Lords statement on Building Regulations and Fire Safety: Government Response - May 17

• Lord Young of Cookham (Con) 

  My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement made today by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State in the other place. The Statement is as follows:

   

  “Mr Speaker, with permission, I would like to make a Statement on the publication of Dame Judith Hackitt’s final report following her Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety. Honourable and right honourable Members will be aware that my predecessor and the then Home Secretary asked Dame Judith to carry out this review following the Grenfell Tower fire. We are approaching one year on from that tragic event, and those affected are firmly in our minds. I met some of the bereaved and survivors as soon as I could after I was appointed. This strengthened my determination to ensure that they continue to receive the support they need and to ensure that we learn from this tragedy so nothing like this can ever happen again. With this in mind, Dame Judith was asked to undertake her review of the existing system as part of a comprehensive response to the fire. I want to pay tribute to Dame Judith and all those who contributed to this important report.

   

  The report’s publication is a watershed for everyone who has a stake in ensuring that the people living in buildings like Grenfell Tower are safe—and feel safe. Dame Judith is clear that the current system—developed over many years and successive Governments—is not fit for purpose. She is calling for major reform and a change of culture, with the onus more clearly on everyone involved to manage the risks they create at every stage, and government doing more to set and enforce high standards. This Government agree with that assessment and support the principles behind the report’s recommendations for a new system. We agree with the call for greater clarity and accountability over who is responsible for building safety during the construction, refurbishment and ongoing management of high-rise homes.

   

  The Hackitt review has shown that in too many cases, people who should be accountable for fire safety have failed in their duties. In future, the Government will ensure that those responsible for a building must demonstrate that they have taken decisive action to reduce building safety risks and will be held to account. We agree that the system should be overseen by a more effective regulatory framework, including stronger powers to inspect high-rise buildings and sanctions to tackle irresponsible behaviour. We agree that there should be no buck-passing between different parts of the industry and that everyone needs to work together to change the system and, crucially—given the concerns raised following the Grenfell tragedy—we agree that residents must be empowered with relevant information. They must be able to act to make their homes safer.

   

  This review has implications for government as a whole. I am committing today to bring forward legislation that delivers meaningful and lasting change and gives residents a much stronger voice in an improved system of fire safety. Changing the law will take time. But, as Dame Judith acknowledges, we can—and must—start changing the culture and practice right now. As a first step, we are asking everyone involved to have their say on how we can achieve this by contacting us by the end of July. Their response will inform a more detailed Statement to the House in the autumn on how we intend to implement the new regulatory system. I will also update the House on progress before the Summer Recess.

   

  We all have a role to play. For our part, this Government have accepted and have been implementing the recommendations that relate to us since Dame Judith published her interim report in December. First, we are consulting on significantly restricting or banning the use of “desktop studies” to assess cladding systems. Inappropriate use of desktop studies is unacceptable and I will not hesitate to ban them if the consultation—which closes on 25 May—does not demonstrate that they can be used safely.

   

  Secondly, we are working with industry to clarify building regulations fire safety guidance, and I will publish this for consultation in July. Let me be clear: the cladding believed to be on Grenfell Tower was unlawful under existing building regulations. It should not have been used. But I will ensure that there is no room for doubt over what materials can be used safely in the cladding of high-rise residential buildings. Having listened carefully to concerns, the Government will consult on banning the use of combustible materials in cladding systems on high-rise residential buildings. Thirdly, we will work with the industry to make the wider suite of building regulations guidance more user friendly. All of this continues our work to ensure that people are safe.

   

  Since the Grenfell tragedy, my department has worked with fire and rescue services, local authorities and landlords to identify high-rise buildings with unsafe cladding, ensure that interim measures are in place to reduce risks, and give building owners clear advice about what they need to do, over the longer term, to make buildings safe. In addition, I am issuing a direction today to all local housing authorities to pay particular regard to cladding-related issues when reviewing housing in their areas.

   

  Remediation work has started on two-thirds of buildings in the social housing sector, and we have called on building owners in the private sector to follow the example set by the social sector and not pass costs on to leaseholders. I find it outrageous that some private sector landlords have been slow to co-operate with us on this vital work. I am calling on them to do the right thing. If they do not, I am not ruling anything out at this stage.

   

  As the Prime Minister announced yesterday, the Government will fully fund the removal and replacement of potentially dangerous cladding by social landlords, with costs estimated at £400 million. This will ensure that they can focus their efforts on making ACM cladding systems safe for the buildings they own. We want to allocate this funding for remediation as soon as possible and will announce more details shortly, including how we will encourage landlords to continue to pursue other parties for costs where they are responsible or at fault. We will also continue to offer financial flexibilities for local authorities which need to undertake essential fire safety work.

   

  We must create a culture that truly puts people and their safety first, inspires confidence and, yes, rebuilds public trust. Dame Judith’s review and the significant changes that will flow from it are important first steps, helping us ensure that when we say ‘never again’, we mean it. I commend this Statement to the House”.

2.35 pm 

2.46 pm 

• Lord Deben (Con) 

  My Lords, we are all deeply concerned that this should not happen again and I welcome what the Minister has read out. In particular, I hope the Government will give a clear indication that the banning of combustible materials is something they would like to do. We have to have a consultation, but, given our debate yesterday on why it is important to make clear in any consultation where the Government believe the future should be, it is important that the Government are very clear about this.

   

  Does my noble friend accept that Dame Judith’s report clearly highlights that inspection and enforcement have a big role to play, and failed in this case? Therefore, I hope I am not extending it too far to say that there is a fundamental problem with the building regulations in general. We have to recognise that building regulations are not being met by new housebuilders, for example, because they are not inspected and the regulations are not enforced. In my view, this is a clarion call to review the way in which inspection and enforcement take place. I hope the Government will say that this is not just about fire safety but about all the other regulations we have passed, which should be enforced. I suppose I ought to declare my interest as chairman of the climate change committee. This is a real issue for us, because we cannot get the enforcement we need for new buildings.

• Lord Young of Cookham 

  I am grateful to my noble friend, himself a former Secretary of State at the Department of the Environment with responsibility for building regulations. The Hackitt review has recommended what she calls “gateways”—steps that must be fulfilled before the next stage in the construction process can happen, from design, to planning, to completion. On inspection, there is an interesting section in the report about approved inspectors, where Dame Judith sees a perceived conflict of interest and recommends some changes. On regular inspection, there is a recommendation that high-rise buildings should be inspected rigorously at least every five years for safety. On resources for the planning regime, my noble friend will know that we have recently increased the fees that planning authorities may charge with the increase being ring-fenced for actions such as enforcement.

   

  I should have said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, that I have the latest figures from the royal borough on the rehousing of the Grenfell survivors. As of 14 May, of the 210 households that needed to be rehoused, 201—95%—have accepted offers of temporary or permanent accommodation. Of those, 138 have moved into temporary or permanent accommodation of which 64 are currently living in temporary accommodation and 74 have moved into permanent accommodation. Kensington and Chelsea Council is spending £235 million on providing the homes needed and we know that the council plans to spend an additional £83 million on top of the £152 million it has already reported spending. It has reported that it has now made over 300 permanent homes available to survivors to give people as much choice as possible.

   

  On the building regulations, Dame Judith’s point was that the problem was not so much the regulations but a failure of the system that supervises and enforces them.

• Baroness Brinton (LD) 

  My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the Fire Safety and Rescue APPG. I welcome the report from Dame Judith. It is time that the principle of a golden thread ran right through the entire planning, delivery and maintenance of buildings. I know that many others agree with that. I endorse the comments made by my noble friend Lord Stunell about the timing of legislation coming through, and I hope that those things that can be done swiftly will start to give confidence to the various parts of the industry that changes need to happen.

   

  Wearing my fire safety hat, I am slightly concerned that in the Statement the Minister referred to working with industry to clarify the building regulations fire safety guidance. I hope that does not just mean with the private industry side but includes the public sector, whether fire services or local government—or indeed those people who act as approved inspectors going in to have a look.

   

  Five years ago, the Secretary of State promised a full review of the approved document B regulations after the Lakanal House fire inquest. We need an urgent review of those. My concern is that Dame Judith Hackitt’s review is not explicit about what will happen to them. If they are to be made part and parcel of a general regulations review, please will the Government assure us that the reasons behind the review proposed five years ago remain and will be addressed as a matter of urgency? Everybody agreed five years ago that we should never let something like the Lakanal House tragedy happen again, yet here we are.

   

  Finally, I also endorse the comments made by my noble friend Lord Stunell. Please can we not just have guarantees and hopes that private freeholders will not pass on the costs? I completely accept the Minister’s point that many leaseholders are also freeholders, but I am afraid there are too many examples already of leaseholders being faced with massive charges by freeholders who are taking none of the risk and none of the liability. That is unacceptable.

• Lord Young of Cookham 

  I am grateful to the noble Baroness. On legislation, I can only repeat what I said: the Government place a high priority on public safety. I know that the Bill managers will take on board the points made by a number of noble Lords.

   

  On consultation, it will not just be a review of the industry. The noble Baroness is quite right. It will involve the fire and rescue service, local authority building standards people, approved inspectors and others.

   

  On the building regulations, we agree that the building regulations fire safety guidance needs clarification. Work actually began before the Grenfell fire last year. When the interim report was published, we promised to complete it. A clarified version of the guidance will be published for consultation in July. We want to ensure that there is no room for doubt about compliance of materials with the building regs. We will consult on Dame Judith’s recommendations, as I said, including the proposal that only non-combustible cladding can be used on high-rise buildings. Also in the report are proposals for much more stringent testing of materials, and other recommendations along those lines.

• Baroness Donaghy (Lab) 

  My Lords, I refer to the joint competent authority that the Minister has already mentioned and the implication that that would require primary legislation. This recommendation is extremely important and will help to build the infrastructure around a new and higher-standard regime. Is there any chance at all that a shadow authority could be established that might make the whole thing a little speedier than primary legislation?

   

  I have had the pleasure of working with Dame Judith. She refers in her report to the construction design and management regulations because she chaired the Health and Safety Commission. She reports that those regulations produced good outcomes. She is wedded to these approaches being repeated in relation to the safety and quality of complex buildings and to the safety of those who live in them. The Statement implies that there will be another set of consultations, perhaps by the end of July, a Statement before the Recess and another in the autumn. There will be legislation. Can the Minister elaborate a little on the Government’s thinking on precisely how quickly some of Dame Judith’s really urgent and effective recommendations could be implemented, short of primary legislation?

• Lord Young of Cookham 

  I am grateful to the noble Baroness. Some of the recommendations can be done without legislation, and we should start on those now—changing the culture within the industry, for example. The joint competent authority proposed by Dame Judith is quite a radical proposal. The powers are set out in more detail on page 23. We agree that we need an improved regulatory system with sharp teeth. It would make sense to bring together the three disparate bodies—the HSE, the fire and rescue service and local authority building standards—together in one overarching body with these teeth. The new body would process the applications for high-rise buildings. We need to consult on that model, as I said. We have a lot of support for her vision of an improved regulatory system. We want to consult and then set out our plans for implementation in the autumn. I note with interest the suggestion of the noble Baroness that if we go down the JCA route a shadow body should be set up to take over responsibility; she asks whether that could be done without legislation. We want to make progress and we recognise the need for reform and the need for some overarching body to make sure that we do not make the same mistakes again.

• Baroness Pinnock (LD) 

  My Lords, this is a good report and I am pleased that the Government have welcomed it in the way that they have. In order to give confidence to the many thousands of people who have great anxiety about the future—the residents who live in these buildings—I wonder whether the Government would be prepared for instance to take immediate action to implement some of the uncontroversial recommendations in this excellent report. For instance, the residents’ voice recommendations could be implemented almost without delay and would give confidence to people out there that the Government are taking not just the report but the actions from the report seriously.

   

  Secondly, I completely agree with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, about transparency and independence within building control, and about giving it some teeth. That is something I have been concerned with in my role as a councillor for a number of years. I look forward to that new system being independent of current construction companies and completely transparent in how it operates, and having the necessary teeth to implement action that it currently does not. That will require funding and I notice in the report a reference to that. I hope that the Government will be able to commit to properly funding local authorities in order to undertake new, strong measures to implement building control standards.

• Lord Young of Cookham 

  I am grateful to the noble Baroness. She is quite right about residents’ voices, and in many cases that is already happening. In both the social and the private sectors there are residents’ associations—or rather, tenant forums—whereby there is a good dialogue between the freeholder, the owner and those who live in the building, and Dame Judith’s report has some suggestions as to how to take that forward. I agree that we should do that without waiting for legislation: I entirely endorse the point.

   

  The JCA proposed by Dame Judith would indeed be independent. It would not be dominated by the industry but would be composed of the three components that I mentioned. On the residents’ voice—there is some in-flight refuelling here—the Government agree with the assessment and support the principles behind the report’s recommendations. We will work with partners to consider Dame Judith’s detailed recommendations and, again, we will set out our implementation plan in the autumn.

   

  On resources for local authorities, some local authorities have found it quite difficult to trace the owners of some privately owned high-rise blocks. People are either not answering or they are based overseas. We have therefore made £1 million available to local authorities in order to help them enforce their duties to identify and, where necessary, take action against the owners of buildings with unsuitable cladding. As I mentioned earlier, the increased fees for planning applications should provide more resources for planning departments.

• Lord Fox (LD) 

  My Lords, the Minister mentioned an outcome-based safety regime. My understanding of that process is that, rather than enforce point-by-point compliance with regulations A, B and C, while there has to be compliance, overall the system—the building, that is—has to be safe. The person who is accountable for the building has to underwrite its safety. This is remarkably similar to the outcome of the inquiry conducted by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cullen, into the Piper Alpha disaster, which talked about the safety case. As noble Lords will remember, it was an appalling tragedy, and the report wisely changed the philosophical approach to safety. The Hackitt review makes the same philosophical proposal.

   

  As someone who worked in and commented on the oil industry, I recognise this as being a positive suggestion. It means that there are lessons that the Government can learn about the rapid implementation of such a philosophical shift. So, as well as consulting the industry, I suggest that the Government should also consult the oil and gas industry, in particular the people who were around when that change was made, because it was a retrospective and ongoing change. Existing facilities had to be brought up to the new standard and new facilities had to be built in the new way. Can the Minister take that advice and talk to some of the people who have already made this philosophical shift?

• Lord Young of Cookham 

  The noble Lord is quite right: what Dame Judith is basically saying is that we should rely less on looking in isolation at individual elements within the construction industry, which she argues leads to fragmentation, silo thinking and gaming the system, and move towards an outcome-based approach, which means standing back and making sure that the system as a whole has integrity. She is worried that at the moment what she describes as a prescriptive approach means relying on people meeting minimum standards and not taking a broader view of what is going on. In a quote that makes the point, Dame Judith says:

   

  “This is most definitely not just a question of the specification of cladding systems but of an industry that has not reflected and learned for itself, nor looked to other sectors”.

   

   

  She wants to promote what she calls a proactive and holistic view of the system as a whole. So not only should we look at the oil and gas industries, we should also look at what is happening overseas where other countries are also moving towards an outcome-based system. I shall certainly take on board his point about a dialogue with other industries which have moved in this direction.

• Lord Shipley (LD) 

  My Lords, perhaps I may remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I will raise two issues which I do not think have come out fully in our discussions so far. One relates to the fact that in the future, and depending on the consultation, it might be possible for combustible materials to be used on buildings. The Government’s Statement says that people living in buildings such as Grenfell Tower should be safe and should feel safe. But no one who knows that their accommodation is made of combustible materials is going to feel safe, and I suspect that they will also face substantial increases in their insurance premiums. So I hope that we will pay close attention to what the ABI and RIBA are saying about the need to make the use of combustible materials illegal.

   

  My second question concerns the £400 million, because this issue has not yet been made clear. Is this a fixed sum of money which local authorities are to bid into or is it a flexible sum that may actually be higher than £400 million when all the costs of replacing the cladding are known? Further, does it include payment to local housing authorities for the fire watching that is currently being undertaken in a large number of high-rise blocks? It goes on for 24 hours a day, seven days a week and the costs are likely to have substantial implications for the rents paid by those who are in that accommodation. I hope very much that the £400 million is a flexible sum that will include the amount that might be loaded on to people’s rents.

• Lord Young of Cookham 

  I take the noble Lord’s point about the views of the ABI. Under the recommendations made by Dame Judith, those living in blocks of flats will have much more information about how safe their building is. She talks about a “golden thread”, which is a database relating to the building. It would be kept up to date and would be accessible to residents.

   

  On the £400 million, we want to allocate this funding for remediation as soon as possible and we will announce more details shortly, including how we will encourage landlords to continue to pursue other parties for costs where they are responsible or at fault. He asked whether it is a flexible sum. As someone who was once a Minister in that department and had negotiations with the Treasury, I suspect that it is not a flexible sum: it is £400 million that is available for local authorities to bid for to help them with the costs that they have faced. We are trying to do all we can to ensure that in the social housing sector, the costs of implementing the recommendations do not fall on tenants’ rents. We have made that position clear.