My Lords, it has been an absolutely fascinating debate. This is very much the additional safety measures group—that is three words; you cannot do better than that. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, in particular for raising this important issue, as well as noble Lords who have spoken about the Safer Stairs campaign. I am sorry that I did not hear from my noble friend Lady Eaton, but she could easily have joined forces with everyone here.
I have been invited to say, “Just go for it” or “Just do it”—it is almost like a Nike ad in this House—but I think that it is a question of how you go for it. I met with the chief executive of RoSPA, Errol Taylor, in this House, and we have a plan that is important to share with noble Lords. As my officials have said, it would be highly unusual, even though people are grappling for precedents, to include in an Act of Parliament something that is as detailed as this, referring to a specific technical standard.
We are not graced by the presence of my noble friend Lord Young, who was Minister when the building regulations were passed. It is possible that this existing standard, BS 5395-1, could be included in an approved document. Indeed, it is in Approved Document K. I have received a letter from RoSPA making that proposal, which we will take to the next meeting of the Building Regulations Advisory Committee—BRAC—which advises on these things. We have effectively brought forward the next meeting, which was scheduled for September, as I know that noble Lords are very impatient.
We brought forward that meeting, which essentially is an emergency BRAC, to 16 March. That is how fast we move in my department. You meet someone on 23 February, you set up an emergency meeting on 16 March and you get an answer. Let us see whether the route of updating the approved document is an elegant way of fulfilling the desires that have been laid out by so many noble Lords. We all have elderly parents, or some of your Lordships may well; I do not. No, I take that back—perhaps we do not all have elderly parents. I suddenly realised that that was probably not the thing to say. [Laughter.]