Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans she has to use the Fire Kills campaign to increase awareness of fires caused by electricity.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Fire Kills campaign is planned to launch and run for four weeks across national media. The campaign, run in close partnership with Fire and Rescue Services in England, seeks to prevent deaths from all types of fire in the home. The campaign encourages the public to test their smoke alarms regularly to ensure they are working in the event in any type of fire, including those caused by electricity.
In addition, Fire Kills and Electrical Safety First have a longstanding and close partnership to promote electrical fire safety messages, including through the annual Electrical Fire Safety Week, which runs in November each year.
The campaign also supports the Register My Appliance initiative, run by the Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Electrical Appliances. This is designed to improve recall rates and ensure a greater number of faulty products can be traced and either repaired or removed from homes.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department has spent on awareness raising campaigns on (a) fire safety and (b) electrical fires in each of the last five years.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Home Office took responsibility for Fire Kills from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) in April this year. For each of the last five years, responsibility for fire policy, and therefore the Fire Kills campaign, sat with the DCLG. Therefore, previous spend on the Fire Kills campaign was met by DCLG.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on the fire risk from faulty white goods.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Home Office has collaborated with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to support the Register My Appliance initiative, run by the Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Electrical Appliances. This is designed to improve recall rates and ensure a greater number of faulty products can be traced and either repaired or removed from homes. In addition, the Department partners with Electrical Safety First to promote their Product Recall Checker.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the case for reviewing the legislation concerning the safe use of electrical products at home.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Government takes consumer safety extremely seriously. This country has some of the most robust product safety legislation in the world. We cannot be complacent. We have the legislation in place to protect consumers, but we do sometimes see unsafe products on the market. That is why in November 2014 the Government announced an Independent Review of the Product Recall System.
Following this review we invited a team of industry experts to form a Steering Group to consider how the review’s recommendations might be implemented. The Steering Group has set itself a timeframe of 2 years in which to complete its work.
Asked by: Andrew Stephenson (Conservative - Pendle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether any NHS bodies offer advice to parents that electrical safety socket covers or inserts should be installed in the home.
Answered by Philip Dunne
On 30 June 2016 the Department issued an Estates and Facilities Alert (EFA) 2016/002 advising that electrical socket inserts should be removed from all premises where National Health Service care is delivered. The alert also advises NHS organisations against providing electrical socket inserts for use in the home. The safety Alert can be found at the following link:
https://www.cas.dh.gov.uk/ViewandAcknowledgment/ViewAlert.aspx?AlertID=102494
Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made to bring forward regulations to introduce electrical safety checks, as set out in the Housing and Planning Act 2016.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The Government is committed to protecting tenants and, as part of this, introduced the enabling power into the Housing and Planning Act 2016, allowing regulations to protect private sector tenants from electrical hazards in the home to be set at a later date.
This is a highly technical area and we need to explore appropriate options with relevant experts in the sector to test the most effective approach. My Department intends to set up a working group to identify what, if any, legislative requirements are needed and envisage this work being completed this year. This will ensure any introductions are beneficial and strike the right balance by protecting tenants while not over burdening the sector.
Asked by: Jim Fitzpatrick (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether his Department plans to reintroduce data on electrical safety in the home into the English Housing Survey; whether that survey will provide a breakdown of accidental deaths in the home by cause and tenure; what plans he has for the future of that survey; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Barwell
The Department collects information on the presence of electrical safety features such as PVC wiring and modern earthing via the English Housing Survey. The latest data (2013) are published online at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-datasets/dwelling-condition-and-safety (refer to tables DA5201 to DA5203). 2014 data will be published shortly.
The Department does not collect information on accidental deaths in the home. However, information on fatalities in the home due to electric shock and due to fires caused by electrical faults, misuse and installation faults can be found in the most recent memorandum to the DCLG Select Committee on Part P Building Regulations, see: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/communities-andlocal-government/150303-Memorandum-to-CLG-Sel-Com-on-Part-P.pdf
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment her Department has undertaken of the electrical safety and adequacy of measures to prevent electrical fires in care homes in England.
Answered by Mike Penning
Fire safety in care homes is the responsibility of the operator who is required under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 to assess the risk from fire to residents and employees and to implement appropriate fire precautions to prevent fires and mitigate the risk that, should a fire break out, lives are not put at risk. This would include mitigating the risk of and from electrical fires.
The Government’s fire safety risk assessment guidance for residential care premises provides detailed advice on ensuring electrical equipment is safe, and is inspected regularly by a competent electrical engineer in accordance with the Electricity at Work Regulations.
It is for local fire and rescue authorities to determine whether the specific fire precautions and management and maintenance arrangements in place in any particular residential care premises are sufficient to comply with the provisions of the Order.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of mandatory electrical safety checks in care homes.
Answered by Mike Penning
Fire safety in care homes is the responsibility of the operator who is required under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 to assess the risk from fire to residents and employees and to implement appropriate fire precautions to prevent fires and mitigate the risk that, should a fire break out, lives are not put at risk. This would include mitigating the risk of and from electrical fires.
The Government’s fire safety risk assessment guidance for residential care premises provides detailed advice on ensuring electrical equipment is safe, and is inspected regularly by a competent electrical engineer in accordance with the Electricity at Work Regulations.
It is for local fire and rescue authorities to determine whether the specific fire precautions and management and maintenance arrangements in place in any particular residential care premises are sufficient to comply with the provisions of the Order.
Asked by: Jim Fitzpatrick (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to reduce the number of fires caused by an electrical source of ignition in domestic dwellings.
Answered by Mike Penning
The Department’s Fire Kills campaign, run in close partnership with fire and rescue authorities in England, promotes a range of domestic fire safety messages, including on electrical fire safety, to ensure householders take appropriate action to prevent accidental fires and understand how best they can protect themselves and their families.
Fire Kills and Electrical Safety First have a longstanding and close partnership to promote electrical fire safety messages, including through the annual Electrical Fire Safety Week, which runs in November each year.
The campaign also supports the Register My Appliance initiative, run by the Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Electrical Appliances. This is designed to improve recall rates and ensure a greater number of faulty products can be traced and either repaired or removed from homes.