Building Safety Bill — House of Lords, 2022-04-26
Topic: Housing
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I commend my noble friend again for the way he has managed this Bill through your Lordships’ House; like him, I very much hope the end is in sight. It has been particularly challenging, as he has had to retrofit into the Bill the remediation clauses, while negotiating at the same time with the industry and the Treasury On those negotiations, since we last debated the Bill, Ministers have persuaded the last remaining housebuilder—Galliard—to join the pledge to remediate defects in their own buildings, and I very much welcome that. I have one issue to raise on the builders’ pledge, which is restricted to "life-critical fire-safety" work. Can my noble friend confirm that this definition, which appears to be narrower than the one in the Bill, will cover all the necessary work to make a building safe? It would clearly be unsatisfactory if a builder were to argue that some particular aspect of remediation was not life critical, and he therefore did not do it, with the result that the building did not qualify for the relevant certificate and the leaseholder could not sell the building On Motion D, I understand why the Government resisted the Lords’ amendment which sought to give enfranchised leaseholders the same rights as unenfranchised leaseholders. My noble friend has just explained the perverse incentive that that would have resulted in. However, inserting that section back into the Bill leaves the enfranchised leaseholders in the firing line for the time being. I will not repeat all of my noble friend’s "read my lips" speech, which we have heard on several occasions, but the last sentence was: "They are effectively leaseholders that have enfranchised as opposed to freeholders. I hope that helps."—[Official Report, 28/2/22; col. GC 262.] The Minister has responded to the amendment that I tabled with my noble friend by announcing a consultation, and I very much welcome that. Perhaps he could say something about the timetable for that consultation—when it will begin, when it will end, and when the conclusions will be announced—because time is fairly critical for some of these leaseholders. I hope he can repeat the commitment that the objective is to put enfranchised leaseholders in the same position as unenfranchised leaseholders—namely, with caps on their contributions, which they do not have in the Bill at the moment. Unless that firm protection is offered, it will undermine all the efforts made by successive Governments and by my noble friend to encourage leaseholders to enfranchise I would like to say a word about orphaned buildings. Will the Minister say how he envisages these buildings being remediated if there is no guilty party or freeholder to pursue? We cannot leave those tenants and leaseholders in unsafe buildings that they are unable to sell, and it would be reassuring for them if they knew the Government had a plan to deal with that Finally, on Motion H, there are two issues. I am sure that the Minister is right when he says that there are few buildings under 11 metres with serious problems, but the fire at Richmond House burned the building to the ground in less than 11 minutes in September 2019, and it was under 11 metres. Therefore, I very much hope that the case-by-case analysis that the Minister referred to will quickly reveal which buildings are at risk. Following that, can he confirm that they will be remediated without the leaseholders bearing all the costs, which is currently the position under the Bill When we debated this on Report, my noble friend Lord Blencathra and I tabled an amendment which effectively halved the cap on leaseholder contributions. However, we were persuaded by the eloquent arguments adduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, that zero was possible under ECHR and we then supported that amendment, which was carried by the House. The Government have made it quite clear that zero is unacceptable, so I see no point in pursuing that at this stage of the Parliament. However, I remain of the view that our original amendment is actually the right way forward, so, while not supporting the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, which is quite close to zero, I will not vote against it. I hope that if it is carried, the Government will retable my and my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s amendment in the other place, and bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion.