Building Safety Bill (First sitting)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I am going to bring in Ruth now, and I know that Mike and Marie have further questions that they want to ask.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Q Thank you, Mrs Miller. I get the point that Sir Ken made about the need not to be too risk averse, but an estate of hundreds of students and leaseholders in my constituency was evacuated with a week’s notice. Also, Richmond House in south-west London burnt down in, I think, 11 minutes once the fire took hold, and it did not have what we think of as flammable cladding and was only four storeys high. I will ask both witnesses the question: to what extent does the Bill address that issue, or what else has to be done so that residents of all buildings, particularly those built in the last 15 or 20 years, can feel safe in their beds at night?

Dan Daly: I think you are referring to Worcester Park.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Yes, Richmond House in Worcester Park.

Dan Daly: There are a couple of things that I think are useful here. One is the competency issue. I think we have maintained right from the start that everyone involved in the build process, right the way through and from maintenance through to occupation, needs to be competent in the role. That is the first part: how these buildings are constructed in the first place and the appropriate measures—barriers, fire-stopping arrangements and so on—being put in place.

There is also the work around product regulation, which I think is really important. We have all seen the evidence at the Grenfell inquiry that products not fit for purpose have been openly sold, knowingly sold. That needs to stop, so that people can build in confidence with the materials they have. I think those two things come together quite well to look at the issues. But there is something, again, about the scope of the Bill. It is starting where it needs to start. I can understand that the new regulator would want to start proportionately and get that right. But I think it is hugely important that we open up the pathways to extending that remit, to look at other types of building.

We have the issue of modern methods of construction. That can be any kind of new aspect of building. I think Worcester Park has an element of timber-frame construction. We are seeing lots of modular construction. We have the highest modular constructed building in Europe here in London. Those kinds of elements need to be looked at to ensure that competency goes right the way through, from the off-site manufacture and the materials used, to the on-site installation. Those are things for the future; that is a good place for us to be. My concern at the moment is this: what are we doing about the existing stock? I think that is part of your question. There is the issue about how we can reach back on building defects. I think there is a slight flaw in that.

There is a welcome extension to the timeframes on this, but the slight flaw is that it is to the date when the building was complete. We have already seen buildings for which even the 15 years proposed now would have elapsed. If it has not elapsed there certainly is not time between it coming in and the point in which it elapses for the legal action to kick in and take place. There needs to be something about whether it is from when the defect has occurred. The defect, if not picked up during the building stage, would then be beyond the vision and scope of the fire service as a regulator. The fire service does not dismantle buildings to understand what was not done properly through the building control process and construction processes. We need to get stronger on that issue as well. Those are the elements we can do more on in terms of reaching back.

There is an issue as well with buildings and planning. Some buildings will already have attained planning permission under the broken system, and they will be allowed to be built going forward, adding to the pile of issues we are trying to address now. Where is the hard stop on those buildings? They need to be reapplied for to make sure the standards are fit for purpose today. That is another important element we would like to see change to make sure we do not add to where we are.

Sir Ken Knight: Can I just add to that? I think that is why one of the important inherent, underpinning foundations of the Bill is that it enables legislation. It is such a large Bill and requires secondary legislation. I am sure there will be some who will sit here and suggest that it is not detailed enough. I do not hold that view; I think, by being enabling, it allows flexibility in the future for additions and to change some of those issues. It allows for the Building Safety Regulator to look at new methods of construction of buildings and make recommendations to the Secretary of State. That is probably where we came from. The Act it replaces is the Building Act 1984—some 37 years ago. That fixing in time of something that needs to be so dynamic according to risk and change enables this Bill to be that opportunity for the next generation.

[The Chair]

We have got just under 15 minutes, and there are three more questions to go through. Keep that in mind, if you could.

--- Later in debate ---

[Siobhan Baillie]

Q I should have asked this question before, so I apologise. This is a pretty basic question, but we have gone straight into quite a lot of technical points. Since Grenfell there is understandably a lot of fear about high-rise buildings. How safe would you say a high-rise building is and what is the risk to life of a high-rise fire? I am interested in your expert opinions.

Dan Daly: It is very difficult in the context of Grenfell because that is obviously where people’s minds are focused, but in my professional experience you are generally at no greater risk in a high-rise building than you are elsewhere, and the figures bear that out. We see a number of deaths. My experience is in London and if you think about London, we see the commonality of people dying in fires is not where they live, but the circumstances of them, the vulnerabilities and the care they may be subject to, or the lack of care in some instances. That is what drives those deaths.

None the less, it is recognised that people will feel nervous in those homes. There is more that we can do and this regime helps with that. The work of fire and rescue services goes beyond response; we do much more than that. It is also about prevention and protection. The protection element is about looking at the buildings, and the prevention is about the advice we can bring to people in their own homes, and it all contributes to reducing that fire risk.

There is something here that people will recognise, which is that there is limited capability for fighting fires at height. We know that and have experienced that. That in itself will not help with public confidence, but the stats of the matter—this is an emotional argument, so stats are not always the best place to find ourselves—do not support the view that you are at any higher risk. However, we must address the fact that people have and should have the right to feel safe in their own homes. We are spending time on that, and I said I think it is the right place to focus the regime for now to build that confidence, but we must have the ability to extend the scope and make people safe wherever they live.

Sir Ken Knight: In the context of high-rise buildings, the differences are that it can be more dependent on the other measures in place to ensure that compartmentation is intact, such as fire doors, having self-closers fitted, ensuring that smoke ventilations are working—all of which, as we have heard in another place of inquiry, was woefully lacking. I think it is more dependent on that.

What is key is something Judith Hackitt picked up in this Bill: the residents’ voice as well as the residents’ responsibility. That is absolutely key to this as well. They need to be assured that they have the key information, but they also have to understand that they have a key responsibility to ensure that they and the others in the same building are safe as well. I think that combination makes high-rise different from a two-bedroom cottage somewhere, because it is more dependent on others and the compartmentation is more key. That is why I support starting at 18 metres in the Bill—starting at 18 metres for buildings in scope. That is the place to start, from our experience over the last few years.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Q On that very point, I absolutely agree with Sir Ken. The six tower blocks beside the elevated section of the M4 in my constituency, Brentford Towers, were built roughly 50 years ago. In the 35 or so years I have been in and around Brentford as a councillor and an MP, I am aware of at least one fatal fire in a flat, which destroyed that flat, but the evidence that I saw afterwards showed that the fire did not spread, beyond some smoke damage in the hallway of the four flats on that floor—it did not spread elsewhere, because of the compartmentation and the way they were designed to deal with fire, in a way that was messed up with Grenfell.

In terms of new build, building professionals have told me that in this country we have moved from designing and building for fire safety, as Brentford Towers were built, towards concerns about thermal insulation and energy saving, so have started to lose the focus on fire, whereas in other countries the two have gone together. Do the witnesses agree with that? If so, do they feel that the Bill addresses that challenge?

Sir Ken Knight: I have also heard it said—I have no evidence that it is correct—that the two sometimes seem to be movable objects in ensuring sufficient insulation, and indeed in making the homes and lives of residents much better and much less expensive because of heat loss and energy, and in meeting the very important net zero agendas as well. I think the Bill does address that. It makes it very clear that there are hard stops at each of those gateways that are put in place in the Bill, which the developer cannot pass until they have satisfied the Building Safety Regulator that they have met the fire safety requirements and the fire safety case. That has not ever been the case before. You could have a design and build that would move on and move on in process, and move beyond that gateway before being checked by the appropriate enforcing authority. I think the Bill has gone a long way towards addressing that very point—that fire and structural safety are not left as a second cousin.

Dan Daly: Absolutely. There is the ongoing role of the approved documents that sit behind the building regulations. That is an important part of what will support the endeavour of the Bill. We need to keep working on those. They have fallen woefully out of date with modern methods of construction. That is something that needs to be reviewed with the Building Safety Regulator going forward, and challenged to make sure that the appropriate documents are kept up to the date.

There is something about the competency of individuals as well, in reading those approved documents in tandem. There are documents that talk about how a building is structurally sound and how it is fire-safety sound, before it starts to talk about the thermal performance of the building, but the two should be read in conjunction. What we have seen is people not necessarily with the right competence adopting convenient interpretations of those documents rather than following what the documents are trying to say. That again points back to the competency issue and the oversight by the regulator, and hopefully the oversight of the gateway processes, to prevent those things happening again.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Q The Bill covers modern materials but says less about modern methods of construction. Some building faults over the years have been the interaction between different elements of the building, such as corroding metal parts or condensation and so on. Do you think the Bill goes far enough to address modern forms of construction, as well as modern materials?

[The Chair]

Just before you answer, I will point out that we have two minutes and then I will have to bring this to a close.

Dan Daly: That points back to the competency issue. We have the products stuff that will hopefully be regulated and perform better—people will know that what they are getting will do the job it says on the tin—and then the individuals who are employed to make the determination about what products are used on a building in certain circumstances having the right competency to interpret the building regulations and the approved documents to make sure they are using the right things in the right places.

Sir Ken Knight: The Bill, of course, includes the provision for a new construction products regulator, dealing with the products, which is really important in modern methods of construction. You are absolutely correct that modern methods of construction are important. Of course, modern methods of construction bring with them a precision in construction by pre-forming and pre-making, so modern methods have some advantage. We need to ensure that they have in-built fire safety elements when they are constructed and finished as buildings.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Thank you very much. I call Ruth Cadbury to start our questioning.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Q Thank you. This question is for both witnesses. Do you feel that the Building Safety Bill will significantly improve the building safety regime in this country, and make residents of existing and future residential and other buildings feel safe?

Graham Watts: The Bill is very welcome. It is a step forward from the draft Bill that we saw last year. The clarification on scope has been very welcome, for example, but it is important to say that the Bill, or the Act in due course, will not be a panacea to ensure building safety. That is a really important point. The Bill is needed to support the paradigm shift that is needed in the culture change of the construction industry, and only that shift in the construction industry will ensure that we have safer buildings.

Adrian Dobson: I basically agree. It is important to say that it is just a piece in the jigsaw puzzle. It is very welcome that there will be a new regime for building regulations, and that the HSE will be placed with oversight of it. Basing it on the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, which have worked quite well in terms of looking after the safety of the people who construct buildings, is quite sensible. Without wishing to repeat what you have heard from previous witnesses, there are other pieces in the jigsaw. Inevitably, the industry relies on guidance. I think you have heard previously that the approved documents still need major review. Obviously there has been discussion about the buildings that are within the scope. You can imagine that other types of buildings may, in due course, need to come within scope, but it is sensible to start with what we know is at particularly high risk of catastrophic failure.

[The Chair]

Before I bring Rachel in, I think the Minister has a supplementary question.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

Q Obviously, the success of any legislation depends on how it is enforced once it is implemented. I am keen to understand from your perspective, how far in any enforcement regime is it about industry buy-in and co-operation? How far should the Government go in terms of really strict, hard enforcement regulation to ensure that it is not simply a case of the industry having to do it, but that there is actually buy-in from the industry to do it and to respect the regulations?

Graham Watts: Both of those things are equally vital. I think the industry welcomed the decision to place the Building Safety Regulator within the HSE, because it is a well-respected agency and people take notice of its interventions. We understand that the regulator is likely to have somewhere in the region of 750 staff. It is not going to be an insubstantial body, and I am sure it will take effective enforcement action, but it needs buy-in from the industry. That comes back to my earlier point about a culture change within the industry, and not just in terms of the scope of the legislation—it must go beyond that. As people have said, the twin-track approach to regulations could be confusing and complex. We understand why there needs to be a limitation on the scope to begin with; otherwise, the system will not cope and will collapse. But there will be confusing areas at the margins, and it is essential that the industry adopts the same approach to its work on buildings that are not in scope and on buildings that are in scope. We cannot have a twin-track approach as far as safety is concerned.

Adrian Dobson: In fairness to the Government, it is difficult for the Government to regulate the competence and behaviours of the industry. Without the industry acting as a willing partner, it is virtually impossible, and the Bill tries very hard in that area. A more contentious issue is to what degree you have an element of prescription in what is done. We have had an element of prescription, and it was probably agreed that that was necessary because we had a stock of buildings that there were serious doubts about. I know that the Mayor of London has introduced an element that has been quite controversial, but I suspect that working out where the balance is will be quite difficult. When it comes to fundamental elements of fire and structural safety, I wonder whether you will inevitably end up with some firmer guidance. It might become prescriptive regulation or just clearer guidance on the basics of means of escape, compartmentation, alarms and sprinklers. Those are the fairly basic safety systems that buildings rely on.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Q Graham Watts, you just said that you think the HSE is the right place to place the building safety inspector. Do you feel that the HSE has the right expertise and sufficient resources to do that, taking into account the additional resources that I believe the Government have committed for it?

Graham Watts: I guess it is an unfair question for now, because the regulator does not exist yet. But I have been impressed by the way in which the HSE has set up interim arrangements. For example, the interim industry competence committee—there is a committee on industry competence on the face of the Bill—has already been set up, and I am already liaising with the chair of that committee to make sure that there is an appropriate transition from the work that we have been doing within the industry for the last four years, to the work that will be eventually housed within the regulator.

Clearly, the staff at the HSE are experts on health and safety, so Peter Baker has to build up his team. He is a long way from being able to do that at the moment, but I am hopeful that the same principles and protocols that have driven the HSE—certainly its ability to consult the industry through bodies such as the Construction Industry Advisory Committee, which has been significant—will be carried over into the new regulator when the legislation is enacted.

Adrian Dobson: At a very basic level, the fact that it will be within the HSE sends a useful signal, because it says that at the heart of the building regulatory process is the safety and welfare of people. It is a simplistic thing, but it is quite an important signal. It has probably been given to the HSE because of the relative success of the CDM regulations. I do not think anybody in the industry thinks the CDM regulations have been perfect, and it has taken quite a lot of iterations to get them to where they are today. There are some weaknesses, particularly in the handover of information at the end of the project. That will also be so important for the safety of buildings under the new Fire Safety Act. But I think HSE has a good track record, which is possibly what is giving people confidence about it.

[The Chair]

Q If there are no further questions from Members, is there anything that we have not covered in our questioning and that you would like to add at this point?

Graham Watts: There are a couple of concerns that I wanted to get across, and I think Adrian certainly shares one of them. The first one is a worry about the unintended consequences of the Act, if they are not carefully thought through. I do have a real worry about the insurability of some of these roles. Adrian has already referred to the narrowing and hardening of the insurance market for anything to do with fire safety and cladding. That is significant. A lot of companies are pulling out of that work altogether, because either they cannot get the insurance or the insurance is too cost-prohibitive. There is an onerous set of requirements on the building safety manager, for example, that I think will make it potentially uninsurable.

There are things that can be done to help that. Clause 91 on residents’ engagement strategy qualifies the requirements by saying so far as “reasonably practicable”. I think we need that kind of codicil to the requirements on some of the roles within the Act; otherwise, they are going to be uninsurable. I was responsible for setting up the designated body for registering approved inspectors after the Building Act 1984, and that legislation was not implemented until 1997. It took 13 years for us to get over the problems—the unintended consequences of the Act—that meant it could not be implemented. One of those problems was the inability to get insurance for approved inspectors. I think that is a warning signal that needs to be taken care of.

Secondly, there is a need for independent scrutiny of construction work. Adrian and I both believe very strongly in that. It came over as a recommendation from the Chartered Institute of Building and others in the working groups within the Competence Steering Group. We have lost that. If we go back in time, it was traditional to have clerks of works independently scrutinising the work on site. It was traditional for architects and engineers to go on site and supervise to ensure that their design work was being correctly implemented. We have lost most of that—they are rarities now—and I think that the requirement to have that independent assessment of construction work is essential. Whether it could be on the face of the Bill is, I understand, a moot point, but it is something that we need to develop, and we do need Government support—particularly as a client, actually—to help ensure that that happens, because it is one way to make sure that the design intentions are properly constructed, and that we get the quality that was always intended.