This is the first of a regular column by Catherine Levin looking at the Building Safety Bill, providing an update, thoughts, and views. To start, here’s a round-up of what’s happened so far.
This is the first of a regular column where I will be looking at the Building Safety Bill, providing an update on developments, and sharing some thoughts and views. To start with, I’ll do a quick round up of what’s happened so far.
Many readers of Fire & Risk Management will be aware of the Bill and how it emerged out of Dame Judith Hackitt’s review of building regulations and fire safety. Her report is over three years old and the government at the time accepted her recommendations, forming the basis for the Bill.
The Bill is at Committee stage in the House of Commons. This means it has already been through its first and second reading where MPs were able to debate the provisions contained in the Bill, as well as offering amendments. During the Committee stage, MPs heard from a range of witnesses who gave oral evidence. The Bill Committee asked for written evidence, and over 50 submissions had been published by the end of October. All of this will be examined at the next report stage, giving MPs the opportunity, on the floor of the House of Commons, to consider further amendments to the Bill.
It is worth pointing out the role of the housing select committee as the level of scrutiny and profile that the Chair, Clive Betts MP and his colleagues have given to this Bill has been impressive. At every stage, the select committee has shown a grasp of the detail and a great tenacity for holding the government to account.
Building safety matters
This is a massive piece of legislation covering a wide range of building safety matters. At its heart, it is about making tall buildings where people live safer in the future. It has a narrow scope and is interested only in ‘higher-risk buildings,’ which means that a building must be over 18 metres in height and have at least two residential units. Sir Ken Knight told the select committee that over 12,000 buildings will come within the scope of the regime set out in the Bill. The height threshold is controversial for many, as oral and written evidence to the Committee demonstrated. At this stage of the Bill, the height threshold is unlikely to change.
The Building Safety Regulator is new and already operating in shadow form in the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), with Peter Baker appointed as Chief Inspector of Buildings. The Bill provides the legal basis for the Regulator so that it can become building control for higher-risk buildings, how it can charge fees (the draft regulations are available), and how it will enforce aspects of the building safety regime.
It is a huge change and will be expensive to run. The exact costs for it have not been published, and its budget is unknown. Sarah Albon, head of the HSE, told the Bill Committee that she was confident that the government would provide the resources the Regulator will need to do its work. She also acknowledged that the HSE doesn’t currently have enough expertise in fire risk assessment and is actively seeking to recruit and train staff to work in this area.
New duty holders
The Bill also introduces new duty holders at three key stages in the building’s lifecycle. The Principal Designer, the Principal Contractor, and the Building Safety Manager. The BSI is consulting (or has already done so) on the competence framework for these roles so that it’s clear what they should be capable of doing to support this new regime.
During day two of the Bill Committee, members were interested in how the Building Safety Manager would work in practice. He stressed that while the Building Safety Manager has an important day-to-day role, it is the role of the Accountable Person that bears the risk. He explained: ‘that should be firmly with the Accountable Person, because they are the individual or the company that has the resources and the capability to really manage the risk.’
Dame Judith Hackitt made much of the golden thread concept in her report and subsequent interventions, and while these duty holders are key, there are enhanced roles for others, and some concerns about capacity. For example, a fire engineer is now expected to review fire statements for all residential and educational buildings over 18 metres in height. The legislation changed on 1 August to introduce Planning Gateway 1, and whether there will be enough fire engineering capacity to deal with this remains to be seen.
The Accountable Person is responsible for the preparation of a safety case and must submit it to the Regulator. This is part of the new approach proposed in England for the management and control of fire and structural hazards in buildings. The Bill proposes that people who manage or are responsible for high-rise residential buildings will have to take all reasonable steps to make sure their buildings are safe, put together a safety case and produce a safety case report. The HSE finished consulting on the principles of this approach at the end of October.
Competence is another theme running through Dame Judith’s report. The select committee, writing to the Secretary of State back in July, recommended more national direction on the matter of competence, on third party accreditation and on a register for Building Safety Managers. Mr Betts asked for more detail on how these will be achieved without any government intervention.
I have read some of the written evidence submitted to the Committee and found, as had been the case with the oral evidence, that many submissions criticise the government for not providing enough detail about how the regime will work in practice. Since many of the written submissions were sent to the Committee, more draft legislation (known as Regulations or Statutory Instruments) has appeared. The reliance on secondary legislation may be pragmatic as not every detail can be on the face of the Bill. However, the reality is that secondary legislation does not incur the same level of scrutiny, and in many cases simply passes into law without debate.
Draft regulations
By October, nine draft Regulations had been published, including the 55-page Construction Products Regulations and the Higher-Risk Buildings Regulations, setting out how the Regulator will take on building control functions. It will be up to parliamentarians to ensure that the Regulations are scrutinised in some form to ensure they are doing the job that is required.
There are other building safety developments that are not part of the Building Safety Bill, but they are important changes that respond to the recommendations in Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 Report. The government consulted on introducing Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans and premises information boxes to ensure that those who need assistance to escape from high rise buildings in the event of a fire are known to the fire and rescue service. The government response has not yet been published and any change to legislation would be through Regulations under the Fire Safety Order.
And that brings me to cladding. You will not need me to remind you about the cladding crisis, or more accurately the building safety crisis. My Twitter feed is full of people sharing stories about how fire safety defects are being identified in their buildings and how they are receiving bills of tens of thousands of pounds to fix them. Often it is only when a resident wants to sell their flat they find, via the EWS1 form process, that their building is unsafe and they cannot sell. They are trapped.
The End our Cladding Scandal campaigners are fighting to have the Bill amended so that the costs of remediating fire safety defects do not fall to the leaseholders. Two MPs, Stephen McPartland and Royston Smith sponsored an amendment to the Fire Safety Bill last year that failed, and are now trying to do the same with this Bill. Report stage will be critical now for the success of any amendment to protect leaseholders.
While the government has devoted £5 billion to fix cladding defects in buildings over 18 metres, it doesn’t help the majority of those finding non-cladding fire safety defects and in buildings below the threshold. The select committee suggested that the true cost of remediation across the spectrum was closer to £15 billion, and Chair Clive Betts MP has called for the government to create a Comprehensive Building Safety Fund to cover all fire risks in buildings.
To claw back some of the money spent on dealing with the cladding crisis, the government confirmed at the end of October, as part of the budget, that it will be introducing a Residential Property Development Tax. This will see property developers profits over £25 million taxed at four percent. This tax is intended to bring in £2 billion to the Treasury over ten years. That certainly won’t be enough to cover the costs if all buildings are included.
The government published a transition plan that showed the work to implement all this change will not be complete until at least the early part of 2024, seven years after the Grenfell Tower fire. Dame Judith said that there were systemic problems with the way buildings were built in this country and that cultural change was needed. Even in within the confines of this column, you can see the scale of the task that that government has set itself to respond to Dame Judith. It is truly enormous and not without significant risk, so it is important that the scrutiny continues and that the government continues to be held to account.
Next month, I’ll look at what’s happening at Report stage, if it’s available, and delving into a bit more detail on various aspects of the Bill.
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Catherine Levin is a Freelance Communications Consultant specialising in fire.