Fire Safety Bill — House of Lords, 2020-11-17
Topic: Housing
John Lytton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I declare an interest here, as a co-owner of holiday cottages. I reassure noble Lords that for many years now these have been subject to precisely the type of matters raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, such as electrical system and appliance safety and smoke and carbon monoxide detection, which lie behind the amendment. To be honest, this is no more nor less than good practice; however, success depends on how intrusive the measures might be under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order. There are, as I mentioned earlier, some good precedents for a degree of self-assessment The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in ably moving this amendment, referred, I think, to hotel standards in comparison with Airbnb. I suggest that trying to apply hotel standards for something that is purpose-built for that type of operation, and with the numbers involved, is probably a different situation. However, some of the principles undoubtedly apply. One of the most important factors is that, unlike the homeowner in their own flat, the visitor is not necessarily familiar, at any rate initially, with the layout of the building. It so happens that every time I have to rent a property such as an apartment, or take a hotel somewhere, I usually make it my business to work out where the fire escape is, because one hears so many horror stories about these things. Generally, it is fine, but I make that point The point has already been made [Inaudible.] flip in and out of principal or second home status largely undetected. A point arises as to whether, in every case, the mode and category of occupation by somebody who is paying to stay is actually different, whether they are a tenant on a short-term holiday or something even shorter than that, such as Airbnb. The important thing is that the amendment does not need to capture premises that are outside the intentions of noble Lords or, for that matter, fail to capture those that should properly be brought into it If I may digress, I make a plea for consistency in the way some of these regulations are applied. I shall use electrical systems as an example. Recently, I was alerted to the need for a certain type of electrician qualification because of a query from building insurers. It transpired that accreditation for an electrician to self-certify their own installation work does not automatically permit them to inspect and certify somebody else’s. Even electricians do not understand this, let alone householders, so knowing what to ask for is a science in itself, and I think that sort of thing needs to be resolved. To stay on that subject, just about every electrician I know is already tied up doing landlord testing, so getting anything in addition done is not at all easy, because there is not the manpower capacity in the system. Personally, I would not want some quick-fix form of training and accreditation on electrical matters, other than by somebody who had a background and a proper qualification in electrical installation Finally, however safe the system may be, occupiers bring in equipment of their own, or may do things that are unsafe. There should be a certain amount of saving provisions for that sort of eventuality. I think of a typical example: you go and do your regular inspection of a holiday home and you find that the cover of the smoke alarm is dangling, with the battery missing. It may be that somebody removed the battery because it was bleeping—although, because you put the battery in only three months ago, that is not a terribly likely situation. Then it occurs to you that perhaps the battery was needed for some child’s toy and it was removed for that reason. Occupiers can do silly things, particularly when their minds are on holiday. If the noble Lord were to press the amendment, I am not sure at the moment which way I would vote, but I do think there is an issue about compliance in this case that needs to be addressed.