Building Safety Bill (Third sitting)

Theo Clarke Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Ms Rimmer]

I do not know whether Mr Walker would like to comment on any of those questions.

Kieran Walker: It is not an area for the HBF. I will not comment further.

[Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)]

Q My first question is to Richard. I am particularly interested in the reforms to the building control profession. Do you think that the problems identified by Dame Judith Hackitt have been addressed in the Bill? In particular, I am interested in the Government’s right to retain the power of duty holders to choose their own building control body.

Richard Silva: The Bill is an excellent framework in lots of different areas, but it is a framework. As Justin Bates said in his evidence last week, it is a good and admirable starting point but there are lots of areas, lots of limbs within the Bill, that, quite understandably, because we cannot foresee every situation, will need to be dealt with as specific areas are developed and understood, consultations undertaken, experts work with MHCLG officials, and so on, to bring precise details of policy forward. I am not an expert in the certification and qualifications arena, but you have heard from the previous panel and you had fire experts last week.

What I do know is that, in our business, meaningfully and more explicitly post Grenfell, but for longer than that— in our resident engagements, we interact with 90,000 residents every year at some level—we have put in place a specific and dedicated fire life safety team in HomeGround. In that team, there are chartered fire surveyors, ex-London Fire Brigade officers, building surveyors and a small legal team. Their role, in collaboration with our estates management team, is to work closely together.

Our estates management team will basically audit all the managing agents who are responsible for the day-to-day running of our blocks around the country. Where there are clearly some deficiencies in, for example, fire risk assessments or, frankly, poor stewardship by the managing agent—that happens in all industries—our fire life safety team will go in and work with the managing agent to put special measures in place to get that building fit for purpose. That comes at a cost. Some of these things, by the way, are just bad life-cycle maintenance stuff—things that should have been replaced five years ago. That is a legitimate cost for the residents who live there.

That team has been inundated over the past 18 months. We have been trying to secure funding from the building safety fund and the ACM cladding remediation fund, which are very welcome funding pools, to get the bigger picture and to get the higher-risk buildings fixed. We have gone out and hired the best people we can find—by the way, it is a tough market out there, because not a lot of people are qualified to do a lot of this stuff—but until there are more specific guidelines from the regulator and the regulatory regime on what the qualifications need to be, I do not know whether they are fully qualified or not.

Kieran Walker: I would reinforce the point that Richard has just made. As we have seen with the communal wall service—the EWS1 form and the cladding external wall system—and its evolution since July 2019, it has been difficult to get hold not only of people but of people who can then be insured to carry out things like EWS1 surveys or fire assessments in the first place. There is a real shortage of people out there who are able to undertake that. Again, to reinforce Richard’s point, it is quite ambiguous as to exactly what qualifications are needed/accepted if we are going to undertake the assessments.

[Theo Clarke]

Q What would be the one thing you would want to see improved in the Bill?

Kieran Walker: For me, our membership and our industry, it would be the gateway 2 side. The Bill proposes that all information for gateway 2—meaning, in effect, post-planning, post-reconstruction and moving to detailed design—be submitted early doors, at the initial stage. Historically, the industry works with a number of contractors, suppliers and designers, and tenders information on a live basis. In order to get all that information delivered up front as developers enter gateway 2, quite a bit of information will have to be designed and procured at risk during that transition between gateway 1 approval and going to gateway 2. Within that, given the subcontractor market and potential changes in materials due to imports, exports and price fluctuations, you could end up having to revisit change management and the gateway 2 process and to go almost in a circular manner back to the regulator to seek change and improvements.

We would like to see—as we currently see, to a certain extent—a number of approved inspectors in the industry where we have a staged planned submission and staged planned approval process based on your sub-structure, superstructure, finishing trades, mechanical, electrical, finishes and cladding.

[Ian Byrne]

Q I direct my question to Kieran. Will the Bill change the culture of profit over safety that has pervaded the industry for so long and caused the likes of the Grenfell disaster? The second part of my question is about the use of special purpose vehicles and accountability. Do you feel that the Bill tackles the way in which SPVs are used to close down an issue, resulting in the complete lack of accountability of the people involved? Should the Bill be amended to tackle that?

Kieran Walker: I will answer the first question first, if I may. I certainly think that the Bill will change the culture of the industry and make clearer the key stages— the milestones—for people in the process of building the buildings in scope or tall buildings. In the past, quite ambiguous information has been submitted and responded to in the planning stage, which does not necessarily regulate, mandate or cover key items such as vehicle access tracking or incumbent water pressures in the proximity of those buildings.

Within gateway 2, I think we will see a lot more stringent approaches to material information and detail design being submitted to the regulator. That is a positive thing. In terms of duty holders and clear lines of responsibility, I definitely think that that is positive. As an industry, we support that clarity and those clear and mandated lines of responsibility and communication. I think we will see an improvement in the industry as a whole, and the key to that is the fact that we have this clear framework.

It is difficult to answer your question about special purpose vehicles, to be honest. I am not trying to avoid an answer, but we do not necessarily have much information on special purpose vehicles. How they are regulated and administered is quite varied. We have worked with a number of special purpose vehicles in the past, but going back to my first point, I think that the Bill will make lines of responsibility and regulation a lot clearer for them, to avoid the potential and opportunity for them to disappear as soon as the keys are handed over to the final property in the block.