Homes and Planning Bill
Sarah Gibson Excerpts(2 days, 4 hours ago)
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Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)
It is important to remember that the last time this country consistently built the number of houses that we, across the House, agree we need was the 1960s, when councils were building houses. If the new Labour Government, who have had two and a half years to get this right, are still going to blame the Liberal Democrats’ small part in a coalition, in a fairly powerless time, some 10 years ago, then they really need to look forward and concentrate on what they can deliver.
Matthew Pennycook
Does the hon. Lady recognise that, last year, this Labour Government delivered the highest number of council homes since records began in 1991-92?
Sarah Gibson
I do recognise that, but we are still nowhere near the levels we were at when councils were actually building. That is important, because for too long—even under this Labour Government—we have assumed that the answer to the housing crisis is more planning permissions, in the hope that the market will deliver, when we know that it will not.
That is why I welcome the Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George). It recognises something that we have forgotten in housing policy: land, planning and delivery cannot be separated from one another. As the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Michelle Scrogham) mentioned, we can have planning applications, but delivery is a different issue. As an architect, I have spent most of my adult life trying to deliver buildings and actually get things built on the ground. One of the problems that I repeatedly see is land passing from one developer to another while the planning application process takes so long. With each of those transactions, the price increase on the land and the hope value built into the assumption that planning permission will ultimately be granted mean that, by the time planning permission is secured, the price paid for the land and the expectations on that future development have created so much pressure that almost everything else gets squeezed.
Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)
The hon. Member is making a good case for development corporations. Does she agree that spatial development strategies—there was an announcement on them yesterday, I think—are a good step forward in doing the strategic planning that she is asking for, and that I think we all agree is needed?
Sarah Gibson
Absolutely. I recognise that this Government are working towards that, which is why I feel very strongly that the Bill is adding to the work that the Government are doing, not detracting from it.
Over the years, we have seen the squeezing of affordable housing. It is what gets removed every time there is an economic crisis or an economic case for its removal—the social housing, the infrastructure and the quality of the housing itself. I particularly welcome the compulsory purchase provisions in the Bill, as they deal with the issues of affordability for housing associations and local government being able to actually provide this housing. Authorities need to be able to secure the land at a value that makes these homes deliverable, rather than allowing the inflated expectations of future development value to consume the viability of the scheme before a single home is built.
We also need to look again at who actually builds the homes. I speak regularly to the social housing providers in my area, and one problem in relying on developers to construct the affordable element of a large scheme, and then asking the housing association to acquire it, is that those homes have not necessarily been built with what the provider needs. The homes may be the wrong type of house or built to the wrong specification, and increasingly they may leave the provider with the additional costs of bringing them up to the standards the provider will shortly be required to meet.
By 2030, social landlords will need to meet new minimum energy-efficiency standards, and providers are therefore being asked to retrofit thousands of their existing homes while simultaneously finding the money to build new homes designed and built by somebody else.
Amanda Martin
Is the hon. Lady saying that people who live in social housing should not have those elements in their houses, whether they are retrofit or new build? Yes, those things are expensive, but we should absolutely ensure that everybody has a warm home to live in.
Sarah Gibson
As an advocate of the warm homes plan and as an architect trying to ensure this, I absolutely agree that everybody deserves a warm, safe and comfortable home. What the hon. Lady suggests is completely the reverse of what I am saying. I am saying that if the developer provides social housing that lacks those things, it is therefore the social housing provider that has to retrofit the housing to ensure that it is delivering on the promise of the 2030 agreement. It is a real problem that local developers are still putting in gas boilers and the social housing provider is having to retrofit the homes with alternative forms of heating. I agree with the hon. Lady that we need to ensure that our social housing is fit for the future, but getting the developer to build it on behalf of the social housing provider is probably not the best way of doing it.
If we can give social housing providers the capital to commission the homes that their communities actually need, we would also be able to diversify who delivers housing. We need the councils, housing associations, community land trusts, small builders and private developers all to play their part, rather than depending so heavily on a small number of large developers and a single model of delivery.
That is why I also welcome the provisions in the Bill that strengthen the role of community land trusts, parish and town councils and neighbourhood planning. People are much more likely to support development when it is community led: the homes are genuinely affordable; local families can access them; and, as the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) mentioned earlier, when much-needed infrastructure comes with the homes, the development can enhance the existing towns and villages, rather than just being a bolt-on to the side, adding to the pressures of existing services.
Good placemaking is not a barrier to growth; it is one of the foundations of sustainable growth. This Bill begins to reconnect land planning and community delivery. I really hope that even if the Government cannot support the Bill in its current state, they will continue to work with my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives. I congratulate him on bringing this Bill before the House.
Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc) Bill (First sitting)
Sarah Gibson ExcerptsThursday 12th November 2026
(3 days, 4 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc) Bill 2026-27 View all Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc) Bill 2026-27 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 12 November 2026 - (12 Nov 2026)
Florence Eshalomi
Q
Lord Roe: I am conscious of time, but it comes in all shapes and forms. It could be reluctance to devote the money required to an expensive specialist contracting model to get the work done, so you can hold things up at contract. It could be putting forward really poor, under-resourced design proposals. There are multiple different ways you can hold this process up. To be fair, lots of things make operating in this landscape complicated and hard. Perhaps I will come back to that as a principal answer: this is a good tool. It will not solve remediation, but that is not what it is intended for. A lot of stuff on the delivery side has to be improved, whether it is inside the regulator or the other agencies or out in industry. That will probably give us the greatest gain, but this is a very useful tool where people are not complying.
With the greatest respect, I hope the witnesses this afternoon bring up-to-date evidence. We have gone from a 30% approval rate and a median determination time on approvals into the gateway 2 system of over a year, which was completely unacceptable. Charlie and I were charged with trying to shift that. We publish data transparently every single month. We are now at a 92% rolling approval rate. We got the median determination time down to something in the region of 20 weeks, and we will reduce it further. I personally am not experiencing huge levels of non-compliance, to be fair to the industry. They have worked hard to improve the standard of applications and move things on, but this is a very difficult space to operate in—and where there are bad actors, this will be a good tool.
Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)
Q
Mark Norris: Like the building safety regulator, the LGA welcomes the Bill. It is another tool in the toolbox. As MHCLG’s statistics already show, local authorities are out there doing enforcement now and have been for a number of years. Some 940 buildings are being inspected by councils under the Housing Act to take enforcement actions against some of the bad actors that Lord Roe referred to, supported by the Joint Inspection Team, which the Department funds the LGA to support. They have completed over 200 inspections so far.
The issue for us, which Lord Roe touched on, is capacity and resources to do that. Environmental health officers are in short supply—there is not a ready tree on which they grow to recruit them from. In terms of being able to do additional work, we already know that environmental health officers have a range of additional responsibilities. Recent legislation, including the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 and the social housing Act from 2023, includes a range of additional duties on local housing authorities within the housing space. Resourcing capacity in environmental health will be needed going forward to support councils in being able to do that work. We are fully up for the task, but need the resources and capacity to do that alongside everything else we are being asked to do, as you pointed out.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Mark Norris: I think they will notice a material improvement from this legislation. The experience of the Joint Inspection Team is that you might know what is wrong with the building and what needs to be fixed, but progressing things through first-tier tribunals to get the ruling that that is what the building owner or responsible entity needs to do takes time. Giving us something that places a duty on responsible entities to fix the building—that says very categorically, “This is what you have to do”—will help to speed that process up. But you are right: councils will need resources and capacity in addition to that to help them make the most of the legislation and the tools available in it.
Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)
Q
Lord Roe: Those are two different things. I would not want to confuse necessary operational improvement with legislation to deal with bad actors. What you are talking about there is our responsibility to appropriately take a decision on what is sometimes a very complex situation, with thousands of pages to each application, while also operating in the context of a national lack of suitably skilled people to do facade engineering—also a particular point of risk. All I can do is point to the evidence, which shows that there was an unacceptable situation a year and a half ago when we came in: if you were one of those residents and had an application submitted into our system, you could wait up to a year or more. That was not okay and I have apologised for it repeatedly in other Committees.
We were charged to turn that around. I would argue—I have got to say this in defence of the team responsible—that we have done that, because we are now at 92% approval and with 20-week determination times. That will come down further, although maybe not by a lot—this is not about poor bureaucracy or a lack of emails or care anymore; it is about the engineering complexity of getting a building safe that has been built really badly.
The message to your constituents is first that we are super-available. Charlie and I get hundreds of emails into the inbox every week from people who often have rightful challenge—or sometimes do not. They will get a reply and response and, where necessary, we will unpick individual cases from the top of the BSR hierarchy down.
The point is that we can evidence the operational improvement. It is real and it is there in the figures. It is also there in the experience of both industry and many residents. We meet with all the campaigning groups almost weekly to gather intelligence, try and pick off poor actors and recognise where we are doing wrong and where there needs to be improvement in the system. I know, though, that is not going to be a comfort to people who are still trapped inside those blocks and who are under tremendous pressure. All I can tell them—I am sure many of them will be watching—is that we will be doing everything in our power to improve our system and force recalcitrant actors to do better. However, it is a complex problem that has been three decades-plus in the making.
Charlie Pugsley: One thing in the Bill is a duty to bring forward the assessment; that is something that we found in our remediation enforcement unit and have chased up. We work closely with Homes England and other partners. If that duty helps drive that forward, one part of the bigger puzzle will have been progressed and can help. But as Lord Roe says, there is no silver bullet; this is about a collective endeavour.
James Asser
Yes. I am sorry; I should have done that beforehand. My partner works for the London Fire Brigade in fire safety issues.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Penny Pender: That is a really good question. It depends on what you want to be achieved through the Bill. From the point of view of controlling the risk of fire spread on external walls—that fire safety point of view—we are satisfied that the PAS does what it needs to do. Obviously, it does not deal with how the building should have been constructed to begin with or those wider issues, so if that is something that people are looking for it to resolve, they will remain frustrated. Even though we are happy that it would deal with those critical life-safety issues, you are right to highlight that some of the wider issues, such as insurance, would not be addressed through that means.
Spencer Sutcliff: We think that PAS 9980 is an appropriate assessment, and we would not want, necessarily, to bring in further methodologies that could confuse the arrangement or provide further inconsistencies. It goes back to the root cause, which the previous panel touched on a number of times: the competency of the assessor. When you are using an assessment that always has an element of subjectivity, you are entirely reliant on the competence of the assessor, and we have seen various examples of different assessors coming to different conclusions using that assessment. There is some ongoing concern.
We really welcome and would like to see more of the auditing arrangements for Homes England. Certainly in the initial stages, I would like to see Homes England audit those premises that have been deemed “tolerable” and not just look at the ones that are effectively failing the assessment, because there needs to be confidence that those assessments are done in a consistent manner. We are back, a little bit, to the root cause around who is doing the assessments in the first place.
Penny Pender: If I might build on that, as Spencer says, no matter what methodology you select, if the people using that methodology do not have the right competencies to begin with, you will come across those issues. For the time being, we need that methodology. It is what we have available to us, so changing it at this point might not be helpful. I am aware that the PAS has been updated recently to make it clear that you have to have regard to and think about the wider risks in the building, so it should ultimately lead to those risks being identified. It is just a challenge for people, when they do identify them, how to address them.
Spencer Sutcliff: There is extensive work ongoing around the regulation of those assessors, and we have standards in place. We do not yet have formal regulation of who is permitted to carry out those assessments; that is a work in progress, and we really encourage that the pace of that work is maintained and that it is brought in as soon as possible.
Fleur Anderson
Q
Do you think that the Bill’s co-operation framework will help? The LFB, the borough council, the local management committee and the developer are all involved in conversations, but who can the residents go to for that independent assessment to be assured that the building is safe? Is there anything more that can be done in the Bill to help in that situation?
Spencer Sutcliff: I think the Bill provides a sufficient framework for the work to be done to clarify the exact position around the responsibilities of each of the enforcing entities. It is not unusual at all for the London Fire Brigade to have protocols and memorandums of understanding with different enforcing authorities. For example, we have a long-standing MOU in London with the local authority around houses in multiple occupation, because we both have enforcement powers under the fire safety order and the Housing Act. It is right and proper that we distinguish the type of building, the type of occupancy and who is the lead enforcing authority. To act at the same time is not good practice; it creates inconsistency and would not be correct.
I think the framework proposed in the Bill is sufficient. We have already drafted an enforcement protocol with the Bill in mind, so the timescale proposed in the Bill to set out that framework is suitable and can be met.
Florence Eshalomi
Q
Kate Green: This is a helpful provision; it potentially gives regulators a timelier and more proportionate enforcement option, but we would not want that to arrive at a situation where commercial developers, who often have very deep pockets, considered that a financial penalty was an acceptable cost of delay and that they could afford to hold back, address other priorities that they might have and just pay the price of that. We really do see those penalties as a backstop to other effective enforcement action.
We would also draw attention to the need for the capacity to use that civil route to secure compliance. There will need to be investigation, evidence gathering, decision making and dealing with appeals, and all that will require sustainable long-term funding in to the system. A civil route is certainly welcome. However, our other concern is about buildings subject to the developer contract, where using a contractual route rather than a statutory basis to ensure compliance puts more hurdles, if you like, in the way of residents seeking to have their buildings remediated.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Kate Green: Yes. Unfortunately, I did not hear Ms Fisher’s evidence this morning, but I do share those concerns. There will be an audit process, but that will be a dip sample, in a way; there will not be capacity for Homes England to audit every fire risk assessment that is undertaken. We will need to know that we have a robust audit process and that Homes England has the resources to carry that out.
We also need to be clear that where fire risks are deemed tolerable, there is an appropriate response from the insurance industry, which recognises that they must have full regard to that audit process based on the PAS 9980 framework that you referred to, and that, if fire risks are deemed tolerable, residents should not be penalised by higher insurance premiums, because effectively the insurance now has that assurance that the building can be insured cost-effectively.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Kate Green: I share that concern. The Government will need to ensure that the fire risk assessments and the decisions of fire risk assessors are robust and consistent. Otherwise, there are avenues open for people to game the system or to obtain an assessment that is more favourable to their own interests.
There is a risk there, and I hope that in the course of the passage of the Bill the Government will think about how they can ensure that that fire risk assessment PAS 9980 framework is fully robust and can give full assurance to residents.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)
Q
Kate Green: I think that the mayoral combined authority has had and can continue to have a role in helping to speed up the process. In Greater Manchester, shortly after the appalling fire in Grenfell Tower in 2017, the then mayor established a high-rise taskforce, chaired by Paul Dennett, the Salford city council mayor. Paul now chairs a high-rise oversight group where we are able to convene local authorities and the Greater Manchester fire and rescue service. Homes England attends, as do the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, housing providers, developers and residents. They can all be convened around one remediation programme.
Of course you will know, as members of the Committee, that we and other mayoral combined authorities published our local remediation acceleration plans in recent months. Those plans are the articulation of the whole-system approach that I think mayors and mayoral combined authorities can help to put in place. We have been able to use our plan to do a number of things, including, obviously, to understand more clearly what buildings are affected in Greater Manchester and what the nature of the risk is in each of those buildings. We have been able to be close to and very fully engaged with our residents, and to ensure that a residents-first focus sits at the heart of the work that we are doing in Greater Manchester and the work that we want to see nationally.
We have been able to bring the social housing partners to the table, which has been exceptionally useful in considering how we get social properties remediated and how we can work with our social housing providers in Greater Manchester to do that as swiftly and as effectively as possible. We can escalate matters when they become stalled. We have also been able to lobby Government; I think it has been helpful that Greater Manchester has been able to present a concerted voice to successive Governments for funding and for action—now resulting in this legislation.
There is a lot more that we hope to do with our local remediation acceleration plan in the coming months and years, and at the heart of that will be resident engagement. Our residents continue to live with a very significant impact on their mental health and their financial position, and in many cases with continuing uncertainty about when their buildings will be fully remediated. I see the work that we are able to do as a mayoral combined authority, maintaining the spotlight on the lived experience of our residents and reflecting that back both into the action that we can take and into the action that we ask national Government to take, as being crucial.
The final thing I will say, given that I have the very specific role of oversight of the fire and rescue service, is that in Greater Manchester we have been able to prioritise having the right capacity in the Greater Manchester fire and rescue service to support the regulatory regime—the inspection and enforcement programmes that are required. That work, and the oversight of the implementation of all the recommendations that came out of the two Grenfell Tower inquiry reports, is being taken forward. We can oversee all that through a series of governance structures that are led by our chief fire officer. One of the things that mayoral combined authorities are in a very useful position to do is to draw all those different players in a geography together.
Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc) Bill (Second sitting)
Sarah Gibson ExcerptsThursday 12th November 2026
(3 days, 4 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc) Bill 2026-27 View all Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc) Bill 2026-27 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 12 November 2026 - (12 Nov 2026)
Florence Eshalomi
Q
Kate Henderson: Equal access to remediation funding, brought in last year at the spending review, is hugely welcome. It has made a big difference to our ability to deliver remediation at pace and to invest in existing homes and development. Previously, our members—housing associations—and councils had to self-fund remediation, which diverted resources away from new homes and refurbishment. Some of our members even had to sell buildings to pay for remediation work. Members are now actively applying to the cladding safety scheme and receiving funding. We are expecting starts and completions of remediation by our members to begin to increase as we get the approvals. Homes England will be able to provide more data on that.
Funding from the cladding safety scheme also funds things such as project management, which is really important to deliver remediation faster. It frees capacity within our member organisations to build new affordable homes and improve existing ones. I should say that the funding only covers external wall defects; members are still facing significant costs for internal walls, including compartmentation and fire doors. We very much welcome the cladding safety scheme funding for high-risk buildings, and new funding has become available for buildings under 11 metres that are also deemed high-risk. That opened earlier this year, and we understand that that fund for buildings under 11 metres is massively oversubscribed. It would be really useful to have the data from those applications to understand the scale of works required in high-risk buildings under 11 metres.
In the sector more broadly, there are lots of other significant changes happening. We absolutely support Awaab’s law and welcome the clarity in the decent homes standard, but recognise that those measures all add cost. Remediation funding that we have access to very much helps to meet those competing demands and makes them more manageable, but the overall financial picture remains complex and has its challenges.
Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)
Q
Jaclyn Mangaroo: That is a really good question. In some cases, it may be. We have seen it most often with the pledged developers where they are using a contractor that may be part of the organisation, and so are marking their own homework. For a responsible entity where it is an enfranchised building, or where an RMC or an RTMC has the opportunity, they have really no incentive to say that their building is safe when it is not. They have very little incentive to do that. They really want to go much further.
The regulation of the profession will certainly help to improve competency, and hopefully it will speed up the process and reduce delays, as long as that auditing of the fire risk assessments can be done quickly through Homes England. We are all about making sure that there are fewer delays, that stalled buildings can get started and that residents have peace of mind. There is no deadline. There is no set date for when buildings will be finished, so making sure that we get peace of mind, confidence and protection of residents into this Bill will be so important. That is how we have approached our written evidence to the Committee: does it speed things up, does it provide clearer accountability and will it actually give residents peace of mind and create safer buildings?
Sarah Gibson
Q
Jaclyn Mangaroo: I do not know of any particular cases of that. It is more when there is a pledged developer involved. I cannot comment specifically on any other cases.
Kate Henderson: From our members’ perspective, we have already been working really hard to deliver the duties that will become part of the Bill: for example, assessing buildings, mitigating risk, applying for funding and carrying out remediation works. We welcome the introduction of the remediation compliance plans as a way of demonstrating transparency and accountability to enforcing bodies, but also of demonstrating accountability to residents. Having clear plans and timelines will help ensure that expectations are managed, that any delays are addressed quickly, that enforcement action can be taken against bad actors and, in exceptional circumstances, that the backstop can be used to secure a route to remediation.
We welcome standardisation of the fire risk assessments of external walls methodology and the intention that every building be assessed and remediated to the same standard. As I have mentioned, the PAS 9980 methodology has already been used to access funding to the cladding safety scheme. I have also mentioned that we have mixed experience of assessors using PAS 9980 and that it can be subjective. Having a national audit system run by Homes England with a feedback loop will be really welcomed by the sector. I should also say that alongside auditing, as you have mentioned, having regulation of the competence of risk assessors as part of the introduction of a single construction regulator will help to ensure that recommendations are consistent and of good quality. That will provide assurance and transparency to all involved, particularly residents.
Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)
Q
Kate Henderson: There is nothing more important than residents’ safety, and I can assure you that our members have safety as their utmost priority and responsibility. We are already delivering a huge number of aspects of remediation work that will be covered by and become statutory duties in the Bill, and we welcome that. This legislation is only one piece of the response to the tragedy at Grenfell Tower. There are other pieces of legislation, but in addition to that, a huge part of this work is around culture. It is around learning, accountability and the relationship between residents and their landlords.
As part of that, in a couple of weeks’ time we will be launching a suite of tools for our members—a Grenfell Tower reflection toolkit. This is about learning lessons from the inquiry. It is a suite of resources for board members, executives, operational levels, large organisations and small organisations, making sure that this is not just about physically replacing cladding, but about listening and acting on the information being provided by residents, having appropriate assurances in place, and making it culturally at the heart of who we are as organisations.
On whether we have the capacity to deliver these new requirements, we are already doing a lot of it, but the capacity of the overall system is not us alone. We rely on expertise, fire risk assessors, contractors and the capacity of the Building Safety Regulator. A lot of work is happening on all those fronts, but everybody is going to have to work harder. We are going to need a lot more people and a lot more expertise. We are really pleased to see the leadership of the Building Safety Regulator drive forward the pace of assessments to gateway 2. We are seeing improvements there. That needs to continue, and we are committed to working with all involved, including Government and particularly residents.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Giles Grover: A lot of this is about control. On that point about building owners, yes, there is obviously going to be a conflict of interest. We have seen that. If you step back, we have had a shifting position from the consolidated advice note. It essentially says, “Remove and replace everything”, which again was probably going to be impossible. We need to get towards a proportionate approach, as they call it. Some people want proportionality, because they want to be able to move on with their lives. Other people are very worried about their permanently high insurance and so on carrying on.
A lot of this is about the operationalisation of the PAS and the tolerability. It is that control. It is about making sure that, if you have a risk assessment that comes to certain conclusions, even the Government’s own advice about understanding quality on the FRU says, “You need to make sure that conclusions are based on evidence”. There are so many assumptions: “Is that continuous? It’s probably not continuous behind the scenes. Let’s not worry about it.”
The Building Safety Act put leaseholders at the back of the queue, but a lot of what it did, unfortunately, opened the way for freeholders, developers and everyone to start gaming the system, blaming each other and saying, “Okay, it is a relevant defect; it is not a life-critical fire safety defect. It might be wear and tear actually”, which means we have to pay for it. There is too much buck-passing and shifting around, so yes, that is an issue, but again, it goes back to the fact that the way that the use of the PAS and the FRUs have been operationalised without the assurance, particularly the developers and contractors. That is a major concern of ours. I could go on, but I probably do not have time.
Sophie Bichener: Building owners over the past 10 years and before have shown that they are not willing to do the right thing and make sure that they appoint the right people to get to a decision on these homes. They have had plenty of time and opportunity to do that, and in many cases they have not. Many buildings are owned by pension funds, for example, which bought them as a sustainable investment, and they have a duty to their pensioners to keep costs low. I think they probably want to make the buildings good and sell them on at a profit if they can, so there is a real financial interest to narrow the scope of the works and get it done as quickly as possible.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Giles Grover: We have been saying this since before it was even introduced: it is all about what “tolerable” means. Again, I understand that we need something about proportionality, but so many different fire engineers will have so many different opinions and views. If something is deemed tolerable, whether it is a building that requires works or does not require works, there must be assurance and proper audits to ensure that the conclusion is based on tests and evidence.
If I am being honest, we have been through 20 or 30 years of just a lot of rubbish being built. Now everyone is saying, “Residents, leaseholders and shared owners are at the heart of this”, but they are still doing all they can to avoid liability, including financial liability. We are the ones trying to battle for answers, and we are sadly just going around and around in circles.
Sarah Coombes (West Bromwich) (Lab)
Q
One of the things that residents often call for is greater certainty about what is happening to their buildings and when, particularly what remediation work will be done and over what timeframe. What value is there in requiring those responsible to set out the steps they will take and, critically, the timetable for remediation? What are your thoughts on that element?
Giles Grover: Every single leaseholder and resident needs to understand what is going on in their building and how long it is going to take, but they also need an independent route to raise concerns. The system has been designed in such a way that, even with the developer contract and the cladding safety scheme—which is doing sterling work, but in a very constrained system—a lot of it still relies upon us having to go to the managing agent or a freeholder for answers.
I have one person in a building who went to the RMC, which said, “Go to the developer”; but the developer said, “Go to the building safety regulator”, and the building safety regulator said, “Go to MHCLG.” They had to fill out a correspondence web forms, but they got a stock answer that said, “Go back to your freeholder.” Yes, people need to be put at the centre of it.
There is the ability to include dates and timescales, but they actually need to be monitored, overseen and enforced, with consequences and penalties at the end of it. That way, it is not just a case of saying, “Oh, it’s the BSR and the regulatory capacities; okay, fair enough. Oh, they’ve had to do more FRUs.” The problem is that the system still allows too much to rely on those self-interested actors making those decisions. They will all tell us that safety is at the heart—but we are actually watching their actions, not their words, and they still are just not good enough.
Sophie Bichener: It is really hard to force people to communicate correctly with leaseholders. A lot of the time, freeholders are saying, “We are communicating”, but for the leaseholders, the communication says, “We’re trying really hard to fix this at pace.” Our members never have a clear picture of whether that means next week or in five years’ time. I have actually never really seen any comms about my building that give me any timeline or confidence that anything is happening.
I think it would be really hard to mandate communication that involves leaseholders, but it absolutely has to happen in order to give leaseholders any confidence that their homes will be safe and that, if they want to try to move on, move out or sell, they can get information on when the timelines for making their building safe will fall into place, and they can then feel a bit more confident not only about where they live being safe, but about, “How and when can I move on with my life?”.
Giles Grover: I should try to be positive again, because I am possibly being a bit too negative. Homes England has built stipulated communication points into its cladding safety scheme, so there are certain points of the process where you have to upload it before you get more funding. That is completely sensible; it actually looks at the quality of it and makes sure that it goes to the right people. Again, the developer contract is the one where it is about ticking a box that just says, “I am communicating 100%, so everything’s fine—see you later.” We need more consistency across the piece.
There are ways to do this, and that is what we have been trying to say for the last two and half years. We can actually simplify things, put people at the centre and save money. Sadly, we have not quite got to that point yet.
Florence Eshalomi
Q
Ben Hopkinson: Yes. There is definitely limited capacity within regulators, so we have to figure out where that capacity gets us the biggest safety improvement. Given that existing buildings are less safe than new buildings, they should be the priority for the BSR or a similar regulator.
Sam Dumitriu: I agree with that; I am happy to accept completely what Ben says.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Sam Dumitriu: There is a trade-off between prescriptive and more flexible regulation. Sometimes you might like to have very clear rules, even if they err very far on the side of caution. I think that in the case of building safety, what we have had is a few pieces of Government guidance in the past that have probably been too tick box and restrictive, and that has caused problems. I think that the approach of PAS 9980 is the right one in focusing on proportionality. I also support the position in clause 44 on tolerable risk.
As mentioned, it is very important that we prioritise the types of remediation that happen, because there are very large constraints in terms of who can deliver and assess these projects. As a result, you need some way of making sure something is proportionate and remediation is not necessary in every case. It can be very costly and that work can also potentially push other projects back in the queue.
The area of policy that I have spent the most time focusing on in recent memory is the regulation of nuclear power, and Ben has also raised the Fingleton review. We have some very similar issues here because it is a question of “health and safety principles”, “reasonably practicable” and terms like that. You tend to see regulation that errs on the side of caution—which in safety is understandable—but there can be a tendency to do work that is not 100% necessary.
In the case of building safety, one consideration around external cladding is that you often might have a building owner who has financial interests in the cladding being remediated that are not solely safety related. There might be a different cladding material that requires less maintenance, is more resistant to weather or might make the building nicer. If there is a potential safety case, what you do not want is a situation where that cladding is changed even though we are pretty confident that, in the event of a fire, everyone can be safely evacuated—the building might experience some damage, but ultimately the people inside the building get out okay, which is what we really care about. My instinct is that we do not want to move to a system that requires more work being done over what is proportionate. It is really important when we look at all of these things.
I think that in the Building Safety Act, in many cases, we have erred on the side of regulation beyond what is proportionate, particularly around second staircase rules for buildings above 18 metres. I think that it could very easily be raised to 30 metres without providing any real risk to the public. We need to be very cautious about insisting on things beyond what is proportionate.
Ben Hopkinson: “Tolerable” seems to be the right standard in the Bill. There is a completely understandable drive for caution and safety within these complex issues. However, we have to be careful about proportionality. Already the Bill’s impact assessment shows that the costs of it are 10 times higher than the benefits. If you removed tolerability and mandated complete safety, how expensive would that be? Would we accidentally shut down new construction because we are burdening house builders with incredible asks on development capital?
There are a lot of competing issues here and tolerable seems to strike the right balance. Certainly, you want to make sure that the kind of buildings that are most unsafe are the ones that are remediated first, and removing a tolerable guideline risks buildings with only minor imperfections being treated exactly the same as the ones with the most dangerous cladding. I think that the Bill, as drafted, seems sensible and obviously we will look at the regulations as to how “tolerable” is actually defined.
Sean Woodcock
Q
Ben Hopkinson: The fact is that there has been good progress—although it is not perfect and it is not done yet. I think that the Bill is useful in contributing to the remaining cases that are outstanding. Certainly, having 40% or 45% of homes completely remediated already is, I think, good progress being made. I did not say that it was done.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Alexander Cook: We support the standardisation of the FRAEW methodology and the recent changes to that for the “tolerable” risk changing as well. We will always see subjectivity in fire engineers’ opinions. The auditing by Homes England will hopefully control some of that. There is always more that could be done in terms of charters and control of fire engineers. I think the more the industry has, that will help.
There are a lot of examples where we have had conflicting fire engineers’ opinions in both directions, increasing and decreasing scope, but they are independent of Vistry, so they are not controlled by us. They are appointed, but they follow their own charter’s ethics and morals and set the scope outside of any other interests.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Alexander Cook: Yes. I believe there are chartered fire engineers out there, and that makes sense for them.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Alexander Cook: I think fire engineers should be, as they are now. Improvements could always be made in terms of the fire assessors, and that could be done through the Bill, with guidance on clarifying those roles, especially for FRAEWs.
Darren Paffey
Q
Alexander Cook: There is definitely no “unwilling”. Everyone wants to remediate and they want to get to the same goal. People want to co-operate, but it is not necessarily about co-operating; it is about their response times. When so many parties are involved, maybe changes to the Bill could introduce a stricter turnaround time from responsible entities, and that might introduce acceleration. For us, one of the particular delays and blockers is where you have fire engineers, lawyers and responsible managing agents taking a little bit longer to get through all of those before they actually get a response. When you multiply that by the hundreds of buildings, it soon adds up. The changes to the Bill will help, but I think there is still a way to go.
Florence Eshalomi
Q
Steve Day: Yes, I did not actually say it, but it was another element that I was happy about. The cladding manufacturers largely have escaped liability. I do not know if you followed our campaign with the Earl of Lytton in the House of Lords. We initially had a remediation scheme, which was trying to make developers pay for breaches at the time of construction with a wide construction industry levy, which did bring in construction manufacturers. That aligns with our approach, but there are some areas where you could extend the levy. The build-to-rent sector, for instance, has largely escaped it. They could contribute, given that they are building. Build to rent would be an area.
Before the Committee, we had a look at the latest status of developers and house builders. The top 10 have £24 billion in net assets, largely due to hoarding land banks and making significant returns to shareholders. We looked at just how much were share buybacks and dividends. For instance, Barratt Redrow has announced an intention to return £400 million to shareholders. With £24 billion plus £400 million, they can afford to pay a little more to cover all these leaseholders. On the buildingsafetyscheme website, you can see a breakdown of all the information that I am giving here, including the items of the mortgage-backed securities—we are going to publish those so that everyone can see the exposure due to bad building in this country.
I really encourage the Committee to look at whether freeholders may evade their responsibilities. There have been certain restructuring events that you might want to consider, which may mean that you have a good bank/bad bank scenario as we had at Lehman Brothers, where some assets may be transferred to the bad bank, and then there is no money to pay the remediation liabilities. I would recommend looking at anti-avoidance measures, potentially as an amendment to the Bill.
Sarah Gibson
Q
My worry is that we have seen poor construction and a race to the bottom over the last 30 years in the UK construction industry, and now the Government are hoping to build large amounts of new housing. How do we make sure that the housing that we are building now will not be the retrofits of 2050, and that we will not be in the same position then? What key things do we need to be doing to make sure that this does not happen again? Is it a question of building control? Is it a question of enforcement? What do we do to make sure that we do not end up here again?
Ian Abley: It is a question of regulation 7. You already have the tools to do it. They are adequate. Building regulation requirement B4(1) said that the external walls should be adequate to resist the spread of fire. That is still the case. The definition of “adequate” is the thing that is missing. But that forces you into a world of very straightforward thresholds of what is and what is not safe.
The problem with tolerability, to my mind, is not so much that it has not collapsed into a low. If the high and medium-risk buildings that already exist are declared as such to the Building Safety Regulator, they have to go through building remediation, which puts them back into the building regulation loop. The structure of PAS actually encourages anybody with a medium or high-risk building who cannot afford to remediate to shop around and find a fire engineer who will give them a “tolerable” report, and they magically get to avoid the building regulation process entirely.
Regardless of David Crowder’s intent for setting up a structure that looks vaguely like something that the Health and Safety Executive would do—with the carrot of risk going from unacceptable through tolerable and down to acceptable—what PAS does is encourage remediation avoidance. Any impecunious building owner is going to find it far cheaper just to employ a fire engineer who will give them a “tolerable”. I have seen that on an epic scale with a signatory to the developer remediation contract.
It is a beautifully connived process where everyone seems to be doing their job, but all that happens is the risk gets accepted by the building owner and then the process stops. The estates of buildings fall off the statistics, and it looks like the remediation problem is not as big as was first thought. If clause 44 mandates the tolerability wheeze into the legislation instead of defining “adequate”, you will see that right the way down to the 11-metre height.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Ian Abley: As Giles Grover said, you need a technical standard that is the legally minimum adequate of what is requirement B4(1). Why would you employ an incompetent fire engineer to give you a rubbish report? The builders who have the money will employ the most competent fire engineers who will use their skill, knowledge and experience, but their behaviour is another thing—they are just acting like mercenaries.
Steve Day: We are seeing that at Royal Artillery Quays. You have one fire engineer saying, “It is safe to leave these panels on,” without caring about justifying it with evidence, which he puts in his report, and another two fire engineers saying, “These are dangerous. The are banned on new buildings for a reason.” The building owner just chooses which report they want. We spent £4,300 of our own money on this—that is how much we cared about getting the right opinion—only to be met with a terse email saying, “Sorry, we don’t have to listen to you because of PAS.” That is the problem we have.
We have to do the two reforms on the buildingsafetyscheme.org website. Please look at those, because they are what the country needs, and they are what the banks, lenders and insurers need. You cannot put this back in the box; the insurers and lenders will not let the Government do it. You need to protect all leaseholders, you need to deal with building regulations breaches at the time of construction, and you need fire performance test evidence to know the risk of leaving things on and, otherwise, to take them off. Only leave them on if you have evidence—that is the rule. If they did that, we would have safer buildings. We are not remediating buildings to a permanent state, either, because of the rolling remediations. These are big issues that we need to resolve.
Ian Abley: Could I make a point about the insurers? Building regulations are not about property protection, and they never have been. PAS 9980 is not about property protection. The insurers have their own standard, which corrected the error of class 0, once they had worked out that it was an error and the inquiry had come to a conclusion, and it adopted James Brokenshire’s standard. The insurers cannot ignore health and life safety, which is all the building regulations have to achieve. The insurers only want Brokenshire’s law for life safety. They do not need anything else for property protection, because there is nothing else. Brokenshire’s law was reasonably practicable and low risk. PAS 9980:2026 itself recognises Brokenshire’s law as low risk. It does not actually name it; it just copies and pastes the text.
The PAS has avoided one of the other aspects of building requirement B4(1): it only deals with the combustibility of the walls and the compartmentation and cavity barriers around windows. It does not deal with the conflagration problem of radiant heat from one building to another, so it cannot claim to be building requirement B4(1). As far as I can see, PAS 9980 was written as a way to undermine James Brokenshire’s law when the calls for proportionality came in, because people were bleating that James Brokenshire’s law was too onerous. It is not. It is the reasonably practicable thing to do for life safety.
Steve Day: The problem—I will not say too much, I promise—
Sarah Gibson
I probably ought to bring it to a halt, because I am conscious of the time.
The Chair
There are no further questions from Members, so I thank you both for your evidence.
Sarah Gibson
If that is the case, Chair, I am quite happy for Steve to finish his statement. I was just conscious that if someone else was trying to come in, we were running out of time. Sorry, Steve. I did not mean to interrupt you.
Steve Day: Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Ian Abley: If not, I had a question for the Minister.
Steve Day: Do you mind if I just do mine?
The Chair
Okay. We will have to move on, because there are no further questions from Members. Thank you both very much for your evidence.
Examination of witness
Dame Judith Hackitt gave evidence.
Florence Eshalomi
I will leave it there because I am mindful that other colleagues want to come in.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Dame Judith Hackitt: The part about fire engineers’ competence and how we assess that is being addressed separately from the Bill. We already know that there is more work we need to do there, and I am involved in that.
Let us be clear, however, that we are never going to get to a point where fire engineers always agree on a single solution, because the nature of the beast is such that different solutions may be arrived at that give an acceptable level of risk. That is one of the reasons why we have focused on making all the regulation outcome-based so that it gives people the opportunity to look at different routes and so on.
In the cases where disagreements occur, it is really important to have a body that can stop that becoming a long-term delaying process and a dispute through the courts, and focuses on agreeing what is going to be done, getting it done and letting other things play out while speeding up the process whereby residents get to a position where they can both feel safe in their building and, indeed, sell their properties and move on if that is what they want to do.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)
Q
Dame Judith Hackitt: I am not here to suggest for one minute that we should copy everything that has been done by Cladding Safety Victoria in Australia. However, when you look at the series of measures that it has put in place, there is a lot that we can learn. I have already talked about the agreed risk framework that everyone buys into. In addition, to speed up the process, it arrived at a mechanism whereby, when people cannot agree on what needs to be done, progress is not slowed.
Progress still takes place: the Government pay for it, but they take over the right from the building owners to recover costs from the parties who are held to be responsible. The Government are therefore acting in the intermediary space, not as the funder for work that others fail to do. It is a model that we could learn from, of that I am convinced.
Florence Eshalomi
Q
Dr David Crowder: Again, I have not focused my interest on the Bill; I am concerned with the PAS. Currently, the Bill simply refers to the PAS, and the PAS gives a definition of whether a building is safe in terms of the risk of external fire. I know it is not for me to ask the questions, but I suppose there is a question to put back to those writing the Bill: are you seeking simply to limit the ability of any square metre of external wall to burn—to reduce its propensity to burn at all—or are you looking in the round at whether the people in the building are safe, in spite of the possibility of some fire spread?
This is where tolerability comes in. A number of public consultations have occurred around what people are content with. Let us start with buildings that comply with the building regulations as written right now, and buildings that have solid masonry wall construction. They are low risk, because the walls simply do not burn, so there is no hazard that anyone needs to concern themselves with in terms of the external walls. That does not mean that external fire spread will never occur, because you can still get window-to-window fire spread, but the walls will not make the problem worse.
If you have combustible material, the follow-on question is: how far does it go? How far up the wall could the fire spread if that combustible material was involved? Does it cross compartment lines, and is there therefore a likelihood of the fire going somewhere else? The final question then concerns the internal arrangements: if that spread should occur and covers a reasonable distance across the building, are there facilities for people to get out of the building?
We have taken a very scientific approach to it, and I am not sure it is conducive to legislation, to return to your question. There is probably a shorter, punchier way of doing it, but my fear, and the driver behind the way the PAS is written, is about giving people options and not assuming that everyone has the resources to do absolutely everything to mitigate risk.
Sarah Gibson
Q
You mentioned that, for fire engineers, control and signing up to ethical standards and so on is in the process of being done. One would therefore expect that fire assessors, who are, of course, more likely to be involved in the remediation we are talking about, would also be included in that regulation. My question is: do you think that the level of control over those applying the assessment and the ethical codes that go with it are sufficient to limit the issues we have seen around discrepancies? Is it more a question of enforcement than legislation for what is causing the discrepancies?
Dr David Crowder: I think that enforcement would help. The answer to your question lies not necessarily within “tolerable” but in the freedom that users have been given to simply reach different conclusions and walk away. That is what we have tried to clamp down on with the redraft.
By way of example, I review FRAEWs on occasion, and I am quite obviously well versed in what PAS 9980 says. We have risk tables in the PAS that give different risk ratings to different features of buildings, and I have seen instances where appraisers will quietly slip in that a feature of a building has a different risk rating from what the PAS says it should have, and that then flows through and changes their outcome. The new PAS—the 2026 edition—says that, for any deviation, including that, you have to declare in your report that you have done something different. With multiple appraisals, people now have to explain why they have reached a different conclusion.
I have seen instances in the past where appraisers are restricted by their professional indemnity insurance and all they can do is condemn combustible cladding. They will not be given professional indemnity insurance unless they condemn everything combustible and give the okay only on stuff that is non-combustible. I argue that it is an ethical problem that they are allowing their work to be influenced by a pressure other than the science and engineering—that needs to be declared. If that is the reason their report says something different from the previous one, they need to say that that is the case.
Equally, it might just be because they do not have the risk appetite. If it is simply risk appetite, they need to say that, so that people can take them to task and we can start getting some clarity. We have done everything we can to try to narrow the field, and I would like to see more appraisers being held to account when they are providing answers that people do not understand.
The additional thing is peer review. We have also prescribed in the 2026 edition that when an appraiser is reviewing somebody else’s FRAEW, they should not simply start again at the beginning, run through the whole process and then reach their own answer, which is likely to be different because different engineers have different views. We now positively say that they are instead expected to go through the other engineer’s work—
The Chair
Order. That brings us to the end of the time allotted for this session. On behalf of the Committee I thank you for your evidence.
Examination of witness
Florence Eshalomi MP gave evidence.
Gareth Bacon
Q
Florence Eshalomi: What we need to distinguish is the fact that PAS 9980 as it stands does not remove or replace the need for buildings to comply with building regulations; maybe we need to make that a lot clearer. This is around highlighting that any remediation work that needs to be carried out must also meet building regulations that may apply to that. Again, there is the technical aspect of the Bill, and what we are seeking to do with this legislation is make clearer who owns that risk. PAS 9980 and building regulations serve two entirely different purposes. We are very clear on what building regulations are doing in terms of the regulations for new buildings, whereas PAS 9980 considers the risk and tolerable risk of buildings as they stand now, looking at the critical issue around safety when it comes to life and to external walls.
On the question of whether we should revisit the whole issue of “tolerable”, that goes back to my response to your initial question. Across the sector and industry, we feel that PAS 9980, set by the British Standards Institution, strikes the right balance in trying to find a way forward through something that has been at an impasse for many years—successive Governments have tried to resolve this.
It is about how we get the best approach in terms of moving forward in a really complicated but important area that is affecting so many people up and down the country. They want a resolution and to know that if something goes wrong in their building, which a number of them have invested a lot of money in—sometimes their life savings—they know who they can go to to remediate that. A lot of them bought in good faith and they should not have to turn themselves into building experts just to know that the building they are living in is safe.
Sarah Gibson
Q
We have not had accountable assessors, so we can have an assessment that decides that a building is tolerable but actually that tolerable level, as decided by an assessor, turns out not to meet the standard of building regulations, even at the time of construction. Why are we surprised that people cannot then sell their houses, get mortgages, or get insurance? We should not be. We must recognise that if we are going to put in a new piece of legislation, which will add to the amount of legislation that a leaseholder must look at, it has to be watertight—forgive the expression. The point has been raised today and it still concerns me: there is a lack of clarity about where—with which agency—the buck actually stops. A leaseholder needs to know where to go at the end. Who is really, finally responsible and accountable?
We also must make sure that the assessors who make the decisions can be held accountable, and that they have an ethical code in place to make sure that they cannot be manipulated by their employer. We should make sure that we make those points really clear during scrutiny of the Bill. That will make a difference to our leaseholders, who have waited so long for this legislation. I want to make sure that the Committee irons out those points over the next few weeks.
Florence Eshalomi: I totally hear that and accept it. To be honest, no one Bill can fix this mess. We are trying to make sure that leaseholders who have invested in good faith are not burdened with all the costs, hence the Bill introduces the charge for construction product manufacturers, which is important. To date, construction product manufacturers have not played their part in fixing the mess they created.
We are trying to strike the right balance. We have heard from the National Housing Federation and the LGA. If colleagues from the LGA, and other councillors, were here they would highlight the difficulties that they have in bringing forward new development. I see that acutely in my constituency, where—as the Committee knows—the Government introduced measures to change housing targets, which is having an impact.
A more prescriptive, blanket approach could lead to more extensive remediation, but will it make residents safe? Will it achieve the ultimate goal? How can we have the least disruption to residents? Some residents may have to leave their homes, and some will have additional costs—we must make sure those costs are recouped—and ultimately slower remediation. How do we make sure that we give more power and support to BSR to get the buildings that have been identified remediated?
We must be honest: although the issues in New Zealand are not similar to those here, there are areas where we can definitely learn. I will task officials to look a bit closer at that, and see if there is anything in the Bill that we can tweak during its passage. It is about being open, honest and receptive to those challenges, about making sure that we are being challenged and ultimately about trying to get something right as we progress the Bill.
Andrew Cooper
Q
Budget Resolutions
Sarah Gibson Excerpts(1 week, 6 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Zöe Franklin (Guildford) (LD)
I welcome the Government’s recognition that economic growth cannot be driven solely from Whitehall and that local leaders and communities must have a greater say in shaping their future. The Liberal Democrats have long argued that decisions should be taken as close as possible to the people they affect. We support genuine devolution, greater fiscal autonomy for local government and the empowerment of communities to shape their own future. The real question before us today, however, is whether this Budget will actually deliver the Government’s ambition of good growth in every postcode.
Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)
I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that rural economies rely on transport. In my constituency, colleges have had to cut their hours because the bus does not come late enough and employers have had to put on their own buses in order to get shift workers. Does my hon. Friend agree that for rural economies to thrive, we really need to look at transport?
Zöe Franklin
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need that support to ensure that people can get from where they live in rural constituencies to other areas for work and education.
Growth is measured not by the number of new governance structures we create, but by whether people can find an affordable home, access GP appointments, travel to work, start a business and build a secure future in the place that they call home. For the Liberal Democrats, this Budget must meet three tests: democratic consent, sustainable local government finances and tangible improvements in everyday lives.
The first test is democratic consent. Devolution should bring power closer to communities. We should be careful not to mistake devolution for decentralisation. Power removed from Whitehall but concentrated in a single regional office, such as a mayor, is not necessarily power shared with local communities.
In Surrey, the home of my Guildford constituency, that distinction is becoming increasingly apparent. The Budget confirmed that the Government are in the final stages of agreeing arrangements for a mayoral strategic authority in Surrey, despite Ministers previously assuring the House that no area would be forced into a mayoral model. What has changed? There has been no vote of the councils that will have to operate within this structure, and residents have not been given an opportunity to express a view on what model they want. In fact, the bulk of the discussions appear to have been had with Surrey county council—a council that will be defunct in just six months—rather than the new east and west unitaries. How can the Government claim to be bringing power closer to communities when those same communities have had so little say?
Of course, a mayor is democratically elected, but representing an entire county or region is very different to representing a specific town, village or ward. Local councillors understand the character, challenges and priorities of the communities they serve; they are often the first people residents turn to when problems arise. I ask the Minister what meaningful influence locally elected leaders will retain and how the voices of villages and rural communities will be protected under the new arrangements. Devolution should not be forced on communities; it should happen with them.
My second test is whether the Budget delivers sustainable local government finances. The Budget contains announcements on strategic authorities, borrowing powers, business rates retention and new fiscal freedoms. Some of those measures may prove beneficial, but we must not confuse devolution with funding reform. Local government’s central challenge is not governance but financial sustainability. While Ministers talk enthusiastically about new structures and powers, councils across England face profound financial pressure. The Local Government Association has warned of a billion-pound funding gap over the coming years. Against that backdrop, many councils are struggling simply to maintain core services.
To return to my area of Surrey, the six councils coming together to form West Surrey will inherit £4.5 billion of debt while simultaneously facing rising demand for adult social care, children’s services and support for children with special educational needs and disabilities. My concern is about how implementing measures without funding reform solves any of those problems. How does the new governance structure address historical debt? How does it ease pressure on social care budgets? How does it help councils meet rising demand for frontline services?
The Budget includes a £1.5 billion borrowing facility for the strategic authorities. While borrowing may help investment, it is no substitute for financial stability. We must learn lessons from councils such as Woking, where serious financial failures—failures caused by previous Conservative administrations—have left residents paying the price. Nowhere is the gap between structural reform and real-life outcomes clearer than in special educational needs.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
Sarah Gibson ExcerptsMonday 27th April 2026
(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 View all English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Message as at 27 April 2026 - large print - (27 Apr 2026)
Zöe Franklin (Guildford) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s decision not to insist on their disagreement with Lords amendment 2, which proposes the inclusion of rural affairs in the list of competences for strategic authorities.
Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)
Too often, rural communities such as mine in Wiltshire have been overlooked by successive Governments and treated as an afterthought rather than as places with distinct needs, challenges and enormous potential. Decisions are far too often made on urban assumptions, leaving rural areas struggling with weak transport and fewer services. Does my hon. Friend agree that by embedding rural affairs at the heart of strategic authorities, the Lords amendment will ensure that rural communities are no longer overlooked or left behind?
Zöe Franklin
My hon. Friend is right. We have fought for the amendment consistently because rural communities are indeed overlooked too often, and it would put them at the heart of the Bill.
As I was saying, we support Government amendment (a) to Lords amendment 2, which adds coastal communities to the list of strategic competences, so I am grateful to the Secretary of State for tabling it. Together, the changes ensure that rural and coastal areas are explicitly recognised in the framework of strategic authorities and will be taken into account when powers, funding and responsibilities are devolved. The changes ensure that such areas are explicitly recognised in all decision making.
As my hon. Friend says, rural and coastal communities have too often felt overlooked, and their needs really need to be considered properly in the devolution process. We Liberal Democrats have long championed these communities, and many of my hon. Friends in this Chamber represent rural and coastal areas. We really welcome the constructive approach that the Government have taken in working with us, and I will continue to press for that spirit of collaboration as this Bill is implemented and, indeed, when further legislation on local government is introduced after the King’s Speech.
Planning Reform
Sarah Gibson Excerpts(10 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Matthew Pennycook
My hon. Friend is right that the new framework proposes a default yes to suitable proposals around train stations, particularly targeting well-connected train stations across the country, as I mentioned. He will know that in the revisions we made to the NPPF last December, we strengthened protections for playing fields. As I said to the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos), although there is a new permanent presumption within settlements as part of this framework, development still has to comply with the wider policies in the NPPF, and individual decisions on applications still have to be taken. I am more than happy to sit down with my hon. Friend and discuss his particular concerns about playing fields.
Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)
As the Minister knows, in Wiltshire, speculative development is often approved without consideration of access to active travel routes, health provision, school places, and access to public transport, so that our residents can reach work or education. This leads to areas of extreme deprivation, caused, according to the Government’s own statistics, by a lack of skills and job opportunities. Rural housing can work, but only when it is genuinely plan-led, and when infrastructure keeps pace with housing. Will the Minister ensure that rural development is supported by its communities, and is for its communities, rather than villages being left to absorb growth without the services that they so desperately need?
Matthew Pennycook
There is a lot in the hon. Lady’s question, but let me say a couple of things. First, we have been clear as a Government that when new housing comes forward, it must be matched with new amenities and infrastructure. We strengthened the policies in the previous framework last year to provide for community infrastructure, but today’s draft framework consolidates and strengthens that even further. She will be interested in the new vision-led transport measures in the framework, again strengthening those provided for last year. We want the appropriate amenities and infrastructure to come with housing, because we want to create not just housing units, but thriving places and neighbourhoods for people to live.
Employment Rights Bill
Sarah Gibson ExcerptsMonday 21st October 2024
(2 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Employment Rights Act 2025 View all Employment Rights Act 2025 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)
Broadly speaking, the Liberal Democrats support the Government’s desire to modernise employment rights and make them fit for the modern working world. I hope the Government will appreciate our constructive scrutiny of the Bill today, to ensure that it is as helpful as it can be, for workers and small businesses. In the interests of transparency, I would like to mention that I have been a small business owner for most of my adult life, but I have also been an employee. I will start by outlining the improvements that the Government should make to better support carers, parents and those who fall ill. I will then move on to what adjustments must be made so that small businesses receive adequate support.
Members across this House will know that fixing our social care system and adequately supporting carers is a key issue for the Liberal Democrats. The Bill makes no clear statutory commitment to introducing paid carer’s leave. That omission strikes us as a missed opportunity for the Government to adequately support carers’ ability to juggle employment with their caring responsibilities. The Government’s “Next Steps to Make Work Pay” paper, which accompanies this Bill, commits to reviewing the implementation of paid carer’s leave. However, the Liberal Democrats believe that the Government should go a step further. We will be looking to strengthen the legislation in this area, and we hope that the Government will not waste the opportunity to make genuine progress on carer’s leave. As ever, I am happy to meet Ministers at any time to discuss this in greater depth.
The Bill could do more to support parents. We welcome the Government’s proposal that parents should be able to benefit from support, irrespective of how long they have worked for their employer. We also support the proposal to introduce new rights to bereavement leave, which will allow employees to take much-needed leave from work to grieve the loss of a loved one. This will be especially important to those who lose a close relative or who experience a miscarriage.
The Liberal Democrats have called for measures to support parents through unemployment, and to extend parental pay and leave to self-employed parents, as has been mentioned. We have also called for measures to increase statutory maternity leave and shared parental leave to £350 a week, and to increase pay for paternity leave, with an income cap for high earners.
In addition to improving the Bill’s support for carers and parents, we also believe it could do more to support people when they fall ill. At £116.75 a week, statutory sick pay remains far below the minimum wage and is effectively a disincentive to take time off. This has a severe impact on public health, productivity and, ultimately, economic growth. A higher rate of sick pay would enable people to take time to recover without having to worry about making ends meet. Of course, any such measures should go hand in hand with appropriate financial support for small businesses.
That brings me to how this Bill can be improved for the benefit of small business owners, and I have already stated my interest. It is vital that small businesses are actively consulted on how to support them with any additional costs that the Bill may bring. Having spoken to many SMEs in my constituency, I would like to know what consideration the Government have given to the Bill’s proposals on changes to unfair dismissal during probationary periods. How will small businesses, which do not have the resources of HR professionals, be supported through these changes? Unfortunately, much of the crucial detail that would help such businesses to prepare for the impact of the Bill has been left to secondary legislation and further consultation. Although we support as much consultation as possible, the lack of detail in the Bill does not facilitate certainty and stability for businesses or workers.
The Liberal Democrats urge Ministers to ensure that new measures to support workers go hand in hand with support for small businesses, starting with the reform of our broken business rates system. The current system effectively taxes business premises and machinery, which discourages investment and heavily burdens key sectors in my constituency, from retail and manufacturing to renewable energy production. Again, if Ministers are open to meeting me and my Liberal Democrat colleagues, we would be happy to discuss our proposal for reforming this broken system and bolstering our SMEs.
This Bill has the potential to mark a new chapter in how we deliver fairness for both business owners and employees. We believe it will modernise our legislation to reflect the needs of today’s workforce.
Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)
My hon. Friend has said that the Bill does not go far enough to support families. In my Woking constituency, 350 children are unable to join the Scouts because of a lack of volunteers. Does she agree that the Government should consider adding to the Bill a right to ask for statutory volunteer leave?
Sarah Gibson
My hon. Friend makes an important point about volunteering across the country.
But the Government must go further. We must do more to support carers, parents and those who fall sick. The Bill must do more to provide small businesses with certainty, stability and transparency. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches look forward to the Bill’s passage and will work with colleagues to ensure it delivers on its full promise, but we hope that our proposals to improve the legislation are fully considered.
Building Safety and Resilience
Sarah Gibson Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)
I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this building safety debate. I congratulate the hon. Members for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) and for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn), my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) and the hon. Member for Burnley (Oliver Ryan) on the love that they have shown for their constituencies.
My first contribution to this House was in the Prime Minister’s statement on Grenfell last week. We must not forget in this debate that that tragedy was also a fault of failing building safety and Government accountability. Having worked in the construction industry as an architect in Spain, and having run an architectural practice in the UK for most of my professional life, I have seen far too often the construction industry fall foul of silo-working and cost-cutting. Value engineering is what we call it in the trade, but Members should not be fooled; it adds no value and is very rarely engineered.
Many families in my constituency, and indeed across the UK, are bearing the effects of poor building safety in various ways. Homes are suffering from mould and damp, as the hon. Member for Burnley mentioned, with complaints to housing associations, letting agencies and landlords often falling on deaf ears. I urge the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in its proposed review of the building regulations to introduce stronger measures to protect the most vulnerable residents from mould and damp. Everyone deserves a safe and comfortable home to return to.
However, I do not want Members to leave today’s debate thinking that the only notable point of the beautiful constituency of Chippenham is that it is damp, although there is no doubt that the west country is beautifully green for a good reason. Chippenham sits in Wiltshire, in the south-west of England, and we have a proud industrial heritage too, with mills originally reliant on the River Avon, and later on the Great Western Railway, with its many impressive tunnels and viaducts. That railway currently stops only in Chippenham, so I will spend the next few years demanding that Corsham and Royal Wootton Bassett are also in receipt of stations.
Quality employment and prosperity came with the railway when it was built. Access to transport is equally important to the growth of the area today. It will play a vital part in my constituency’s future as an innovation hub. We are currently home to some fantastic cutting-edge businesses, from the renewable energy sector through to the health sciences. They are complemented by the provision of excellent technical education—namely that provided by the Wiltshire college and university centre, whose campuses in Lackham and Chippenham will be critical to the growth of dynamic young companies in the future. I intend to be a strong voice championing skills, employment and opportunity in that part of the world.
My father, who unfortunately died very young, instilled in me a passion for technology and innovation. But he also left me with a very special interest in vintage cars and all things mechanical, so I am incredibly lucky now to be married to David, who built the very first electric Austin Seven some 30 years ago. Slow, old cars are the perfect way to drive through a constituency that hosts some of the most beautiful towns and villages in the country—contrary to the views that some colleagues have expressed today. Many of those places will be familiar to the House. The town of Corsham is home to free-ranging peacocks and, surprisingly, can be recognised in “Poldark.” The town of Calne—rightly called “the town of discovery”—was home to Joseph Priestley, who discovered oxygen, while Laycock, with its picturesque abbey, was home to William Fox Talbot, the inventor of the photographic negative, and appears in more films than I have time to mention. Royal Wootton Basset, with its proud connection to RAF Lyneham, was granted royal status thanks to the community’s important role in the repatriation of those killed in the service of this country.
The recent boundary changes mean that I have inherited the honour of representing those communities from both Michelle Donelan and James Gray. James will be known to this House for his chairmanship of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, which has done wonders to ensure that we gain an insight into the lives of those who have committed to serving in our military. Michelle Donelan has been a strong advocate for Chippenham town centre, and her work in that area will not be forgotten. Before Michelle and James, Chippenham was represented by my Liberal Democrat friend and colleague Duncan Hames, whom I thank for his advice and support in what has been a hectic start to life in the Commons.
Over the past weeks, many people have asked me if I have had a restful recess. I have found myself raising an eyebrow and explaining that it has been the busiest period of my life. Not being on these Benches over the summer has meant that I have been able to hit the ground running at home and raise specific concerns about a lack of NHS dental provision and access to GPs across the constituency. I have also been able to meet campaigners and lend my support to important issues in the constituency, such as Chippenham’s “One Plan,” Bassett’s proposed active travel network, and the campaign for a new health centre in Calne. In backing those projects, I intend to ensure that there are careers for young people in my area, and options for those hoping to change career in later life. Like many Members, my own career has taken a dramatic change of tack recently. I hope that the House will not mind if I briefly explain how I find myself here today.
I was lucky enough to be born into a family that cared deeply about my education. With their support, and a grant from Wiltshire council, I was able to study architecture at Kingston and at University College London before registering as an architect in Spain. Some years later, I returned home to Wiltshire and became a town and unitary authority councillor. It is from that perspective of positive experience in local government that I felt I could do more to promote the interests of my community here in Westminster, and I am honoured that they thought so too.
I end my maiden speech by wishing my brother, Luke, a very happy birthday, and by thanking my mother, who has been a great source of strength to me. She canvassed tirelessly on my behalf throughout the election campaign, even in the pouring rain in what we now all know to be a rather damp constituency. Finally, I give my thanks to my constituents. Whether they voted for me or not, I promise to work hard and champion them all in everything I do.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
I am delighted to be able to speak in this debate. I compliment and congratulate the Members who have made their first speeches: the hon. Members for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune), for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn), for Guildford (Zöe Franklin), for Burnley (Oliver Ryan) and for Chippenham (Sarah Gibson), which is the town where I was born.
This debate, about building safety, comes on the back of the report by Sir Martin Moore-Bick on the Grenfell fire, which should be sobering reading for anybody who has any sort of public duty or is in public life. It catalogues how privatisation, underfunding, inadequate surveillance and inadequate supervision led to a vulnerable group of tenants being left in a desperate situation in which a large number died. He concludes in his report that every single one of those deaths could have been avoided, had there been proper regulation and protection. His proposals are far-reaching, and I look forward to the Government responding in detail, in the near future, on how they will ensure proper regulation and supervision and, above all, a role for local government as the local inspectorate of all buildings to ensure that they are all safe and that all the materials are correctly put together. The idea that deregulation can bring about safety is obviously nonsense, and this report has shown it to be such.
Sarah Gibson
Recent changes to building regulations require approved inspectors to be certified. That is welcome, but does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the original scheme, under which supervision was by local authorities, which were not financially tied to the contractor, developer or employer, was considerably safer than this deregulated system with approved inspectors? Perhaps the Government should look carefully at changing that.
Jeremy Corbyn
The hon. Member is absolutely right. The watchword has to be independence, of both inspection and regulation. The idea that developers can mark their own homework has to be got rid of sharpish, because it is a dangerous precedent, and we can now see the results of it.
This horrible fire at Grenfell did not come from nowhere. There was the Knowsley fire and the Lakanal House fire. There were constant references to the dangers of inadequate or inappropriate cladding, the lack of fire equipment, and the fire risk that goes with that. This has to be the most massive wake-up call there has ever been. It also shows that communities, such as those in Grenfell, were treated with contempt by their local authority, regulators and others. They simply did not care. In Grenfell, there was a mixed group of working-class tenants living in a dangerous place. On the day that the report came out, one of the residents was asked about it, and he said that the cladding might as well have been made of firelighters, given the danger it presented to them all. Something quickly needs to be done about that.
We must look at how we deal with the need for remedial action. When the Grenfell fire took place, inspections were immediately made of buildings all over the country; that was the right thing to do. By and large, local authorities responded well and removed cladding. In my local authority, Islington, cladding was discovered on one local authority building, Fyfield House, and that was immediately removed by the authority. However, I find that buildings in the private sector and other buildings in which leaseholders live have not been dealt with in the same way or with the same efficiency, and tenants, residents and leaseholders are paying the price for that. To give an example, there is a nice leasehold development in my constituency called Highbury Square. It was apparently well built and has good facilities. The problem is that it has cladding that has not been certified or approved, so the insurance costs are very high. The developers do not want to pay for the remedial work, and despite numerous meetings being held with Ministers in the previous Government and so on, no action has been taken. The families living there cannot sell or move. They cannot do anything. They are absolutely stuck.
I said in my intervention on the Minister that those who have had to incur huge insurance costs just to remain in their flat should be compensated, and the stress among people who live in such places should also be recognised through compensation. If there is a huge dispute about who will pay for all this—I am quite sure that many companies will try to take legal action against the Government—surely it is the Government’s responsibility to step in, if necessary, and do the work. They can charge it to the owners of the freehold or leasehold who are the cause of the problem. In the case I mentioned, Aviva pension fund is responsible. In the case of the Drayton Park development in my constituency, which the Ministry is well aware of—I had several meetings about it with Ministers under the previous Government and many officials—it is Galliard Homes, which seems to be trying to evade its responsibility to ensure that the work is carried out.
I appeal to the Minister to look carefully at the excessive delays caused by endless arguments with developers and the owners of freeholds. Those delays have put people at risk and have led to enormous cost for them. I come across other developments all the time that seem to be in the same situation, including some of those at the former Arsenal stadium site. This debate is about all that.
In this debate, we also recognise how communities respond, and how they responded to the Grenfell fire. I went there the day after the fire, and met the firefighters who, unbelievably bravely, had been trying to deal with a fire the likes of which they had never seen before. They did not really have the wherewithal to deal with it. Their bravery was enormous and their stress was huge. Some of them received abuse from our media and others, who tried to put the blame on them. They are the last people who should be blamed. I also saw how the community came together. I have been on every one of the silent walks for Grenfell that take place every year on the anniversary, usually in the company of the former Member of Parliament for Kensington, Emma Dent Coad, who did a fantastic job, not just at the time as the MP, but since then, campaigning for safety and justice for the victims of Grenfell. It needs to be recognised that the community came together to support and to demand, and they expect answers from this Government, so that they can live in a place of safety in the future.
The last thing that I want to say—I know that others wish to speak—is that fundamentally this debate is about housing and how we treat people. We have had market domination of the principles of housing. We have gone away from the principle of housing as a human right and instead to a market solution to it all. We can see the results: several thousand people rough sleeping every night; tens of thousands of people living in grotesquely overcrowded conditions; and many people—in my constituency, a third of them—living in the private rented sector, which is largely unregulated, insecure and very expensive.
I have been leafing through the Renters’ Rights Bill just produced by the Secretary of State. I welcome much of what I have read, but unless the Bill addresses the fundamental issue of the cost of private renting, instead of leaving it to the market to set the cost, areas like mine will suffer from social cleansing for a long time to come. Working-class families will be moved out because they simply cannot afford to stay.
We want to maintain the communities in our inner-urban and city areas in all parts of the country, so we need rent regulation, as well as security of tenure and all that goes with it. That means public intervention, building more council houses and taking the market element out of how planning decisions are made on building council housing. Instead, we should say, “The priority for all our community is a sufficient supply of good-quality, well-designed council housing.”
I finish on this thought: we have the potential to build some wonderful places, but also to take over many empty properties and convert them into some form of council or social housing. We need to ensure that housing is well designed, with sufficient open space and good room sizes. When developers are creating a home for someone to live in, they should think it through—changes in life, disabilities that may occur and everything else—and ensure that we have the highest possible quality social housing design for the future. This report could be a great turning point in the way that we deal with housing in our society—or it could be shelved and forgotten in a few years’ time. The people of Grenfell, who suffered and are still grieving the loss of others, will never let us forget it.