My Lords, I will look briefly first at Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. As we know, the proposed building safety regulator will be responsible for implementing and enforcing the new regime and will monitor the safety and performance of all buildings, with the aims of securing the safety of people in or about buildings and improving standards. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, went into a lot of detail and clearly laid out all the reasons behind his amendment, so I will not go over the ground that he has covered.
I just make the point that amendments have been made to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act to reflect this, so the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, would also bring those necessary powers contained in the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act into this Bill and would, as the noble Lord said, be in accordance with the recommendations of the Hackitt report. This seems a practical and sensible approach.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in his Amendment 135, raises the issue of office to residential conversions, which are being actively encouraged by the Government. We need to consider any associated building safety issues with that policy. The noble Lord asked the Minister for clarification on this, and I think that this clarification is important so that we all know exactly what implications there will be. I will be interested in the Minister’s response to that.
I have a number of amendments in this group. I will first speak to Amendments 11 and 43 in my name—I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for her support on them. Combined, they will ensure that the more stringent building safety framework applies not just to buildings over 18 metres but to those under that, where they are multiple occupancy dwellings. We believe the Building Safety Bill, in its original draft and as amended in Committee in the other place, fails robustly to confirm whether the gateway system will apply to buildings under 18 metres where there are multiple occupancy dwellings. This will create a two-tier system where buildings below 18 metres will face less rigorous safety regulations than those over 18 metres.
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Importantly, we need to avoid any capacity issues arising for the building safety regulator. For buildings under 18 metres, the local authority would be the building control authority, not the building safety regulator. Local authority building control would cover the operation of the gateway system at all heights below 18 metres—I hope I have made that clear.
Amendment 11 also removes developers’ ability to pick their own regulator for multi-occupancy buildings under 18 metres—meaning that the local authority building control will be the sole regulator—to prevent a two-tier system developing in building safety. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her supportive words on this issue. We must ensure that the duties performed by the regulator under Clause 31 are performed by the local authority that exercises building control functions. The Hackitt report identified the ability of duty holders to choose their own building control body as a major weakness of the current regulatory regime. It is also worth pointing out that this amendment and what it aims to achieve are supported by the Local Government Association. The amendment removes concerns that the Government may fail, or take a long time, to expand the higher-risk regime to include more buildings.
Amendment 43 would extend the provisions of paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Building Act 1984 to multiple occupancy dwellings.
My Amendment 127 is on a completely different issue to others discussed in this group, but it was chosen to be put here. It would force the Secretary of
State to bring forward new flood resilience regulations. I have tabled it because I am increasingly frustrated by the Government’s seemingly laissez-faire approach to flood protection. It was barely mentioned during the passage of the Environment Bill, to which I also put an amendment on flood protection. We really need to introduce minimum national flood protection standards for new-build housing.
The reasoning behind this is the inevitable change to our climate and the fact that we will see more flooding in this country. We have seen some this weekend—look at all the storms we have been having, which unfortunately are becoming more frequent. Legislation is simply not keeping up with the reality of our climate future. In 2019, the Climate Change Committee published a report on housing in which it stated:
“UK homes are not fit for the future.”
It found that
“efforts to adapt the housing stock for higher temperatures, flooding and water scarcity are falling far behind the increase in risk from the changing climate”
emergency.
Currently, local authority planning departments can choose what property flood resilience measures they introduce as part of their pre-commencement conditions. In reality, this means that adjacent local authorities have different requirements for property flood resilience, flood mitigation and water management measures, even if they are rated within the same flood zone.
Over 6 million homes in the UK are currently at risk of flooding, without any property flood resilience measures. This should be a cause for extreme concern, yet the Government are failing to address it and flooding is not mentioned anywhere in the Bill. We believe it is irresponsible and reckless to allow new builds to continue to be built in this country without strong property flood resilience measures, because we need our homes to be fit for the future. It is also frustrating that Flood Re does not cover new builds built after the date it came in, on the basis that the planning reforms mean that no future houses could be built to be at risk of flood. Yet we know that is simply not the case; new-build houses still flood.
The Minister may well say that this is not a matter for this Bill because it is nothing more than a planning matter, but safety standards for buildings should cover building in resilience against flooding as well as resilience against other safety concerns. Without positive action from the Government, tens of thousands more homes will be built without the protection they need, so I urge the Minister to consider improving provisions on flooding as part of this Bill.
I feel passionately about this; I hope that comes across. I feel that I am constantly saying “We need to do this” in every debate on legislation where there is an opportunity, but it never actually happens. I hope that the Minister will listen to my plea with some sympathy.