First, I draw attention to my commercial and residential property interests as set out in the register. I should have done that some time ago, so I apologise to noble Lords.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his amendment on the duties of an owner. However, before turning to the points made, I want to put a few comments on the record. The Grenfell Tower fire was a national tragedy. For nearly six years, I was the leader of the neighbouring borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, so I was affected personally by it. In fact, our town hall served to help people in the community and give them shelter on the night of that event. I point out that it was the greatest loss of life in a residential fire since the Second World War. From the outset, I want to make it clear to this House, as I did in my all-Peers letter, that the Government are, and have always been, committed to implementing and, where appropriate, legislating for the inquiry’s recommendations. An unequivocal commitment to doing that was set out in our manifesto.
In some areas, we are going further than the inquiry’s recommendations, for instance on the information about cladding, building plans, lift checks and smoke control systems. In other areas, we are seeking to implement the recommendations in the most proportionate, pragmatic and effective way. The vote in the other place in no way signals that this Government have altered this commitment in any way. I will set out our approach on this issue.
It is right that we consult before we act with legislation on the Grenfell recommendations. This is not just because we have a statutory duty to do so. It reflects Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s own view on the need to ensure broad support for his recommendations and an understanding of the practical issues associated with implementing them. In his report, Sir Martin noted that it was important that his recommendations
“command the support of those who have experience of the matters to which they relate.”
Our 12-week consultation did just that. It gave all those affected—residents, responsible persons, including building owners and managers, the fire sector and enforcing authorities—the opportunity to make their voices heard. I am pleased to say that they responded, with more than 250 responses received.
This amendment is not necessary and will not speed up the legislative process; it would simply require us to make regulations on the specified areas in the amendment relating to the sharing of information, flat entrance doors, lifts and personal and emergency evacuation plans. We already plan to lay regulations on these areas; we do not need further primary legislation to do that. Subject to the outcomes of the consultation, we intend, where possible, to use secondary legislation under Article 24 of the fire safety order to implement the recommendations. Our intention is to introduce these regulations as soon as possible after the Bill has commenced.
I hope that this explanation of the Government’s plan to implement the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower inquiry’s phase 1 report has gone some way to satisfying honourable Members in the other place and noble Lords. I hope that, on that basis, the noble Lord will be content to withdraw his amendment.
On the other amendments in this group, I agree there is a clear need for reform in relation to fire risk assessors. Other amendments focus more on capacity issues, whereas these rightly shine a light on competence. As was set out in the other place, a lot of work is already in hand, and industry has largely been leading the way. The industry-led Competence Steering Group is looking at ways to increase competence and capacity in the sector. I am very pleased that the group recently published its final report, which includes proposals on creating a register of fire risk assessors, third-party accreditation and a competence framework for fire risk assessors. The Government are carefully considering the detail of this report and its recommendations.
The Government are also working with the National Fire Chiefs Council and the wider fire sector to take forward plans for addressing both the short-term and long-term capability issues within the sector.
I want to share the Government’s views on this amendment. First, it is important we establish a basic principle of competence so that everyone carrying out an assessment should be appropriately qualified. This is regardless of whether they are a fire risk assessor or other fire safety professional, such as an engineer. We put forward a proposal on this in the fire safety consultation, which closed on 12 October. Considering the merits of accreditation will be a more detailed process. For example, assessing external wall systems with cladding will sometimes require significantly greater expertise than is likely to be that of a specialist fire engineer. It is our view that we should implement a competence requirement first and then look at the best way to increase professionalism across the sector.
Secondly, this amendment, understandably, would have the effect of applying an accreditation requirement to individuals undertaking fire risk assessments only in buildings with
“two or more sets of domestic premises”—
for example, in multi-occupied residential buildings. It would not cover all other premises within scope of the fire safety order, including, for example, care homes and hospitals. The risk is that if this amendment is passed, it will create a two-tier system whereby such premises would require an assessment from an accredited fire risk assessor but all other premises covered under the fire safety order would not. This would mean we would have to legislate further to ensure parity. I do not believe that that was the noble Lord’s intention in tabling this amendment. I can assure the House that work is already in hand to address competency issues, and we will take forward our proposal in the consultation to strengthen the competence requirements within the fire safety order.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, for raising the important issue of prioritising enforcement action in respect of the risk of buildings and targeting of resources, which I also covered earlier in the debate on amendments relating to commencement. The task and finish group has told us to start in one go and then use a risk-based system, so I hope that will reassure the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. I note that this amendment was raised in the other place; our position on this, which I will set out in a moment, remains unchanged.
The amendment is unnecessary in the context of established operational practice, which ensures that enforcement authorities target their resources appropriately and according to risk. The fire and rescue national framework for England requires fire and rescue authorities to have
“a locally determined risk-based inspection programme in place for enforcing compliance with the”
fire safety order. The framework also sets out the expectation that fire and rescue authorities will target their resources on individuals or households who are at greatest risk from fire in the home and on non-domestic premises where the life safety risk is greatest. The national framework for Wales includes similar provisions.
Enforcers are obliged to have regard to similar requirements in the Regulators’ Code, which states that all regulators should base their regulatory activities on risk and use an evidence-based approach when determining the priority risks in their area of responsibility. In addition, the building risk review programme, which will see all high-rise residential buildings reviewed or inspected by fire and rescue authorities by the end of 2021, is a key part of this work. The programme will enable building fire risks to be reviewed and data to be collected to ensure that local resources are targeted at buildings most at risk.
The Government have provided £10 million in funding to support fire and rescue services to deliver the Government’s commitment to review all high-rise residential buildings over 18 metres—or six floors and above—by the end of December 2021. This funding will also strengthen the NFCC’s central strategic function to drive improvements in fire protection and is in addition to a further £10 million grant to bolster fire protection capacity and capability within local fire and rescue services.
I reiterate that we are aware of the capacity issues. Our approach to commencement has been informed, as I said, by the recommendations of the task and finish
group, co-chaired by the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Fire Sector Federation, which brought together fire safety experts, building managers and representatives of the wider fire sector, who considered capacity and risk in the context of commencement of the Bill.
I have set out the Government’s position on this issue and why we consider this amendment unnecessary. For the reasons set out above, I ask that the amendments in this group not be pressed.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, for raising the issue of waking watches, which has a profound impact on the lives of many people. The amendment places a duty on the relevant authority to specify whether a waking watch is necessary in event of “fire safety failings”. It is unclear how this would work or what it would mean. One interpretation is that the relevant authority would have to try to specify a list in regulations of all the potential circumstances where there had been a fire safety failing and then establish whether each of those individual failings would require a waking watch to be put in place.
Such a duty on the relevant authority would be disproportionate and onerous without necessarily being effective. It would largely remove or reduce the ability of a responsible person to consider the specific circumstances of the premises and other fire protection measures in place, all of which can vary considerably from building to building. The other risk of this wording is that such a list could be prescriptive. What if there are specific individual circumstances, or a combination of various failings, that do not fall within the list? The common-sense view may be that a waking watch should be put in place but such a decision could be inhibited by legislation. Restricting the responsible person’s discretion to assess exactly what is required in each situation would not be right. A decision on the use of waking watch should be taken on the basis of the individual circumstances of each case.
I can provide reassurance that we are taking forward work on waking watches in conjunction with the National Fire Chiefs Council, which I will briefly outline. The National Fire Chiefs Council revised its guidance relating to waking watches, a copy of which I have here, on 1 October. It now provides very clear advice which supports the fire and rescue services and its implementation on the ground by the responsible persons. The updated guidance now advises responsible persons to explore cost-benefit options with leaseholders and residents. It also encourages the installation of common fire alarm systems, which means reducing the dependency on waking watch wherever possible. The guidance also emphasises that residents can carry out waking watch activities when fully trained, if necessary. However, we assume that in many cases a common fire alarm system will suffice.
On 16 October, we published data on the costs of waking watches which provides transparency on the range of costs, allowing comparisons to be clearly made. It also highlights the importance of identifying at what point waking watch costs exceed the cost of an alarm system, in an attempt to help reduce interim costs for leaseholders and residents. The calculations show that having a common alarm system pays back within seven weeks, compared with paying for the average cost of a waking watch.
Our aim must ultimately be to reduce the need for waking watches and the costs that they bring. A key plank of this is to progress remediation. It is the pace of remediation that matters, and despite having a global pandemic, I am pleased that, with the help of the mayors of our city regions and local authorities, we have seen the pace of remediation increase in removing the most dangerous type of cladding—aluminium composite material. The projection is that over 90% of buildings will be on site or will have remediated the cladding in question, which is great progress, with over 100 starts over the course of this year so far. As a Minister with joint responsibility for fire and building safety, obviously, I attach the highest priority to ensuring that all buildings with unsafe cladding are remediated.
On Amendments 15 and 16, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for raising important issues regarding establishing public registers of fire risk assessments and fire risk assessors. I will address fire risk assessments first. The fire safety order sets a self-compliance regime. There is currently no requirement for responsible persons to record their completed fire risk assessments, save for limited provision in respect of employers. If they fall within that category, they are required to record the significant findings of the assessment and any group of persons identified by the assessment as being especially at risk.
The creation of a fire risk assessment register will place upon responsible persons a new level of regulation that could be seen as going against the core principles of the order, notably its self-regulatory and non-prescriptive approach. There is also the question of ownership, maintenance and where the cost of a register such as this would lie. A delicate balance needs to be struck. There are improvements to be made here but we need to ensure that they are proportionate.
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The Government acknowledge that work remains to be done to ensure that residents have access to vital fire safety information in order to be safe and feel safe in their homes. They need to be assured that a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment has been completed and that all appropriate general precautions have or will be taken. For potential buyers of leasehold flats, I should also say that any good conveyancing solicitor would ask for sight of the fire risk assessment from the responsible person—the freeholder—as part of their pre-contract enquiries. If it was not forthcoming, one would expect a solicitor to advise their clients accordingly and make all due inferences.
The fire safety consultation brought forward proposals in relation to the recording of the fire risk assessment and the provision of vital fire safety information to residents. Therefore, we are considering what information residents need to be safe and feel safe in their home, and how this information could be made available. We are also considering whether a requirement should be placed on all responsible persons to record their completed fire risk assessments, thereby providing a level of assurance that their duty to complete a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment has been fulfilled. The consultation closed on 12 October and responses are currently being considered. We will publish the response to this consultation at the earliest opportunity.
I now turn to Amendment 16, which seeks to create a public register of fire risk assessors. I agree that to improve standards there is a clear need for reform concerning fire risk assessors. I understand that this is a probing amendment and it may be helpful to outline ongoing work in the area of fire risk assessor capacity and capability. Some Members will be aware of the industry-led Competence Steering Group and its subgroup working on fire risk assessors. It published a report on 5 October, including proposals in relation to third-party accreditation, a competence framework for fire risk assessors and creating a register of fire risk assessors. The working group recommends that the register is compiled from the existing registers and would be easy to use, with open public access to records of individuals and organisations. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the HSE and the Home Office are considering the recommendations of the report in detail.
The Government have been working with the fire risk assessment sector to develop a clear plan to increase its capacity and capability. We are funding the British Standards Institution to develop technical guidance to support professionals to make an assessment of the fire risk posed by external wall systems. This guidance will support the industry to upskill more professionals to take on this work and will increase the quality and consistency of the assessments. Again, the responses to the consultation proposals will inform the approach on issues relating to competence.
To summarise, the right approach is for the Government to consider first the Competence Steering Group and its subgroup’s proposals in relation to a register of fire risk assessors. Our position is that this work should continue to be led and progressed by industry. I am happy to state on the record that we will work with the industry to develop this. I suggest that any future statutory requirements on fire risk assessors might be achieved through secondary legislation, which will offer greater flexibility to add to or amend in future.
I now turn to Amendment 17 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and thank the noble Baroness for tabling it. The proposed new clause would stop all remediation costs from being passed on to leaseholders, regardless of the terms in individual leases. The person responsible for funding remediation will vary from case to case, depending on what is set out in the lease. A freehold owner—who may have significant funds or none to meet these requirements—may be legally responsible for carrying out the remedial works, but leaseholders may also be responsible through a right to manage company or resident’s management company. It is important that the current flexibility is kept in place to ensure that the costs of remedial work fall on the most appropriate entities. However, I agree with the intent to reduce the financial burden on leaseholders. That is why this Government have already committed £1.6 billion to fund the removal and replacement of unsafe cladding on high-rise residential buildings where the building owner has refused to pay or the work is not covered by warranties. That money includes the £600 million that we have made available to ensure the remediation of the highest risk and most dangerous aluminium composite material cladding of the type that was in place on
Grenfell Tower. The £1 billion Building Safety Fund will support the remediation of unsafe non-aluminium composite material cladding, such as unsafe high-pressure laminate cladding, on high-rise residential buildings.
The funding does not absolve industry from taking responsibility for any failures that led to unsafe cladding materials being put on these buildings in the first place. We expect developers, investors and building owners —and the construction industry—who have the means to pay, to take responsibility and cover the costs of remediation themselves, without passing on the costs to leaseholders. The draft building safety Bill sets out a comprehensive list of enforcement measures that will be available to local authorities and the new regulator to enforce against building work that does not comply with building regulations for up to 10 years from completion. The new regime in this Bill is being introduced to prevent such safety defects occurring in the first place for new builds, and to address systematically the defects in existing buildings.
Moreover, as part of any funding agreement with Government, we expect building owners to pursue warranty claims and appropriate action against those responsible for putting unsafe cladding on these buildings. By doing this, we are not only ensuring that buildings are made safe and that residents feel and are safe, but we are also ensuring that the taxpayer is not paying for work that those responsible should be funding or can afford to fund.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, wanted to know about the vehicle by which we shall address this, in the event that it falls on leaseholders. I ask her to be patient—it will be addressed within the forthcoming building safety Bill which has just passed its pre-legislative scrutiny. I appreciate the intent of the noble Baroness’s amendment, which aims to protect those poor leaseholders who, through no fault of their own, are facing—in some cases—astronomically high remediation costs. The Secretary of State has asked Michael Wade, the former Crown insurer, and a senior adviser to MHCLG, to work with industry and our officials to come up with a solution to ensure that, in no instance, do the costs of historic remediation become unaffordable for leaseholders. He is working to find out what funding structures would be most appropriate to achieve this objective. Leaseholders should not have to face unmanageable and unaffordable costs. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government has committed to updating our position when the building safety Bill comes before Parliament.
I ask Members to recognise the complexity of this policy area, which cannot be solved through this amendment. This new clause would make owners, who in some cases will include leaseholders, responsible for funding any and all remediation work. For example, service and maintenance charges would at present meet the cost of safety work required as a result of routine wear and tear, such as worn fire door closers. These costs would now fall to building owners. I hope that noble Lords agree that there are more effective ways of achieving this important policy. We have the same aim, but we have to find different ways of achieving it. For these reasons, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, to withdraw his amendment.