My Lords, my Amendment 59 is concerned with the first two lines of paragraph 5 of Schedule 8, which begins:
“Building safety costs may be taken into account in determining the … building safety charge payable by a relevant tenant”.
You can bet your life they will be. Leaseholders know that every other week a notice comes from the managing agents to say that the freeholder or landlord has decided that the corridor lighting needs updating, new lines need to be painted in the car park, the entry phone system needs replacing and so on, ad nauseam. This schedule gives them another excuse for possibly unnecessary, gold-plated, so-called safety improvements and contracts let to their favourite contractors. That is why my amendment seeks to add these words at the end of the sentence I have just quoted:
“only if they are below a maximum as specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State”.
It is another plea for the Government to take a permissive power so that, if it proves to be the case that service or safety charges have been jacked up, they can use a regulation to put a control on it.
These regulations may not be necessary—I hope they are not—but the power should be there just in case it is needed. If your Lordships just google “leasehold scandals”, up will pop names such as McCarthy & Stone and Peverel, now calling itself FirstPort—I can assure your Lordships that Mr Tchenguiz has not made his millions by being nice to leaseholders.
My Amendment 66A adds to the definition of “relevant defect” in new subsection (2) in Amendment 66. At the moment it says:
“‘Relevant defect’ means a defect as regards a building that … arises as a result of anything done (or not done), including anything used (or not used), in connection with relevant works, and … causes a building safety risk.”
I propose to add at the end:
“which may relate to but is not limited to … external cladding … internal walls and the materials contained inside any walls … fire doors … balconies … a lack of sprinklers, fire detection and control systems … inadequate escape routes.”
Quite simply, I believe that builders should pay for all fire safety remedial work and not just external cladding. But I also hope that common sense can prevail and the Government can lay down the law that wooden decking on a steel balcony is not a fire risk, and that potentially flammable materials sandwiched inside non-combustible
inner and outer walls do not need to be removed. There are a lot of excessive suggestions on fire risk materials going round at the moment, and that needs to be stamped on.
My Amendment 86 seeks to insert a new clause to prevent managing agents charging excessive amounts for undertaking fire risk assessments or preparing applications for assistance. In particular, I suggest that the regulations may include—again I stress “may”:
“setting limits on the charges managing agents may impose for fire risk assessments … setting limits on the charges managing agents may impose for making applications to the Building Safety Fund or any other source of funding for fire risk remedial works … setting limits on the charges managing agents may impose for inviting tenders for fire risk remedial works … preventing service charges being inflated by fire risk remedial works.”
I suggest that these are all reasonable. My noble friend the Minister knows what managing agents are like. If we are not careful, this Bill will be a licence for them to print money: charging for the work of the accountable person and for drawing up the strategy, coming into all our homes to look for safety dangers, and a host of other things they will be able, quite legitimately, to charge leaseholders for. While they can do so, I suspect that the charges will be excessively high. Thus, the backstop of a regulatory power is essential.
I commend Amendment 131 from my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. He made a compelling case for a short, sharp inquiry into the charges for fire safety work which leaseholders have had to pay and which are not covered by this Bill. That is eminently sensible stuff.
7.45 pm
Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that the three amendments I have tabled are probably the last ones I shall table in Committee. It therefore behoves me to say to my noble friend the Minister that great line from “Twelfth Night”:
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
My noble friend has a chance to achieve two of these aspirations. If he accepts our great amendments, which we are thrusting on him, then he will himself achieve greatness; when this Bill is an Act, he too can have the epitaph, although not too soon of course, of that great British builder Sir Christopher Wren at St Paul’s Cathedral: “Si monumentum requiris circumspice”—if you seek his monument, look around you. This Bill could be a great monument: safe housing for all our citizens.