PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Fire Safety Bill - 7 September 2020 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

Consideration of Bill, not amended in the Public Bill Committee
Brought up, and read the First time.

This Bill is something of a personal milestone for the all-party parliamentary fire safety and rescue group. I have been involved with the group for 20 years, and it has had a long history of correspondence and meetings with successive Ministers of every political party, but particularly over the last 10 years. I was pleased to hear my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security say on moving the Bill’s Second Reading in April this year:
On the basis that he is listening to people like me, I believe that the Government can improve this Bill through a number of measures that seek to improve electrical safety in UK homes. Amending the Bill provides an opportunity to make immediate differences to the safety of people who live in multi-occupied buildings. Electricity does cause fires, and I believe that the Government need to consider seriously the electrical sources of ignition.

Taking more action to nail down the responsibility, particularly of owners where the freehold has been sold on, is particularly important. As hon. Members have observed, there are some owners and developers who have acted responsibly towards their leaseholders. They are frequently people who still have skin in the game, if I can put it that way, because they either have retained the ownership or are still active, and sometimes well-known, developers in the retail housing field who have a reputation that they properly want to maintain. However, that does not help constituents such as mine, where the freehold has been sold on to what is simply an offshore investment trust. In my constituents’ case, the freehold is owned by a vehicle for the Tchenguiz family trust. One can imagine the degree of altruism likely to be found in that quarter without a greater legal means of holding their feet to the fire.
Whether through these measures or otherwise, greater codification of the responsibilities of owners, and in a way that does not enable them to pass off responsibility on to the leaseholders, will be important. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how we can best achieve that, if not through an amendment to this legislation.
New clause 2 concerns fire risk assessors, which was another issue we debated on Second Reading. I appreciate the objective being sought here. All of us would want to ensure that the necessary assessments, including completion of the external wall survey forms—the EWS1 forms, more of which in a moment—are done to the highest quality and by reputable people. The problem is that, even at the moment, there are a number of obstacles to that being achieved. That is partly because of the current lack of qualified people and also because of a lack of cohesion in the process, which means that a number of other players, who need to be onside for the EWS system to work, are not fully taken on board. I am open to hearing how that should be achieved, but it is not just a question of having the register, by one means or another, and accreditation, important though they are. We also need to remove the obstacles to people undertaking this work.
That is where—as the Minister will not be surprised to know, because I have raised it with him and colleagues—I rely on the compelling evidence supplied by a firm of consultants, Frankham, which is based in my right hon. Friend’s constituency, but whose managing director is a constituent of mine, with whom I have discussed this matter on a number of occasions. This is a significant firm that carries out work in both the private and public rented sectors, as well as in the non-domestic sector. Its director of risk wrote a useful article in Inside Housing back in June, which I commend to the Minister and hon. Members, about the difficulties that fire risk assessment is running into and the operation of the EWS system.
In a nutshell, it comes to this. Although the scheme involved the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, local authorities, the housing sector and UK Finance, often on behalf of the mortgage lenders, in drawing it up, it did not involve the insurers. The difficulty is that many firms, such as Frankham and many other reputable firms, are being advised by their insurers not to complete, carry out and sign off the EWS forms because if they do, they will be accepting liability for the safety of a cladding system that they did not have a part in the original design and installation of. In other words, they are being asked to take responsibility for what was ultimately somebody else’s work. Hopefully, if one finds a defect, one reports it and action is taken, but there is always the possibility that there may be a defect and a problem comes along. In effect, their insurers are advising them in these terms:
Was that the intention? Of itself, it is probably right to expect them to do their job properly, but here is the rub:
The advice, therefore, is
This is made more difficult because, as was observed in an intervention, the people doing this are often unable to get access to the original documentation—the plans and drawings and so on—from those who did the installation in the first place. The result of that is that the work that is needed to do EWS1 forms is being clogged up. The number of accredited and reliable surveyors who are in a position safely to undertake this work—and commercially able to undertake it without exposing themselves to an impossible risk—is limited. New entrants into the market are therefore limited as well. Ministers really need to get the insurers round the table on this and bang heads together. We all have the same objective, but because not all the parties have been sufficiently brought together and their objectives aligned, we do not have an overarching forum to deal with this and we have not yet resolved the stand-off between the professional fire risk assessors who want to do their job and the insurers who are having to warn them of legal risks unless there is a means whereby we can get an agreed, acceptable form of declaration and wording that all people will understand. I do hope that the Minister will take this away, because it is a really pressing matter if we are going to make EWS1 system, which is in theory a good system, work properly.
That leads me to the remaining issues with the amendments. Much has been said about them, and I will not repeat that in great detail, but I want to mention new clause 5, which deals with the waking watch. That remains a profound issue, and there is inconsistency in the application of the guidance in this regard. For example, in London—in the case of my constituents—the requirement for an on-site permanent waking watch is insisted on by the London Fire Brigade, whereas West Yorkshire and certain other fire brigades are not insisting on the same approach. The rigidity that has been adopted—maybe for good professional reasons—in London has led to my constituents being advised that, even though they are prepared to pay to be trained themselves in fire safety matters so that they can provide their own in-house waking watch on a rota, thereby saving themselves many tens of thousands of pounds, that is apparently not acceptable, although that approach might be acceptable elsewhere. We need some standardisation, particularly as at the moment the compensation schemes are not picking up the costs of the waking watch. Whether it is by way of this new clause or otherwise, I hope that we can have some clarity from the Minister as to how are we going to deal with this issue. There must be standardisation of approach. People need to have certainty, and all the more so because their flats are now unsellable and unmortgageable. They are also concerned that they will become uninsurable. All those reasons make the need for action particularly pressing.
I turn to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West on electrical matters. I am open again to hearing from the Minister about whether there is a different way to achieve the objective. When I was Fire Minister, we dealt with, for example, the Fire Kills campaign—I was pleased that I managed to keep funding for that going during a time of financial pressure—and we all know that electrical goods are a principal or very significant cause of fire. That has been around for a long time. I understand—with respect to my hon. Friend—that there might be some difficulty with the way in which the amendments are formulated, with the obligation, for example, to enforce a register when, in effect, the manager of the building is acting on behalf of a freeholder or a management company and there may be leaseholders whose leases do not automatically permit entry for the purpose of compiling and updating a register. The amendment might need to be more tightly drawn in terms of what inspections are for. That may be an issue that needs to be resolved, so let us have a plan of action to deal with it.
I am told that, for example, we have the fire safety consultation as well as the Bill. What is the timeframe for the fire safety consultation to be concluded and acted on? These are matters on which there is a great deal of expertise; it is about giving a sense of urgency.
I will conclude on the point of how things do move on. When I was a Minister in the first half of the coalition Government, one of the things I did without hesitation was to authorise the Department to expend moneys and make available the services of our chief adviser on fire services to assist, as far as was required and necessary, the inquest into Lakanal House and to follow up thereafter the work to attempt to learn lessons from that. Nobody had any qualms about doing that because we wanted to see that the lessons from Lakanal House were learned—they have been alluded to today. Since then, we have found out more about the technology and type of materials used, and further lessons have had to be learned and added on. But I would gently observe that it is almost eight years to the day since the then Prime Minister asked me to go and see him in his room behind the Speaker’s Chair, rather than Downing Street, and, in most generous, warm and courteous terms, thanked me very much for my services as a member of the Government. He then said that, notwithstanding all those warm matters, he needed, I think the phrase was, to “make space”—I thought I was a fairly small package—and I returned to the Back Benches. Eight years is a long time under these circumstances. We have learned a lot more since, but it does show that, unless we make haste on these matters, time flies.
Of course, these are technical issues and many players have to be brought into the game together and aligned, but I do not want it to be another eight years before we get to a final resolution on these matters. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will be able to do that during his tenure of office. I will be very happy if that is a long time, but not as long as that. I urge him to give us some alternatives to the formulations brought forward in the debate and a sense of a real and pressing timeframe to have these matters resolved.

It is clear that this Bill will require a massively increased level of inspection and enforcement. That is all good, and necessary, but it will inevitably increase the workload of the fire and rescue services, with a subsequent need for training in view of the more complex inspections required. Has any serious thought been given to the additional resources that will be needed for fire services to inspect and enforce these new measures and the additional funding that will be needed? In its briefing back in April, the Fire Brigades Union estimated that potentially hundreds of thousands of premises would require additional activity by inspectors, and concluded that fire and rescue services
We have not seen any guarantees that this is on the cards. In fact, there seems to have been very little discussion with the FBU, whose members, lest we forget, are on the frontline of these changes.
To put this in context, the fire service has seen a decade of the most damaging cuts. A fifth of our firefighters have gone, and here is the real, terrible irony: even more fire safety inspectors—a quarter—have lost their jobs. The £20 million the Government have promised to fund fire safety pales into insignificance compared with the £141.5 million of cuts since 2013 in England. Government cuts mean that we now have fewer firefighters, fewer fire appliances and fewer inspectors —all the elements we need to make sure that another Grenfell does not happen again.
I pay tribute to the firefighters, support staff and all those across the service who have gone above and beyond during the pandemic, but this response lets them down, as well as the public they serve. The Bill was an opportunity to address more fundamental issues. By tabling these amendments and five new clauses, my party has attempted to speak to those communities in Grenfell and beyond who desperately want to see real action on fire safety. They should not have to wait any longer. They deserve that, at least.

Residents, including some in my constituency of St Albans, are trapped. They are trapped in a Catch-22 between the excessive cost burden of remediation and being unable to explore any of the financial options to sell up or extend their mortgage. The Government must understand the difficulties that the current situation places on people, such as my pregnant constituent who needs to move home urgently so that she can have a home that is more suitable for her growing family, but cannot do so, or the pensioner in my constituency who is reliant on the sale of their property to support them and their care needs in their retirement.
I will state once again that the Bill needs to be followed with much, much more—and quickly. The two new clauses I mentioned are particularly important to me, but I support all the amendments. They are important first steps and I thank colleagues for tabling them. However, we now need the Government to turbocharge the legislative agenda and to provide the funding upfront for remedial work. Without it, too many people will be held hostage by the inadequate safety standards of their own homes. When we say that an event like Grenfell must never be allowed to happen again, we must mean it. We cannot just have words; we need real action.

Finally, on electrical safety, many experts—including my hon. Friends the Members for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher), for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) and for Southend West (Sir David Amess)—spoke very passionately, with knowledge and on the basis of research, about the issues that that highlights. Certainly in my own conversations with those with an interest in fire, one of the points they have highlighted is that, in their view, white goods in particular are becoming safer and safer as time goes by. But there are new fire risks emerging, particularly with small appliances, chargers and things like that, which are causing significant risks and are the cause of a large number of thus far, thankfully, quite small fires that, if they got out of control, would create additional risk. Those would not necessarily be subject to or caught within the safety regime that has been debated. Given that they are new and emerging risks, I have concerns about relying upon assumptions at this stage that may not capture the full extent of the risks that our residents are facing. I know the Minister has been giving some thought to this, and I look forward to his explaining how we might address those wider risks in legislation that will come before the House.

I also pay tribute to those in our fire service and the work they continue to do during the current pandemic crisis. They have done above and beyond what is expected of them to support our communities in different ways, which we should recognise equally along with their fire safety work that touches on the issues we are discussing tonight.
There is clearly a need to change culture. I have spoken about that in the past in the context of building safety, and it is something I firmly believe in relation to fire safety, too. Yes, this Bill is a narrow Bill that is about clarification, but it sets the foundations for us to amend the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 with certainty. I seek that legal certainty to ensure that the changes we propose are robust and effective.
The fire safety order consultation is ongoing, and concludes on 12 October. I look forward to seeing the results and to seeing us move quickly in response, as well as moving forward with the Building Safety Bill, which colleagues from the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government are leading on. Indeed, I understand that the Select Committee will be commencing pre-legislative scrutiny of that Bill this week. I absolutely understand the need for a sense of momentum, and I want to convey that from the Dispatch Box this evening.
Prior to responding to the amendments and new clauses, I wish to clarify a couple of very detailed points. First, the Government’s policy intention on the express inclusion of structure in the Bill has been raised before by Members and industry representatives. The Bill intends to reinforce existing operational practice, which is set out in the Government’s guidance, “Fire safety risk assessment: sleeping accommodation”, issued in 2006. The guidance says that fire risk assessors should consider structural fire protection as part of the fire risk assessment process. However, that is designed to be a visual inspection of the construction and layout of the building on the basis that it will have been built to resist early structural collapse in the event of a fire. As such, intrusive surveys of buildings are only required if the fire risk assessor has serious concerns about the structural fire protection of the building. Otherwise, non-intrusive surveys should normally be carried out. That advice is also reflected in the industry-recognised guidance, “Fire risk assessment: Guidance and a recommended methodology”, and will be reinforced in the revised version that is being prepared for publication.
My second point concerns how we propose to take forward the commencement of the Fire Safety Bill. We have established a task and finish group, co-chaired by the Fire Sector Federation and the National Fire Chiefs Council, which brings together a range of stakeholders with an interest in fire safety to provide a recommendation on how the Bill should be commenced. The group will advise on the optimal way to meet the Bill’s objectives of improving the identification and assessment of fire risks in multi-occupied blocks and addressing them as soon as possible to ensure residents’ safety while effectively managing any operational impact. The group is expected to report no later than the end of September.
Turning to the new clauses and amendments, I will start with the lead amendment, new clause 1. Let me say to the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) that I recognise her intent and desire to create that sense of certainty and of getting on with things at the earliest possible opportunity. I would just observe that it obviously intends the measures to be brought forward by subsequent changes to the fire safety order. That is precisely the approach that the Government are already taking, as reflected in the consultation that concludes on 12 October. Therefore, her proposal—and I appreciate that she seeks to hasten—actually does not hasten any more than what the Government are already intending and proposing in respect of the regulations for which the Bill provides the framework and foundations, and that is the sequencing we intended.
The hon. Lady will know that we are consulting on the detail. Indeed, under the regulations themselves, we are obliged to do that. I understand the timing issue, and I assure her that when the Bill is on the statute book—that has to come first—we will move with all pace and expedition to see that the regulations are put in place as fast as possible, because that is the sequencing.
On the specifics of the new clause—I agree that, as already stated, the Government’s principal intention is to follow through on the phase 1 recommendations, and we are not resiling from that one jot—I say to the hon. Lady that expressing it in that way might allow further legal challenge and create uncertainty. Therefore, I ask her to reflect carefully, because we absolutely share her intent to proceed at pace.
I hope the hon. Lady will reflect further and, indeed, reflect on the words of Sir Martin Moore-Bick, who noted that it was important that his recommendations
That is precisely what we are seeking to do through the consultation, which extends, yes, to the hon. and right hon. Members we have in this House, but also to residents, responsible persons, the fire sector and enforcing authorities to ensure that we get this right. That is what all Members across this House want to do, and that is what we want to do. I ask the hon. Lady to reflect on whether there is a need to divide the House when our approach is absolutely aligned and we want to get on with the matter.
As many in the House are already aware, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) has long been a champion of fire safety. I commend him, and indeed the all-party parliamentary group of which he has been such an active member over many years, for his work and for the essence behind his amendment on electrical products.
The electrical products intended for use by consumers are already regulated under the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016, which require manufacturers to ensure safeguards are in place to protect the health and safety of persons, domestic animals and property. The regulations place strict obligations on manufacturers and importers to ensure that products are safe. I recognise that there are—thankfully, rare—occasions when safety issues become apparent only after a product has been safely placed on the market. That is why the 2016 regulations also require, where it is appropriate, that manufacturers monitor products already placed on the market. Local trading standards authorities have a duty to enforce the regulations in their area, and in 2018 a new national regulator for product safety was created, the Office for Product Safety and Standards.
I also want to remind the House that the new Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 came into effect on 1 June. They apply to new tenancies from 1 July and to existing tenancies from 1 April 2021. They require that electrical installations must be inspected and tested by a qualified and competent person at least every five years. Electrical safety standards must be met, and electrical installation condition reports must be provided to tenants and local housing authorities on request. In addition, the Government’s “How to let” guide already recommends that landlords regularly carry out portable appliance testing on any electrical appliance they provide and then supply the tenant with a record of any electrical inspections carried out, as good practice.

New clause 4 seeks to remove leaseholders from the definition of responsible person unless they are also the owner or part-owner of the freehold for the premises in question. In multi-occupied residential buildings, the leaseholder of a flat is unlikely to be a responsible person for the non-domestic premises. The exceptions to that would be where they own or share ownership of the freehold, which is acknowledged in the new clause. A leaseholder can be a duty holder under article 5 of the fire safety order, and it is important that the order provides that ability, which will be determined by the circumstances of a particular case.
The Bill does not change that arrangement. It does, of course, clarify that the order applies to the flat entrance doors, which obviously affects leaseholders more directly than other parts of the building where they may reside. Depending on the terms of a lease or a tenancy agreement, responsibility to ensure that the door complies with the requirements of the order could therefore fall to the responsible person, or the building owner, or the tenant/leaseholder, as a duty holder. As we conveyed previously, legislating to remove the leaseholder as responsible person would undermine the principles of the order and could have the unintended consequence of creating a vacuum of responsibilities under the order, which could in turn compromise fire safety. On that basis, and given our other proposals in relation to the fire safety order, I would ask that further consideration be given to pressing new clause 4.
On new clause 5 and waking watches, I am very conscious of a number of points made by hon. and right hon. Members across the House and the intent behind the proposal. I gently suggest to the hon. Member for Croydon Central that there are technical issues with this amendment—which my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) underlined and which do not seem to have been reflected—that mean that the approach taken could lead to greater uncertainty and more waking watches where they are not intended.
However, I understand the points made by Members, and I underline that we are taking action on waking watches, in conjunction with the National Fire Chiefs Council. The NFCC is updating its guidance relating to waking watches, which I think responds to a number of points raised by hon. and right hon. Members. We anticipate that this will be published very shortly. Once the guidance is available, we will ask the fire protection board to advise fire and rescue services on how best to ensure that it is implemented on the ground by responsible persons. That will include looking into other measures, such as installing building-wide fire alarm systems, to reduce the dependency on waking watches wherever possible.
My colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government are also looking to publish data on the costs of waking watches. This means that there will be transparency on the range of costs and will enable comparisons to be made. Our aim must ultimately be to reduce the use of waking watches and the costs that they bring, for all the reasons highlighted by Members this evening. We are working with the NFCC and fire and rescue services to undertake a building risk review programme on all high-rise residential buildings of 18 metres and above, as I have already said.
Let me respond on the issue of EWS1 forms and some homeowners facing difficulties working with lenders. We do recognise the issue, and colleagues at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government are working with lenders to support a proportionate approach and explore how other evidence might assist the valuation process. The Government do not support a blanket approach to the use of EWS1 forms on buildings and are encouraging mortgage lenders to accept other equivalent evidence from building owners for valuation purposes.
The Minister for fire and building safety held a roundtable with mortgage lenders, who agreed that a nuanced, proportionate approach to risk was required. They are reflecting that in their policies and guidance to valuers. The Minister will hold a further roundtable with lenders shortly
We have further opportunities with the Building Safety Bill, and I would encourage participation on the consultation on the fire safety order, but with the assurances and clarification that I have given, I hope that hon. Members will be minded not to press their new clauses and amendments.

The list of Members currently certified as eligible for a proxy vote, and of the Members nominated as their proxy, is published at the end of today’s debates.
Third Reading
Queen’s consent signified.