to scrutinise, debate and vote on the issues. Fundamentally, it allows us as the Government, on the recommendations and advice of the BSR, to improve legislation rather than write it into the Bill and thus require further primary legislation should we find that events and examples arise to require that. We are trying to be flexible.
Building Safety Bill (Seventh sitting)
Debate between Siobhan Baillie and Christopher Pincher(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
I am interested in the point that the Minister is making and in how the penalties for obstructing and impersonating compare with those for obstructing and impersonating other officials.
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for asking that question. For example, if an authorised officer of the Building Safety Regulator is obstructed, a level 3 fine of £1,000 may be levied. That compares with a similar fine for obstructing a police officer. However, given the nature of policing, the warrants held by police officers and the threats and difficulties that police forces can sometimes encounter, it is also possible for one month’s imprisonment to be imposed on an obstructer of a police officer. We have tried to make sure that the penalties are proportionate, and I trust that the Committee will agree that they are.
Having said that, I trust the Committee will see that clause 21 and schedule 2 enable the Building Safety Regulator to carry out its functions effectively, drawing on the expertise and involvement of local authorities and fire and rescue services. Clause 22, which we have just debated, enables the punishment of those who seek to obstruct or impersonate authorised officers, and I hope that the Committee will agree that these are good and proportionate clauses. I commend them to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 21 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Clause 22 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 23
Provision of false or misleading information to regulator
Question proposed,That the clausestandpart of the Bill.
Building Safety Bill (Sixth sitting)
Debate between Siobhan Baillie and Christopher Pincher(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Christopher Pincher
Dame Judith Hackitt’s independent review identified that competence needed to improve across the built environment sector. It challenged the industry to show leadership and take responsibility for raising competence. The Building Safety Regulator will play a key role in supporting the industry to raise its competence levels. One of the regulator’s core functions will be to assist and encourage those in the built environment industry and the building control profession to drive improvements in competence.
For industry, the regulator is expected to do this by working with the industry competence committee to oversee and support the industry’s work to raise competence. The regulator will set the strategic direction of the committee, to ensure that its work supports the regulator’s plans and priorities and the needs of the sector. It will also carry out importantThe regulator, with advice from the committee, may propose changes to building regulations and/or regulations under part 4 of the Bill to the Secretary of State on industry competence matters. The regulator’s role will also be to increase building safety by improving compliance with building regulations and raising standards in the building control profession.
Through the clause, the regulator can demonstrate leadership of the profession, developing a strategy to increase the competence of registered building inspectors. Exactly how that will be done is a matter for the regulator, but it might produce advice or guidance, or identify areas where it can develop training to upskill registered building inspectors. It may also convene working groups or advisory committees, or commission research and analysis to further inform areas for improving competence.
The provisions will help position the Building Safety Regulator at the heart of industry and the building control profession.
Siobhan Baillie
I was struck by the evidence from the industry experts we heard over the past week or so in their desire to improve and to see improvements, and in their recognition of the fact that Governments of all colours had not brought about a Bill such as this, which is very welcome. Yes, things can be improved, but we will be debating changes as we go along. Does the Minister agree that the regulator may be pushing at an open door when seeking to improve the clause?
Christopher Pincher
I, too, heard the evidence provided to the Committee by a range of experts and industry players. In Parliament and beyond, we have heard from the development sector. If there is an open door, I trust that the Building Safety Regulator will make sure that it stays wide open, and should it ever close, I trust that the regulator will play a role in pushing it back open. It is important that the regulator monitors emerging risks or gaps in competence, surveys the landscape, as we have already identified and agreed, and considers carefully whether further action is warranted or appropriate. I agree with my hon. Friend that it is important that the regulator works with the sector and the industry and, where appropriate, takes action to make sure that the competence that we require across the sector is complied with.
The clause creates a key and influential role for the regulator to help drive up collective standards. We believe that it is an important clause as we embed the regulator in the Health and Safety Executive and define its role and responsibilities. I commend the clause to the Committee.