Residential Premises: Product Safety and Fire Risk

Teresa Pearce Excerpts

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) for obtaining this important debate. It has been good to hear from fellow members, from both sides of the House, of the APPG on fire safety rescue. The Grenfell Tower fire has brought fire safety to the top of the agenda yet again, but it has been at the top of the agenda before, and we all need to make sure that we are not here again next year or the year after, re-running the same arguments. It is time for action, and I am sure that the Minister is in listening mood.

A number of product safety issues to do with the recall and fire safety of domestic appliances led to two recent Government reviews—the Faulds Wood review, which my hon. Friend outlined earlier, and that done by the working group on product recalls and safety. Concerns have been raised in Parliament and elsewhere about the recall of Whirlpool tumble driers. Only yesterday, in an evidence session held by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, Whirlpool’s communications director admitted that an estimated 1 million faulty tumble driers, which are at risk of bursting into flames, are still in people’s homes. It took six months for the company to decide to change its advice to consumers, after an Indesit model caused a serious fire in Shepherd’s Bush. No one was killed in that blaze, but 100 families were evacuated and 26 were accommodated in hotels owing to the extent of the damage. It is considered that had that fire happened during the night, there would have been a number of deaths.

The manufacturer is not going to act quickly to recall models. I suggest that it is time to legislate to force it to do so. The consumer protection organisation Which?, Electrical Safety First and the fire brigade all agree that an overarching product safety body is needed to help protect consumers and advise them on what to do when products are faulty and potentially dangerous. Will the Minister give us her view on that sensible suggestion?

The Select Committee also heard from Leon Livermore, chief executive of the Trading Standards Institute, who told MPs that council funding cuts had affected the work of local trading standards services, slashing the amount of market surveillance they were able to do. He said:

“The current product safety system is already under pressure and won’t survive Brexit”.

If we cannot rely solely on trading standards departments to keep people safe, we need regulation. This is not regulation for regulation’s sake; the issues are important. There were 1,873 kitchen fires caused by white goods in 2015-16, and the London fire brigade reports that in London there is a fire a day involving white goods—and there have been deaths and injuries. Even so, it seems that the Government have yet to implement any safety recommendations made by the London fire brigade following the Whirlpool fire.

On the issue of fire safety in general, Electrical Safety First was calling for stronger regulation for many years before Grenfell. It has looked into the issue and says that mandatory electrical checks for homes in tower blocks should be free. I believe that that is right. It estimates that making electrical checks of all homes in tower blocks might cost about £10 million pounds a year. That is a lot of money, but it is not really a cost—it is an investment and will save money in the long run. It will also safe lives. House fires are a cost to us all.

At present, regulations specify an “expectation”, as we have heard, on social and private landlords to keep electrical installations safe. However, that language is very vague and should be clearer. The truth is that more can be done to reduce the fires caused by domestic appliances in England. As the Minister will know, the Housing and Planning Act 2016 gave the Secretary of State powers to impose proper duties on private landlords to ensure that electrical safety standards are met for the benefit of tenants across the country. Until that happens, people are safer, with greater state protection, if they live in temporary bed and breakfast or a house in multiple occupation than if they live in a privately rented home. That cannot make sense. Will the Minister let me know when the Secretary of State intends to publish and bring into force the fire safety regulations for the private rented sector? I am sure that the Minister has listened to the experts on the issue. If she has not already had a meeting with Electrical Safety First, I ask her to do so, to look at their costings and see how we can move to a system of mandatory electrical checks for homes in tower blocks.

Finally, will the Minister commit to continuing to work on a cross-party basis to ensure that this will be the last time we have to ask in the House for proper regulation on fire safety?