Building Safety Bill

Felicity Buchan Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

I welcome the Bill. It will be very important in transforming our regime of building safety and in putting residents and high rises at the forefront of that regime. Building safety is incredibly important to me. The tragedy of Grenfell Tower happened in my constituency, and London is home to 55% of all high rises and intermediate buildings, many of which lie in central London.

I hope the Bill will also change the culture of the building industry and the building products industry. I have been shocked by some of the revelations coming out of the Grenfell inquiry: how the system was gamed and how it was pushed to the nth degree. We need to change that culture; residents and safety must come first.

I warmly welcome many parts of this Bill, including the building products regulator and the ability of that regulator to take building products off the market and to prosecute those who try to sell products that do not meet the mark. I also welcome the fact that the time period to sue for defective premises will go from six years to 15 years, and the announcement that we heard this afternoon on EWS1 forms will be critical.

Clearly, there are details on which we need confirmation. RICS guidance will be important. It will be important to have confirmation that the consolidated advice note will be withdrawn, and we also need clarity as to what will happen to EWS1 forms that have already been issued. Will they stay or will they not? Potentially, this is a very significant development for leaseholders.

There are issues on which we need to work across the House. We need to agree the scope of the measures. Yes, they currently apply to buildings above 18 metres, but the Bill has the capacity to increase that scope, so we need to focus on that. Very importantly, we need a taskforce within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government that will look at buildings case by case, because there are so many buildings that are throwing up very unique circumstances that we need to deal with. One is Collier House in my constituency.