Building Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2022-01-19
Topic: Housing
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): And new clause 23, but let me comment briefly on two other new clauses. New clause 17, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), is about safety on stairs and ensuring that stairs built in new properties conform to British standards. He is absolutely right and I have put my name to the new clause. Each year, 300,000 people are admitted to A&E because of falls on stairs. That is a staggering figure and anything that we can do to reduce that has to be considered. This proposal is not a difficult one; as he said, it should be easy to implement and cost-free because it would be in new properties. Making sure that the stairs are wide enough and have proper handrails is not rocket science, and I hope that the Minister might indicate agreement on that in future, even if he cannot agree to the new clause today I just want to make it clear that nothing I am saying here is meant to try to improve harmony in the Conservative party—that is not something I want to be associated with, as the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys indicated. However, I am more than happy to have harmony with him in promoting new clause 17 My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) is right that there should be similar standards for social tenants in social rented properties. The Select Committee on Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has an ongoing inquiry into the regulation of social housing, and if he could drop a note to the Committee as evidence so that we can take account of his proposals, that would be useful I turn to new clause 23 and amendment 73 in my name, which reflect what the Select Committee has looked at. Building control has come up as an issue as a result of the Hackitt review. Dame Judith Hackitt made it clear that two of her concerns about the construction industry were: the whole culture of the industry with its race to the bottom; and—this goes alongside that—conflicts of interest In the previous debate, I mentioned conflicts of interest on approvals for products in the industry, with suppliers hawking products around until they found someone—a friendly approver—who would approve them. Building control is the same—it is about the developer finding someone less likely to give them difficult scrutiny. The Government have addressed that for the highest-risk buildings, for which in future building control will be appointed by the regulator. However, for all other properties the developer can say, "Yes, I’ll have you to do my building control" or, "I won’t have you, because you gave me a difficult time with the last property I built." That is not acceptable We need someone to approve a building who is independent of the developer. The Committee has gone on record on that several times, and we recommended it when we scrutinised the draft Bill. So far, the Minister has come back with, "The Government don’t agree." I hope that at some point the Government will reconsider, because that seems to be a fundamental principle and something that will make all buildings safer in future. It would provide security for the owners, occupiers and tenants that their buildings have been approved by someone independent of the developer.