Building Safety Update

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, along with other noble Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement. It is a positive step forward, but only a partial step. The Minister referred to my noble friend Lady Pinnock and her concerns about buildings under 11 metres. I also want to highlight those that are the responsibility of non-major housebuilders. Earlier today, in Grand Committee, we talked about the 13,000 high-risk high-rise buildings, yet this Statement talks only about

“fixing at least 1,100 buildings.”

I am not expecting answers, but I am concerned about how many smaller builders there are—they may still be big builders by many business standards, but they are not the major developers. Will they also have to sign a contract as part of next steps?

I think that both my noble friend Lady Pinnock and I completely understand that the death rate in fires at lower levels is, thankfully, lower, but homes are still destroyed, and the same poor products have been used. What are the Government going to do about those?

The other point that I know the residents of those buildings will talk about is the excessive insurance charges they are being forced to pay at the moment. Are the Government planning to talk to the insurance companies in the same way they have been working with the major housebuilders? Again, it is not the fault of the tenants and residents of these high-rise blocks that they should be faced with those bills, and I wonder whether perhaps there could be some help there.

Finally, the Secretary of State said in the Statement that these would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis—but there are thousands of buildings. Do the Government have any idea how long it is going to take to respond to this? Are we going to have quarterly Statements in the future? It will be enormously helpful if we are, but I am worried that it is easy to think that because we are dealing with big companies, everything is resolved. It absolutely is not.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I can assure the noble Baroness that some of these companies in the list that we have seen today are not the large companies. That, obviously, is causing some of the smaller companies to need a little more support, because it is more difficult financially for them to sign up to the financial costs of this. We are working with them on ways they might be able to pay back. We are not giving them any money for the future, but the Government have already paid for some of the payback of remediation work; we are helping them with payment schemes if that helps.

There will always be other companies, and that is why we are always saying that this is not the end of the system. This is the beginning, and the department will keep going until we make sure that no leaseholder is in the position that they have been in over these years.

As for the signing of the contracts, there are 4,000 buildings owned by those companies, of which about 1,000 have life-critical fire safety defects. We have to be careful with the figures, because they may be responsible for many more properties than actually have any problems. That is an important issue.

As far as insurance is concerned, yes, the department has been working with the FCA and the insurance companies over a number of months, if not years, because we are well aware of this issue, and we will continue to work with them. Particularly now that we are getting a solution to it, there is absolutely no need for these insurance issues at the moment.

Was there anything else? There was nothing on PEEPs tonight.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I thank the Minister. She answered my question, and I look forward to hearing from her on PEEPs in the future.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I have three interrelated questions, and I am going to relate them to the 1,100 buildings mentioned in the Statement, not the rather breathtaking figure from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, of 13,000 buildings. The Statement rightly says that leaseholders will want work to start without delay on all 1,100 buildings, which are, by definition, significant buildings. Are the Government confident that there are sufficient skills and ability, as well as the sheer workforce, to deliver this in any meaningful kind of timeframe?

Although most of the focus since the awful tragedy of Grenfell has been on external wall systems, there are also huge and quite complicated problems that have been discovered with fire-stopping systems, particularly breaches of compartmentalisation in the way buildings have either been designed or built. Fixing that is not going to be a simple matter of taking some cladding off and putting some cladding on; it is going to require a very high level of skills to make sure that you are genuinely fixing the problem and not, goodness forbid, making it worse.

In that context, the Health and Safety Executive recommended the golden thread principle, which I think probably applies here, of ensuring that there is a responsible person who is in control, really understands what is happening and has all the necessary documents and understanding.

I also note that this week the consultation closes on what is known as approved document B, which is the new and improved iterative process of fire safety standards. That is only going to apply to new buildings and will not affect existing buildings. Are the Government really committed to ensuring that we get the best possible standards in these buildings? People have now been living in fear for years, and they need the confidence to know their buildings are as safe as possible.