Draft Higher-Risk Buildings (Keeping and Provision of Information etc.) (England) Regulations 2023

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 General Committees

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I am aware that a number of regulations will flow out of the Building Safety Act, so could the Minister clarify whether disability and access information is recorded under this regulation? It is critical that there is a proper record of people who will need assistance when evacuating.

I should have declared an interest in that I am a leaseholder and live above the seventh floor in a leasehold block, and I have had recent experience of a fire drill when an alarm went off. But I represent many constituents living in affected blocks, which is my main interest today as their constituency MP. Sometimes, temporary disability is an issue. It is quite a challenge for a building manager to keep up to date with people who have broken an ankle and have a problem for only a few months, rather than people who have a regular problem. There are also important privacy issues for people with a disability who may need support and assistance, relating to how that might be recorded and dealt with differently from other information.

On data, a lot of blocks in Hackney have been sold to overseas landlords. There are landlords overseas and landlords in the UK—sometimes in London but often elsewhere. There are then the residents of those blocks—some are owners, and some are the tenants of those landlords. When the data is shared with the resident, there is reference to the redaction of personal data in some circumstances, as I am sure the Minister is aware. Could he explain who gets the full data? Is it the resident, and the landlord has some of it redacted? How will that work? There is an awful lot of personal information flying around here, and it is easy to see how there could be challenging GDPR issues.

To echo the points from my colleagues about the impact on leaseholders, the guidance suggests an estimated £15-a-month charge to leaseholders over a 15-year period. That works out at about £180 per annum for 15 years. I am interested to know how the Department modelled those figures. A one-off map of the building—if that did not exist beforehand—is one cost; it does not change. The change would be the personal information about residents—the names of people moving in—so that there is a record of who is living there, and information about access and disability where appropriate.

I know the Minister is quite hot on leasehold charges. As my colleagues have said, what efforts will be made to ensure that leaseholders, or indeed tenants, are not fleeced by charges? Where properties are tenanted, there will be certain restrictions. The Minister’s portfolio has shifted so I am confused about what is currently under his remit, but I hope he is able to shed some light on the impact on social rents.

Obviously, there is a cap on how much social rents can increase by, but if those extra pressures are put on local authorities, housing associations and other landlords, they will have to pass them on in some way to tenants through service charges. For a lot of tenants, service charges are wrapped up in rents. Can the Minister say anything about that, because £15 a month is not a lot for people in fancy, expensive leasehold properties, who, at the high end, are used to paying thousands of pounds a year in service charges, but others find it a challenge to find the extra £2 a month, or a week, for CCTV on their estate? What thought is going into that? There is a danger with bad leasehold companies, which manage properties badly and are not transparent about costs. It is easy to see how other costs could be hidden in this cost. What thoughts has he had on that?

Is there a review point? The impact assessment says that there will be no separate review, other than the review that is built into the Building Safety Act 2022. Could the Minister remind us—I am afraid this does not come to mind—exactly how that review will work? How can Members who represent affected constituents press for a review if we pick up, though our work, issues with how the provisions are applied?

Has the Minister given any consideration to the impact where a property does not have a plan? He will know about this, as a former Westminster City councillor. When I became a councillor, properties transferred to the council from the then Greater London Council often did not have proper plans. The plans available depended on when properties were built, and who the original landlord was. To what extent will plans have to be drawn up for buildings that never had them? In more recent years, and certainly since the tragedy of Grenfell, we have expected property owners to keep proper, clear building plans that are easily accessible and can be supplied to the fire and rescue services, and any other interested parties.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

I work closely with the Building Safety Regulator. Its first job is to make sure that the rough number of buildings we are expecting to register have done so. For the past couple of months I have received data weekly, and slightly less frequently before that. The numbers are in the ballpark of how many we expected to register, so the first test has been passed. Now, it is a case of, over six years, working through the buildings, making sure that data is collected and used in a satisfactory way, and helping owners to make sure they are managing in a way that works. A substantial sum is going into the Building Safety Regulator, and from having worked closely with it, I think the indications so far—things may change—are that it is moving in the right direction.

To pick up a couple of other points, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch highlighted the very important point about disabilities and making sure that appropriate consideration is given to that issue. That is vital and it is a core part of our approach, but it is separate from the regulations before us, which are about a record of buildings, not of people who live in them. We have already consulted and we will bring forward separate measures on PEEPs—personal emergency evacuation plans.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I thank the Minister for clarifying that. Does he have a rough timescale? I am asking not for a precise date, but for a range of dates when we might see that, because it is critical. I have a constituent who is particularly concerned about that issue.

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight that. When I speak to a number of the cladding groups, it is one of the areas that is, quite rightly, at the centre of the points that they raise. I am afraid that I will do that rather annoying thing and say that I do not have a date, but we hope it to be very soon.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

Spring?

[Lee Rowley]

I hope that would be the case. The Secretary of State sees this as a priority; we are in deep conversations with the Home Office on it, and I hope that we will bring it forward as soon as we can.

I will conclude with a couple of additional points. On the point about review, I reiterate that I am keen to receive any information or data from colleagues where they see problems or, indeed, good behaviour, so that we can feed that into the BSR. I will be happy to do that as soon as these things go in, because at that point we will be able to start to gather the body of data that indicates whether it is working in the way that we hoped or needs to be looked at.

As for the final few questions, data sharing is a difficult area to get right. All data that is collected will be shareable with the Building Safety Regulator—otherwise, there is no point in having the regulator in the first place. Almost all data will be shared with the fire and rescue services—otherwise, again, there is no point in having it. There is a much more delicate interaction between the entity and the leaseholders. Obviously, the entity will need to collect the data, but a series of provisions in the guidance will try to manage that. Again, we will need to review that as we go through to ensure that it works.

On the point about older buildings, it is absolutely right to point out that whether we like it or not, ideally or not, there will be a paucity of data in certain places. Some data will need to be replaced—otherwise, there is no point having the regulations and collecting it in the first place if the questions of the fire and rescue service cannot be answered. People must be able to answer them—otherwise, it is not advancing the cause of safety.

The usual reasonable principle test is in all the regulations; therefore, the objective is to ensure that the data is available for when it is necessary. However, if people have gone through a reasonable process of trying to get it and they cannot get it until x day or they need to wait until a point in a cycle, or whatever, that will be for the usual processes of tribunals to judge. However, a reasonable test is brought into it, which is a proportionate way of saying, “You need to do this, but it may take a little bit of time”, or, “We need to work that through”.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings had a question about schedule 2. For obvious reasons, it will not be the case that residents moving in who have not made some kind of contractual arrangement to purchase the property will have access to all the data—otherwise, basically anybody would have access to it. However, they would be given that information at the point of a contract being signed, naturally. We would then hope and expect—I know that my right hon. Friend will appreciate this, as someone from a similar ideological view to my own—that it will be difficult to put rules around the level of data available in advance of that, but I expect that, through the sales process, responsible entities will want to provide a sufficient level of data to assure those seeking to purchase or take an interest in a property to be able to do so. If the data is not available or obstructions are found, it may signal an indication of the responsibility of those managing the building.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The Minister is making some helpful points. It is clear that he is very much on top of this matter, so I echo the comments made earlier. It has been helpful to meet him to discuss issues at times.

On the issue of information, a lot of the properties in my constituency are tenanted—as I said earlier, the leaseholder is often living overseas or elsewhere—so we are reliant on the whole tenancy arrangement for information to be shared with the tenant. As far as I am aware—the Minister may want to have an exchange of letters about this—there is no absolute requirement on landlords to provide that document. Landlords must now provide 13 different documents to a tenant. The Minister has made general comments about fire safety and so on, but I do not recall anything specific about that document. Is there any further change in the rules or guidance for private landlords—they are the ones who would be in scope—that needs to happen as a result? It seems that there may be a small gap that is important and significant. What the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings said was helpful.

[Lee Rowley]

I am happy to write to the hon. Lady to be absolutely certain that I have understood the point. We will get officials to write to her with that information. My understanding is that the combination of clear requirements; a clear, responsible entity that needs to respond to those requirements, whoever it is in the hierarchy and however complex the hierarchy is; and forms of redress that ultimately fall back to the Building Safety Regulator to say, “No, that is not acceptable” should cover everything. However, if it does not, we can work that through in an exchange of letters.

I think that covers what colleagues have said, and I thank them for their constructive comments. I look forward to making progress on this issue. Adding additional regulation is always challenging, and there are different views on that on different sides of the House, but even for someone like me, who tends to favour relatively low regulation, it is a reasonable and proportionate thing to do. We now need to ensure that it is right, and I am keen to get feedback from colleagues to ensure that that is the case in the months ahead.

Question put and agreed to.