argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Building Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Housing
Paul Christopher Maynard (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and welcome to the hot seat I want to highlight just one aspect of building safety that I do not believe has been covered either in the Bill or in the debate so far today. Safety on stairs might seem to be rather a niche issue compared with the many issues around fire safety that we are discussing, but it has to be more than just a case of "watch where you’re going". As the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has discovered, falling on stairs is a significant cause of death, stretching into many hundreds per year. For every one hospital admission caused by a burn, there are 235 caused by falls The impact of these falls is felt disproportionately by older people, and even when a fall is not fatal, it is often the first stage of a persistent decline. Falls create fear, they impact on confidence and wellbeing, and they lead to people being moved out of their own homes and into care homes, in many cases never to return. I represent a predominantly elderly constituency and I am in no doubt about the importance of stair safety to maintaining independence in the home for as long as possible, but I am also someone with cerebral palsy, and I know that it is not just the elderly but people like me who have to be exceedingly careful when navigating staircases There is an existing industry standard, British standard 5395-1, regarding how stairs should be constructed, including rules on the dimensions of stairs and handrails. Stairs built to the British Standard lead to 60% fewer falls. Although it has been the standard since 2010, it has not, as yet, been enshrined in law, and is therefore often not used by builders. I have written to the building safety Minister asking for the Bill to include a mandate for the British standard to be applied in all new build homes, and I plan to propose such an amendment should he not give me sufficient satisfaction It is worth noting that this cause is backed by both private and social housing providers. It will create a level playing field in house building, but, more importantly, it will massively reduce the number of falls on stairs in the future, easing the burden on A&E and ambulances, and saving many families from unnecessary and premature tragedy.
Building Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Housing
Joy Inboden Morrissey (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement that the EWS1 forms should not be required for buildings below 18 metres; lenders were insisting on EWS1 forms, despite buildings not meeting the proper criteria in the new guidance, so it is a welcome announcement. I also welcome the announcements in the written statement on working towards market correction with regard to the total risk aversion that we are seeing in the market from lenders and surveyors, and the absolute stagnation in the market However, I echo the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and by the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), regarding leaseholders and the issue of clause 124. I would like to see much greater levels of legislation to support leaseholders. I am speaking on behalf not just of the leaseholders, but of the parents of leaseholders in my constituency—parents in Beaconsfield, Marlow, Flackwell Heath and Iver who have given their life savings to help support their child to buy their first home, usually in London. The children of my constituents are now stuck in homes that they cannot afford to move out of because of the spiralling cost of insurance and the cost to the leaseholder that has been incurred because of the building safety regulations I ask that we consider how to help leaseholders. These are Conservative voters and the children of Conservative voters, who are now frustrated and angry that they cannot move up the housing ladder. We need to consider a way forward for them and remember that they have done what we Conservatives say that we always want to do: enable people to buy a home and get on the housing ladder. We are blocking them from moving forward. I ask the Secretary of State please to consider further action to help and support leaseholders.
Building Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Housing
Robert John Blackman (Conservative, Centre-right): As a member of the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government, I had the opportunity to spend many hours scrutinising the draft Bill as we conducted pre-legislative scrutiny. I am delighted that the Government have adopted almost all the recommendations that we made, but there are concerns One issue is that some of the language used in the Bill is not exact enough. It is clear that what will matter is the regulations that underpin this extremely complicated and complex Bill, which will need to be ironed out over the next 18 months before it becomes operational. Of course, that gives rise to further problems. There will be no excuse whatsoever for a developer that is currently developing a new high-rise building or, indeed, planning one in future not to abide by the rules and regulations that will be introduced when the Bill becomes law. They will have to do that. However, there is concern about the historical elements of fire safety defects, as well as the remediation of unsafe cladding We have to split the issue into a number of areas. There has clearly been much progress on the remediation of unsafe cladding, which is welcome, but fire safety defects have been excluded from almost everything on offer from the Government thus far, and developers are trying to wash their hands of the matter. As right hon. and hon. Members from all parties have said, leaseholders are being presented with huge bills right now. They do not have 18 months to wait to resolve the issues, so we need urgent action. We were promised that the details of the fourth loan scheme would be introduced at the time of the Budget. I assume that we will have to wait for the autumn Budget as opposed to the spring Budget, because so far we have not seen the details of how that will operate. That detail is vital for people so that they can know how to plan The reality is that the people in the middle of this—the innocent parties, we have to remember—are the leaseholders. The building owners and the people who developed the buildings in the first place are the ones who put the buildings up. The one excuse to which they can cling is to say that they adhered completely to the rules and regulations that were in place when they put the buildings up perhaps five, 10 or even 20 years ago. If that is the case, the Government have to find a way to fund the remediation, because the Government were responsible for putting in place the regulations. If the regulations have been blatantly ignored, it is clear that the building owners and developers must remediate the buildings and fire safety defects without any charge to leaseholders whatsoever The Bill is a good start to the process and I welcome it. I welcome its going into Committee, and we must get it through to safeguard leaseholders.
Building Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Housing
Mark Rory Logan (Conservative, Centre-right): The telly has been showing horrific scenes of flooding across the globe recently. What is infuriating is the more overtly man-made mini-flooding that my constituents in Holden Mill and Astley Bridge have been exposed to. We are talking about water ingress where what were once penthouses have become unwanted pools, decompartmentalisation leading to fire risk and issues associated with cladding, all of which are liable to increase costs for the tormented people living there. With today’s Bill, this Government, this Secretary of State and this MP have the chance to put things right for the people of Holden Mill The proposed reforms are welcome, particularly the extension of the Defective Premises Act 1972 and the limitation period. However, clause 124 is unlikely to be in place for at least a year and leaseholders risk having to pay ruinous costs for months to come. The only real route of redress against culpable parties is usually through costly litigation, so will the Department outline the provisions in place to help cash-strapped leaseholders and management companies pay for legal action involving extensions to the limitation period Some 20% of residents in the Cottonworks, a mill that has been converted into dwellings in my constituency, are affected by water ingress due to poor conversion by the developer PJ Livesey. Despite insurance cover with the National House Building Council, my constituents are facing a potential shortfall in excess of £1 million. These residents are living in torrid circumstances, and leaseholders have already had to pay into a levy, on top of service charges, to cover temporary measures concerning PJ Livesey’s alleged failings in relation to fire compartmentation. The timing of the levy could not be worse, and it is vital that these future costs are not passed on to innocent leaseholders How do we ensure that responsible and culpable parties do not abuse the statute of limitations by simply running down the clock? Some 280 leaseholders at the Cottonworks could face further levies, and they fear not being able to fund legal action. These companies—I am sure there are many such cases across the country—have slopey shoulders regarding poor workmanship, ping-ponging my constituents from company to company. I will be voting with the Government, standing shoulder to shoulder with these residents in Astley Bridge and across the country Finally, the intention to create a system of duty holders throughout the design, construction and occupation of high-risk buildings is welcome, but can the Minister and the Department assure my constituents that this will be applied retrospectively, finally providing residents with the power to make someone—
Building Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Housing
Peter James Guy Aldous (Conservative, Centre-right): Technically speaking, the issue that I wish to highlight—the need for the more widespread fitting of sprinklers—does not fit neatly within the currently narrow scope of the Bill, but with some amendment it can and, quite frankly, the matter has been ignored for far too long, and it is appropriate to highlight it on the Second Reading of a Bill on building safety Ten years ago this month, the Wessex Foods factory on the South Lowestoft industrial estate was burnt to the ground. Fortunately, no one lost their lives, but 150 people lost their jobs, surrounding businesses were seriously disrupted, and it took 10 days to fully extinguish the fire, during which every firefighter in Suffolk attended the scene. Some 52 million litres of water was used, much of it finding its way in a contaminated form into nearby watercourses That turmoil would have been avoided if the factory had been fitted with sprinklers. If it had been, the firefighters who first attended the scene would have spent just four minutes on site. In the intervening 10 years, what has been done to promote the greater use of sprinklers? In previous Parliaments, we have had good debates, ably led by our former colleague, Jim Fitzpatrick, and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), but nothing has been achieved. In fact, we are going backwards, as the Government are proposing changes to the "Building Bulletin 100: Design for fire safety in schools" guidance that will mean automatic fire sprinkler systems will be required in only a very limited number of schools—far fewer than intended under the current BB 100 Despite urban myths, the case for sprinklers is compelling. They save lives and jobs, and they prevent environmental degradation. Some people may worry about their cost, and I do not deny that in some circumstances retrofitting will present challenges, but making their use mandatory will unleash innovation, through increased manufacturing and the enhanced design and layout of buildings A small, but significant, step to achieving the more widespread use of sprinklers is to use this Bill to amend the Building Act 1984 and the 2010 building regulations, so as to give the Secretary of State the power to make regulations to facilitate the protection of property. I urge the Government to seriously consider this when the Bill is in Committee.
Building Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Housing
David Anthony Andrew Amess (Conservative, Centre-right): Since last October, the all-party parliamentary group for fire safety and rescue, which I chair—and I am delighted to see so many of its members participating in the debate—has responded in detail to four Government consultations on various aspects of fire and building safety. A further consultation was launched by the Department for Education on 27 May in relation to the revised fire safety design guide for new schools. In a nutshell, that proposes to remove in the future the requirement for automatic fire sprinkler protection for all but a very few new schools. This is not acceptable and I am delighted that it was raised at Prime Minister’s questions today We are suffering from consultation overload and we could really do with a road map as to how all these pieces of work fit together. Last Thursday was my third meeting with the noble Lord Greenhalgh on fire and building-related issues since 23 June. Only last week, during a joint meeting that I chaired with the all-party parliamentary group for disability, we heard a most distressing account of a disabled resident trapped on the 23rd floor of Grenfell Tower whose son carried her down through the smoke and flames at 2.30 am, one and half hours into the fire. Her husband tragically perished, having jumped from the building One significant issue raised by both the APPG and the National Fire Chiefs Council in their previous responses to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 consultation was that there remains a fundamental disconnect between the non-worsening conditions of building regulations and the expectations of continuous improvements through the fire risk assessment process set by the fire safety order. Regulation 4 of the Building Regulations 2010 states that where the work did not previously comply with schedule 1, the new work, when complete, should be "no more unsatisfactory in relation to that requirement than before the work was carried out"— meaning that the general fire precautions may never get improved to modern standards. This runs contrary to the principles of prevention outlined in the fire safety order—that premises’ risk assessment should adapt to technical progress and reduce overall risk within buildings Non-worsening provisions are resulting in lost opportunities to improve building safety. An example is the refurbishment of Lakanal House following a multiple-fatality fire. The London fire commissioner told the coroner that automatic fire sprinkler protection would have prevented the death of six residents who died if it had been installed. Subsequently, the coroner recommended to the then Secretary of State that he should encourage social housing providers in high-rise blocks of over 18 metres to consider retrofitting automatic sprinkler protections. I say to my right hon. Friend the Minister: we must never make the same mistakes again.
Building Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Housing
Felicity Christiana Buchan (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the Bill. It will be very important in transforming our regime of building safety and in putting residents and high rises at the forefront of that regime. Building safety is incredibly important to me. The tragedy of Grenfell Tower happened in my constituency, and London is home to 55% of all high rises and intermediate buildings, many of which lie in central London I hope the Bill will also change the culture of the building industry and the building products industry. I have been shocked by some of the revelations coming out of the Grenfell inquiry: how the system was gamed and how it was pushed to the nth degree. We need to change that culture; residents and safety must come first I warmly welcome many parts of this Bill, including the building products regulator and the ability of that regulator to take building products off the market and to prosecute those who try to sell products that do not meet the mark. I also welcome the fact that the time period to sue for defective premises will go from six years to 15 years, and the announcement that we heard this afternoon on EWS1 forms will be critical Clearly, there are details on which we need confirmation. RICS guidance will be important. It will be important to have confirmation that the consolidated advice note will be withdrawn, and we also need clarity as to what will happen to EWS1 forms that have already been issued. Will they stay or will they not? Potentially, this is a very significant development for leaseholders There are issues on which we need to work across the House. We need to agree the scope of the measures. Yes, they currently apply to buildings above 18 metres, but the Bill has the capacity to increase that scope, so we need to focus on that. Very importantly, we need a taskforce within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government that will look at buildings case by case, because there are so many buildings that are throwing up very unique circumstances that we need to deal with. One is Collier House in my constituency.
Building Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Housing
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): First, I believe that the Bill is the right measure to deal with the cladding issue, and I fully appreciate the reasons why the Fire Safety Act 2021 was not necessarily the right vehicle. There is plenty to celebrate in the Bill, and we must recognise that. I particularly welcome the announcement in the House from the Secretary of State on the use of EWS1 forms not being required for buildings below 18 metres. I know that people would like clarification on cases in which EWS1 forms already exist and whether they will be voided, so we would like to hear more about that. The clarification that there is no systemic risk for buildings under 18 metres and that the market is now expected to act is normal, leading to a market correction, is welcome Extreme risk aversion has caused some of the problems, as Dame Judith Hackitt referred to, and we can now begin to address it. It is encouraging to hear from the Secretary of State that lenders welcome the clarification, and making sure that we take with us other players in the market, including insurers, is the next logical step. As the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, mentioned, we thank the Secretary of State and his Department for responding to the points that the Select Committee made and acting on the vast majority of the recommendations, taking our comments into account. One principle that we have always held is that leaseholders should not pay The building safety fund is welcome, and £5.1 billion will go a long way in tackling many of the problems. The £30 million waking watch fund is a great help, although I think there are still problems that some people would regard as unresolved. It is important to recognise that the Bill is about far more than cladding. We have already announced new, robust legal requirements for builders and the materials that they use, which is very much needed and follows the recommendations from the Grenfell inquiry. Giving homeowners the right retrospectively to seek compensation for shoddy construction for up to 15 years will benefit a great number of people, as will doubling the period in which residents can bring legal claims against developers for substandard workmanship No one should be left living in an unliveable home. While the Building Safety Bill cannot solve every problem on its own—I am sure that there will be many further discussions—I support it, and it is a fundamental step in the right direction.
Building Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Housing
Gareth Andrew Bacon (Conservative, Centre-right): I rise in support of the Bill, which introduces a number of crucial safeguards for residents while reforming the building safety system so that appropriate checks and balances are strengthened. Notably, the Bill brings forward recommendations from the Dame Judith Hackitt review, and it adds to the progress made by the Fire Safety Act 2021 and the greater clarification of rules concerning the use of EWS1 forms I very much welcome the written ministerial statement that was provided today about buildings under 18 metres no longer requiring an EWS1 form. Although it is probably slightly overdue, it is extremely welcome news, and it will go down very well with my constituents The Bill has many positive elements, which I would have liked to touch on. However, due to the time limit, I will have to skip over them, because I do have a couple of concerns about the Bill. The first relates to clause 124, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) first touched on I agree with the principle that landlords must take cost recovery avenues to avoid passing on costs directly to leaseholders, given, of course, that leaseholders bear absolutely no responsibility for cladding being put on their buildings in the first place. However, there is currently no legal obligation on landlords to seek cost recovery for remediation before passing the costs on to leaseholders. Although the Bill acknowledges that, it is insufficiently clear as to any potential remedy. Clause 124 stipulates that the landlord must seek other cost recovery avenues before passing those costs on. What happens if they are unable to obtain such funding? What happens to the leaseholders then? What protections will be in place for them? The Bill does not clarify that sufficiently The London Fire Brigade has highlighted a further issue, which has potentially huge significance. Developers often open a subsidiary company when they are building new developments or refurbishing existing projects. When those projects are complete, standard practice is for the subsidiary company to be closed down by the parent, and the parent company rarely retains legal liability for the premises that have been remediated. There is a danger that that will leave leaseholders liable for all costs resulting from negligent work by developers and their contractors Having said that, I believe that those issues can be addressed as the Bill proceeds through the House. Indeed, I hope that the Minister will be able to provide clarity on them in his closing remarks today. In totality, I believe that the Bill takes great strides in improving building safety, and I will be supporting its Second Reading this evening, albeit with the hope that it may be strengthened as it proceeds.