Ian Byrne
Main Page: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool, West Derby)Building Safety Bill (Fourth sitting)
Ian Byrne Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)
Q
Dr Glen: I will start off on that one, seeing as Martin started on the last one. No, if you look at it, there are many aspects of it that will not protect. Inside the impact assessment, you will see that the cost is an estimated £200 per leasehold per annum, which does not sound much, but for some people that is the difference between having food on the table and not. Also, outside of that is the cost to remediate any defects that could be found, and I believe the estimation there was £9,000, of which only a third—33%—was the external wall system. Let’s say the building safety fund covers that: that potentially still leaves £6,000.
There is also the issue of the additional layers that are being put in: a building safety manager is not going to be a cheap resource. One of the things that we would be very keen on is a consideration of this. We are absolutely for increased safety, but we have to make sure that people can afford it, and that it is proportional as well. There are quite a few aspects of this that are going to be an unpleasant surprise for many leaseholders. I am a leaseholder: it is going to be a surprise for me as well when it finally comes through.
Martin Boyd: The Government have said from the outset that leaseholders should not pay. This Bill ensures that even if there were some possibility that they might not have to pay before, they will now. It is a very regressive system. It may be okay if you own an expensive million-pound flat in London, but if you have a £120,000 flat that you bought somewhere up in the north-east or north-west, and particularly if you are a shared ownership buyer, it is going to destroy your life.
Ian Byrne
Q
Martin Boyd: Unfortunately it begins, “I wouldn’t start from here.” We have got ourselves into a very difficult position, principally because the Government did not react quickly enough in 2017, so we now have huge problems with the housing market. It is very difficult to sell flats. There is a great deal of uncertainty about what is going to happen. We thought we had just got used to the external wall system and we are now moving towards EWS being replaced by the British Standards Institution publicly available specification 9980. Any market needs confidence, and at the moment we are not doing anything to get that confidence.
What has happened in other countries, which seems to be slightly more successful, is for the Government to make decisions about which buildings they think are of higher risk and which are of medium and lower risks, and prioritise the work. In some instances here, we are remediating low-risk aluminium composite material buildings more quickly than ACM buildings that are still fully clad 51 months after Grenfell.
The Chair
Ian Byrne
Q
James Dalton: The answer to that is probably best delivered by technical experts. From an insurance industry perspective, there is no doubt in my mind that a building in which there is a fire and in which that fire is put out much more quickly than would otherwise be the case in the absence of sprinklers would probably, first, save lives, and secondly, result in significantly less damage to the building from fire. In that context, I suspect those buildings would be cheaper to insure.
Ian Byrne
Q
James Dalton: As I said in an answer to a previous question, the insurance industry has long argued that it should be mandatory for new build buildings—in particular those that house vulnerable members of our community such as care homes and schools—to have sprinklers.
Ian Byrne
Q
Steve Wood: I support what James said. I think it should be more risk-based in terms of the approach and it should be part of the planning and sign-off on any new development. I do not think we should draw up arbitrary lines on sprinklers by height or floors. It should be risk-based.
Ian Byrne
Q
James Dalton: As we made clear in our written submission to the Committee, the professional indemnity insurance market internationally and particularly in the UK—especially in construction and building—has very significantly hardened at the moment. That is due to a range of factors.
One of the things we want to understand in more detail from the secondary legislation in the Bill is the specific regulatory requirements on those professionals involved in managing a building because that has an impact on whether, the extent to which and the price for professional indemnity insurance that could be available.
As I said in answer to a question on this in the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, now is not the best time, frankly, to be introducing new requirements on new professionals in building and construction from a professional indemnity insurance perspective. The industry wants the detail and I am committed to working with my insurance company members to understand what the availability and cost of professional indemnity insurance might be once we have the detail.
Ian Byrne
Q
Dr Colwell: From BRE’s perspective as training providers in this field, we welcome the clear definition of roles within that, but the thing that goes hand in hand is to understand the scope and the levels that we are expecting within that competency to enable the insurers and end users to be able to benchmark the suitability of that training.
One of the things we look forward to in further legislation and also with the support of the regulator itself is looking at where each of those roles begins and ends. We heard it being said in the previous session how those sometimes do not necessarily join up and people make assumptions about where something begins and something ends. Also, within that, how are we going to take that training forward? How are we going to measure that training? Are we going to make them professional qualifications or managed qualifications? Is there an overarching syllabus that we would expect each of the roles to answer to or will it be left to training providers to interpret the guidance given in the legislation to deliver appropriate training around those points? That is an area that we would seek to build on.
Ian Byrne
Q
Dr Colwell: As part of the development work, we were part of the working group 8 looking at competency development. We are actively working with the regulator coming in on that and also within the Department as to where we would like that to go forward to.
Mike Amesbury
Q
James Dalton: Sure. There are two different types of insurance in play in your question. On the cost of buildings insurance, it is important to note—I think I heard this in the previous sitting—that the Bill is prospective. It is not retrospective except for the provisions that I will come to in a second. Will safer buildings be built as a result of the Bill and all the accreditation and certification, in terms of the golden thread? Buildings should be safer as a result. As I said to your colleague, safer buildings should be cheaper to insure, and that insurance should be more available.
On your question about the Defective Premises Act 1972, that issue is about liability insurance, not buildings insurance. The challenge in that space is that, without there having been consultation, the Bill retrospectively extends the period of liability from six to 15 years; some insurance policies will have excluded liability over and above six years. I do not know who is going to pay for the period between six and 15 years, when there is found to have been negligence. There may not be an insurer that is on risk to cover that liability. That is the big concern from an insurance industry perspective. Other insurance policies potentially would come on risk. Then we have a question about whether it is fair and reasonable to amend the Act retrospectively without consultation.
Rachel Hopkins
Q
Mr Wrack: I think this will become clearer as the Bill is implemented. There is an obvious point for fire and rescue services around what is meant by the obligation to co-operate with the regulator. Again, fire and rescue services have been subject to unprecedented reductions in staffing numbers over the past decade. That will raise questions about resources when it comes to their ability to co-operate with the requests of the regulator. In the impact assessment, there are suggestions of additional funding for fire and rescue services for that function; we would question how those figures have been drawn up and whether they are adequate.
Under the proposals, if, because of resource implications, a fire and rescue service could not provide assistance, the regulator has the ability to go to another fire and rescue service—or, failing that, to the private sector. We object to the role of private sector providers in that. If we have a problem with resources in the appropriate public service, then those resources should be provided.
Ian Byrne
Q
Mr Wrack: Picking up on a point made in the previous session, we find the idea of a differential regime based on height somewhat illogical. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think it would make sense to have a single system that is understandable to everyone, a single set of accountable people, and a single mechanism for making complaints and addressing problems.
There clearly is an issue around height in relation to building safety. As we put in our written submission, we do not agree with the 18-metre cut-off. We and others have said that if there is to be a height measure, a more logical one would be 11 metres. There are clearly differences between the fire risks in a traditional two-storey house and those in a purpose-built block of flats, where there are specific challenges. Some challenges are general across all forms of purpose-built blocks of flats; some of them apply at particular heights.
Clearly, there are additional challenges once you get to very tall buildings. They range from the ability of firefighters to fight a fire and rescue people to the importance of the internal building safety measures, such as the provision of dry rising mains, fire lifts and so on. All those things will be affected by issues such as the height of the building. As I think the National Fire Chiefs Council has said, it is a complicated issue because there are other factors, such as what has been done to the building and whether the building has been altered from its original design and construction. Lots of things need to be considered. Height in itself can be a bit arbitrary, and in our view the wrong height measure has been chosen.
Ian Byrne
Q
Mr Wrack: I was previously a firefighter in the London Fire Brigade—I have been in this position since 2005—and I think there is a problem with culture. I have lived through a decade in which the endless mantra from senior civil servants and Government Ministers of both parties has been that fire is a declining risk, and we can therefore afford to reduce our emphasis on fire safety. That was very clearly a theme that we heard for more than a decade. I think it fed through into the fire service itself, and senior managers and chief officers accepted that mantra. As I say, we were often a lone voice opposing that approach. That has allowed corners to be cut, and for deregulatory approaches to be taken. It has allowed standards to be cut. Over two decades, we lost something like 40% of fire safety inspecting teams. Then, of course, along comes Grenfell Tower, and people wake up to the fact that we have not been properly addressing risk.
To pick up a point made earlier by a representative from the insurance industry, one of the big problems in relation to fire safety and building safety in the UK is a complete lack of horizon-scanning. A question was asked about fires in the UK and elsewhere. The truth is that there have been warning signs from fires elsewhere. Clearly, you cannot necessarily draw an immediate analogy between a building in Europe or the middle east and one in Britain because the regulations may be completely different, but there were warning signs about external cladding systems, including in the UK. Regrettably, we have not had structures in place that allowed various professional voices, whether of construction specialists, building control specialists or fire safety officers, to discuss emerging risks and identify how we address them. I think a deep complacency about fire safety has emerged, particularly over the past two decades. Grenfell, hopefully, is a major turning point on that.
Mike Amesbury
Q
Mr Wrack: A single system of regulation would be better than what is proposed. I understand that there may be a need for a phased approach, but I am not sure that is what is in front of us. I think that the 18-metre cut-off point is incorrect, too. There should be a move towards an elimination of private-sector interests in building control. The idea that people can choose their own building control system is wrong, and appears wrong to many people. Finally—this relates more to the background to the Bill—resourcing is a huge issue for us in the fire service, for local authority building control, and for the HSE.
Rachel Hopkins
Q
Eric Leenders: Yes, and I think there are also some protections for leaseholders where the amount of remediation exceeds £250. That is welcome. The 28 days is potentially challenging—I am thinking of the staff in our organisation paid on a monthly 31-day cycle—so there could be a little more time for individuals to pay. Salaried individuals in particular are predominantly likely to look in the Bill for support. Increasing that timeline might be helpful.
Ian Byrne
Q
Eric Leenders: That is quite a difficult question to answer. The first point to make is that the housing stock is of the order of 28 million to 30 million properties, and only about 9 million have mortgages; you could perhaps add another couple of million for buy-to-let properties, so about a third of the overall housing stock would be affected. The composition of the housing stock is about much more than the most at-risk properties. What the Bill looks to address, based on the input from the fire experts, is a risk-based approach that would potentially look to address higher risk properties above 18 metres—there are probably about 1,400 or 1,500 of those properties in the UK. The impact on the overall market might be relatively modest, but the chief point is that for individual homeowners and those that have mortgages—those constituents—the impact is significant and is more than financial. It also has an emotional consequence as well.
Ms Rimmer
Q
Eric Leenders: We see two sides to this. One element is the extent to which there is a discrete building safety charge; the other is the extent to which that is combined perhaps with a service charge. There are pros and cons to both approaches. The overarching issue for lenders is the extent to which the pre-existing commitments—not just the loan commitment but individual household budgets—would remain affordable if there are additional remediation costs. As I mentioned, I know that the MHCLG team has been very thoughtful about that consideration in relation to introducing loan support for properties between 11 and 18 metres. There might be some read-across in the context of the detail of the Bill.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
Alison Hills: Again, I think there needs to be clear definition in the Bill of how often access will be granted and for what reasons, how much notice will be given, and who will come into the property. There are so many unanswered questions in leaseholders’ minds at the moment, and it needs clear definition in the Bill, in my view. Otherwise, it potentially brings up privacy issues.
Steve Day: Get rid of the gas boilers as quickly as we can. They are not great on high rises.
Ian Byrne
Q
I want to touch on residents’ engagement. It is hugely important. We saw that with Grenfell, and what was missing. Earlier witnesses said that the residents’ engagement section of the Bill is potentially one of the weakest parts. How do we strengthen residents’ voices, and the imbalance of power that exists? How would you reflect what residents need within the Bill to ensure that their voices are heard?
Steve Day: We need to have very good transparency from our managing agents. Often we cannot see the reports that are about the safety of where we live. We cannot see the accounts to see that they are spending the money correctly. We are given a very high-level aggregate view that often does not check out to what we are paying, so that side of things needs to be transparent. There needs to be a lot of thought towards how residents are engaged as well. Not all residents have the inclination to get together and form a committee. How do you handle that? Do the managing agents pick on one person and say, “You’re responsible for it”? I think that could all be strengthened.
Alison Hills: Luckily, in our block, our managing agent has been very forthcoming. We have regular meetings with them every two weeks. That position is quite lucky, but it took a lot of work to get to that point. A lot of leaseholders across the country have managing agents who do not share information, fire risk assessments and even evacuation plans. We have seen, particularly for disabled leaseholders, that some blocks do not have any evacuation plans at all. I think that is completely unacceptable.
Information sharing is the key point. Residents do have a right to see this information. It affects their lives; it affects their health and safety; and it affects their mental health. They need to know what to do in the event of a fire; they need to know what the defects are; and they need to know what the next steps are. As I said, my managing agents have been good with that, but many others have not.
Daisy Cooper
Q
Alison Hills: Yes, I think that would be very useful for residents. There are residents from all walks of life in all heights of building, and it is important that all their voices get heard. We are lucky: in our particular block, we have a very active residents committee; we are a very engaged set of leaseholders. But others might not understand about their building’s defects; they might not realise the whole situation that is affecting leaseholders. There are some, even in different blocks in my development, who do not realise the repercussions of the Building Safety Bill. I think this is just about information sharing and making sure that every block has a voice and every leaseholder has a chance to have their say. That is absolutely crucial.
Steve Day: One thing that would have helped me with my investigations was the BBA certificates. It is charging hundreds of pounds to get that, and it is often very difficult. I think we have a right as residents, if we have this massively large building, to know what the safety certificate says about our external wall system, so I say: let’s put it all online. The BBA, I am sure, can get its money in other ways. Also, if we are trusting the construction industry to keep to regulations, and if a development does get judicially reviewed with our redress scheme, I would say: let’s have Parliament put the information online, perhaps in a brief form—the judgment and the fact that that developer thinks that plastic fixings are fine on firebreaks. Let’s put it online, on a parliamentary website or some form of official site, so that a development has the ability to shame the developer, the construction or the cladding manufacturer if they choose to basically say that something unsafe is safe. I think we do need something like that.
Alison Hills: One of the positive aspects of the Bill is that there is a clause about mandatory keeping of records. That is absolutely crucial. It needs to be done—absolutely. Our developer cannot find the plans, for example, for our building. And that has happened across the board. There are so many leaseholders I have spoken to where they cannot contact the developers and they have just lost all the paperwork. How do you lose the building work paperwork? It just does not make any sense. But if there is a centralised system, it cannot get lost; it is all there, in black and white. And any leaseholder who wants to see it should have that right, because it does affect them. It is their home at the end of the day, and they need to know what the building safety issues are with their flats.