Fire Safety Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 29th October 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

2: Clause 2, page 2, line 7, at end insert—
“( ) Regulations under subsection (1) may not amend the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 to apply the Order to domestic premises in buildings under five storeys in height.”Member’s explanatory statement
This is a probing amendment to enable the House to discuss fire safety measures that apply to low-rise domestic buildings, which have a lesser fire risk, and how the powers under Clause 2 may be used to implement Grenfell inquiry recommendations.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry that I was not able to speak at Second Reading. However, I am glad to rise to move Amendment 2, which is probing in nature but very serious. It reflects one of the problems that has arisen from actions taken following the Grenfell tragedy. One consequence of Grenfell is that cladding on many dwellings, especially high-rise flats, will have to be treated and/or removed if their safety is to be assured. Initially, statements by government Ministers implied that cladding on buildings of over 18 metres was in question, but subsequent remarks have implied that buildings of lower height could also be affected. The proposed order, of course, goes beyond cladding. It covers balconies and windows and the entrance doors to individual flats. These are often made of wood, as they have been since virtually the dawn of time, and the advice from consultants and so on is that they need to be replaced or fireproofed under the new regime.

All of this will be a very expensive process. Rough estimates reveal that the cost per dwelling can easily reach tens of thousands of pounds. In many cases, it is not clear from where the money for the changes needed will come. Freeholders, leaseholders and government look on in horror at the implications. As a consequence, a substantial part of the housing market is effectively frozen. Buyers will not purchase unless they can be assured that they will not be caught by these extra costs, or at least until any costs can be reliably quantified. Many people simply cannot move because their dwellings cannot be sold until the impasse is resolved.

The problem is aggravated by the use of the now-infamous external fire wall review form developed by the RICS, no doubt in an effort to be helpful. The perverse effect of this was debated in the other place. There is a shortage of people qualified to undertake such surveys and the delay leads to the collapse of house sales. So the young who want to move somewhere bigger, for example when they have a baby, the old who want to trade down and release capital, and the unemployed who want to move to get work elsewhere, are all frozen. Mortgage providers are unwilling to lend on what are now seen as distressed assets.

This is a nightmare. We, the Conservatives, are the party that believes in home ownership and has made promises on housing, which I stand behind 100%. I do not like to attack the Government, but this problem does not have negotiating ramifications. It is straightforward and domestic. The Government have a clear duty to minimise the problem and map a way forward out of the morass. Indeed, though they were made for the best of reasons, their statements created the problem in the first place.

My Amendment 2 deals with only a small part of the problem but Rome was not built in a day. Reducing the scope of a problem is worth while; we could do that in this Bill with my noble friend the Minister’s agreement. My thought is that the risk posed by cladding and balconies in low-rise buildings is much less than in high-rise ones. To be blunt, it is easier and quicker to get out if there is a fire, and it seems disproportionate to apply such onerous requirements to low-rise buildings. If we can make clear that buildings below a certain height—with fewer than five storeys, say—will not be covered by future requirements for removal or changes to cladding, that part of the market will be unfrozen, which would be a major step forward. I am open as to how this can be achieved, though limiting the height of buildings to which the new rules will apply is one obvious possibility.

I will also speak to Amendments 20 and 21 on an impact assessment. The Home Office produced an impact assessment as part of the consultation on the proposed new fire safety order, but regrettably not for the Bill itself. It does not touch on the troublesome dynamics that I have raised. It covers familiarisation costs for responsible persons, businesses and the public sector, ongoing assessments and audits by competent individuals and some remedial costs, although my impression is that these are underestimated. The impact assessment quotes a total of more than £2 billion, partly because of the huge number of premises involved, but it is striking that, of the 1.7 million premises on the central estimate, 1.596 million are below 11 metres and 87,000 are below 18 metres—hence my proposal.

When I headed up the deregulation unit—which we named the better regulation unit under its Labour chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Haskins—we were always worried about getting the detail wrong and imposing huge and needless burdens in response to disasters. This, I fear, is a living example; with the distractions of Covid, this could be a prime example of this deplorable tendency.

Further, we all care about fire safety; that is what this Bill is about. My late father-in-law was a fire officer, including during the Blitz. I am a well- known supporter on these Benches of health and safety; I have campaigned on the problem of faulty Whirlpool tumble dryers and worked with the then BEIS Minister responsible to tackle it. Now we must find an urgent way of coping with the terrible problem of the freezing of part of the housing market because of the Government’s statements. This might even be done through an amendment to this popular Bill.

We must find a way through. In pursuit of that, I have three detailed questions for my noble friend the Minister, broadly suggested to me by the National Residential Landlords Association. First, how do the Government propose that risk assessments for buildings of five storeys or fewer be undertaken? Secondly, do the Government agree that for properties with a lower risk, for example smaller properties in multiple occupation, there is scope for the responsible person to be defined as competent to undertake a fire risk assessment? Thirdly, there have been issues regarding the availability of qualified and appropriately insured fire engineers who are able to undertake safety reviews. What assessment has been made about the need to ensure that there are sufficient trained assessors and that professionals have access to insurance so that they can undertake the necessary assessment without concerns for their personal liability?

I very much look forward to the Minister’s comments and the debate. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful for these probing amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. I understand her point: they are clearly important and they help our further consideration of the Bill. In particular, her identification of the need for trained assessors seems extremely important; I think that we will deal with that a little later this afternoon.

Amendment 2 relates to low-rise domestic buildings—that is, those of four storeys or fewer. I am not clear why, because they are lower than a high-risk block, they should be deemed a lower risk. Surely we are trying to stop fires breaking out; that is not related directly to the height of a building. Added to that is the fact that, sometimes, building height is quoted at different levels for different purposes. Sometimes it is done on the basis of height; sometimes it is done on the basis of the number of floors. I would appreciate some greater standardisation so that we do not face discussions on 18 metres or 11 metres, the number of floors and so on.

The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said—this is important—that the Government must map a way forward. I hope that the Minister will bring some clarity on this in his response. As the noble Baroness said, it is terribly important not to get the detail wrong. In our consideration of this amendment—as we know, it is a probing amendment—it would be helpful to consider it as part and parcel of our intention to get the detail much better than it has been in the past.

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[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, first, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate, and I am especially grateful to my noble friend Lord Shinkwin for his very moving example. I also express my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for their support.

The Minister has confirmed that discussions are ongoing on insurance, warranties and other issues, which are important, but I point out that those relate largely to the future rather than the past. We have a past problem in this area—I describe it as “frozen”—which is obviously the reason for my probing amendment.

This afternoon, there has been a recognition that there is a problem here. Perhaps I could go backwards, thanking the Minister for his answers. I particularly thank him for his answers on the impact assessment, which were very satisfactory. On the website, you come up first with the impact assessment for the fire safety order, but that is the main impact assessment anyway. I was quoting extensively from it and I think that he will find it very useful, but it shows the volume of premises that we are talking about—those under 18 metres or 11 metres—so we have a problem.

The Government are rightly focusing a lot of attention on high-rise flats. The money that has been made available —I think that well over £1 billion was mentioned—is obviously welcome, and that has been focused on trying to get the cladding sorted as far as possible, because it is a great area of tragedy. However, the point about Committee is that you need to look at the detail of the regulations and make sure that you do not cause problems in other areas. Obviously, fires tend to start at the bottom of buildings—I very much understand that—but I think that you need to look at the risk, and my questions were specifically linked to that. It is a case of trying to make the system as sensible as possible so that, for example, responsible officers can, in appropriate circumstances, carry out risk assessments. At the moment, that does not seem to be happening. It seems that they are not doing it because they are worried and are trying to get in a consultant, and that leads to the “frozen” problem that I described.

I would be very happy to talk further about some of those points and the workstreams that the Government are looking at. I felt that the Minister was saying, “We are going to be very fierce on fire safety and I care about fire safety”, but if a lot of people suffer perverse effects as a result, you have to think about how you are going to help them too, and how you are going to deal with that.

That is why I was slightly disappointed in the response to the amendment. It is only a probing amendment, so the fact that it does not quite work is not surprising. I am not an expert in this area. However, I am an expert in trying to balance consumer and business interests to get sensible regulation through this Chamber by looking at the detail. I would be very happy to help in any way I can to try to make sure that we solve some of these difficulties, either through later amendments or by coming up with something particular here. I emphasise that this issue is urgent; it is not something that can be left for another year.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.

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[The Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

I have had a request to speak from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I do not disagree that the amendment should be withdrawn. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, my noble friend Lady Eaton and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, have drawn attention to the problem that I raised earlier about leaseholders caught by the Government’s Grenfell-related changes being unable to afford repairs or waking watches and/or unable to sell their properties. In some cases, the leaseholders are joint owners, as my noble friend Minister has just said.

Will my noble friend agree to a meeting to map the way forward before Report? This could look at the options to see whether primary legislation—which I think he is reluctant to pursue—secondary legislation, fire brigade or health and safety guidance or changes to the regulatory codes would work. There has to be a risk assessment and we need to make sure that this is possible.

I have some experience of dealing with these fire difficulties. As noble Lords will recall, this used to be the responsibility of the fire brigade and then it was all changed. I oversaw that transition. I also know from experience in China how wrong you can get things, particularly if you do not consult. I remember that China did not consult on changes to fire safety laws. They were not aware that most modern premises had sprinklers. As someone has already said, sprinklers limit what you have to do with fire safety measures. It is a modern approach.

I should find a meeting helpful, perhaps to limit the number of amendments that it might otherwise be necessary for us to put forward on Report.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for making those points and representing the deep issues faced by consumers. Essentially, there are three. Thousands of leaseholders are facing the terrible situation that their property is valued at nothing. They have put in their life’s savings to buy a property, and they cannot remortgage or move. The pace of remediation has now slowed because of an inability to get assessments carried out by the relevant person or because they do not feel that they have insurance cover to do it. That is another issue. At the same time, because the pace of remediation has been affected, they face interim costs. I pointed out that they could be dramatically reduced, in most instances, by putting in an alarm system.

My noble friend is quite right—I have had these discussions with the insurance industry—that there are great measures, such as sprinklers, that reduce risk and ensure that a building is safer. That is why the Government legislated to put in sprinklers in all new builds above 11 metres. I am happy to meet my noble friend and any other noble Lords on these important issues, because we all share the objective of finding the right approach to deal with these great issues that face many hundreds of thousands of leaseholders in high-rise residential buildings up and down the country.