I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for raising this important matter. I am afraid that the Government will not be able to accept these two amendments, but I assure your Lordships that their intention has already been met in the Bill. The building safety regulator will be the building control authority for building work on higher-risk buildings as defined under Part 3. Clause 32 provides new powers to set procedural requirements in building regulations to govern building work. These powers will provide the basis for the new gateways process for creating new higher risk buildings and a new refurbishment process when carrying out certain building work on higher-risk buildings.
The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, brought up very specific issues and situations. I will make sure that we write on those, because they are very specific and I do not have briefings on them, although I can say that minor works will still be covered by self and third-party certification, as the noble Lord, Lord Khan, said. However, the BSR can inspect those works if it wishes to, so it will keep an eye on them and will use its powers to do that. On trade and business self-certification and on window replacements, which the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned, I will get a specific answer to noble Lords and put a copy in the Library.
The building safety regulator will be solely responsible for overseeing compliance with all aspects of building regulations, not just fire and structure, when building work is carried out on higher-risk buildings. This responsibility will not be split between the building safety regulator and the relevant local authority. Furthermore, these amendments refer to the building safety regulator acting as
“the building control authority by virtue of Part 4.”
The meaning of the term “building control authority” is inserted into the Building Act 1984 by Clause 31 and does not relate to Part 4 of the Bill, which is concerned with higher-risk residential buildings when they are occupied. In addition, Clause 31 provides the legal framework to enable the building safety regulator to be the building control authority for building work carried out on higher-risk buildings. It also provides that on multibuilding sites where one or more of the buildings are higher-risk buildings, the developer may, for convenience, seek an agreement with the building safety regulator that it will be the building control authority for the whole site, including in respect of any low-rise buildings.
I thank noble Lords for suggesting these amendments, but with that explanation I respectfully ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment. I will write.