Building Safety Bill

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

My warmest congratulations, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think everybody welcomes the new and enhanced regulatory regimes for building safety in the Bill, but, as many Members have stated, I am equally concerned about the action that is needed now to make existing homes and products safe and to stop leaseholders from being hit with catastrophic bills from building owners to fix historic failures. I also want to put on record my concerns about a statement being issued in the middle of an opening speech presenting the Bill. I think it is absolutely appalling.

Moving on to Dame Judith Hackitt’s report, she concluded that it was the construction industry’s prevalent culture that was undermining building safety. She referred to procurement regimes that were not fit for purpose. In relation to building safety, she added that

“unhelpful behaviours such as contract terms and payment practices which prioritise speed and low cost solutions, exacerbate this situation.”

She concluded that poor procurement and payment practice

“provide poor value for money”

and produce “poor building safety outcomes.” She recommended that contracts’ payment terms and practices should be recorded as part of a proposed digital building safety file. I could not agree more with her conclusions.

There is a toxic culture in too many parts of the construction industry, where fly-by-night firms benefit by accepting the lowest-price jobs achieved by poor payment practices to their supply chain. This Bill provides a unique opportunity to deal with not just the scandal of unsafe buildings, but the scandal of the manipulation of late-payment practices by large, unscrupulous construction companies. Evidence given to Committees of this House following the Carillion collapse revealed the appalling abuse of tier 1 contractors such as Carillion. In spite of my Bill in 2019—the Public Sector Supply Chains (Project Bank Accounts) Bill—to tackle the misery that so many small construction companies continue to face and to protect them from becoming insolvent, as nearly a thousand did after Carillion’s demise, absolutely nothing has been done.

Almost six years on from the Business Department reviewing the practice of retentions that harms thousands of small businesses by depriving them of much needed cash flow, it has sat on its hands. Based on figures provided by the Department in October 2017, every day, almost £1 million-worth of retentions is lost by firms—mainly small businesses—because of upstream insolvencies. Today, according to insolvency specialists, almost 100,000 firms in the industry are under severe financial stress. Small construction firms are having to grapple with the massive cost pressures of their base and many are facing the issues that I have talked about. If an industry is free of the widespread and egregious treatment—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order.