Domestic Premises (Electrical Safety Certificate) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-07-15
Topic: Energy
Donald Foster (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken and thank the vast majority of them for their support. I say to the son of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that he has raised some very interesting issues which I hope we can at least look at in more detail in Committee, if we can get that far My noble friend Lady Brinton drew attention, as did I, to the problems caused by faulty electrical appliances. As I said, more work needs to be done on that, not least on electrical appliances bought online, to which the level of security that applies to appliances bought on our high streets does not apply. However, I am grateful for her support, as I am for that of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, my noble friend Lord Shipley and the noble Lord, Khan, on the Opposition Front Bench I am grateful that the Minister repeated a lot of what I said at the beginning of my speech, saying what the Government have done and what they plan to do. As he said, the Government have moved quite some way. I too said that, and I applaud the Government for the work they have done and the work being planned However, the Minister suggested that the Government would support this Bill only if it was "proportionate, necessary and not overburdensome." I went out of my way to say that it is proportionate, because I do not propose to introduce five-yearly checks but to do it at the simple point of sale of an individual property. On whether it is necessary, I have already given the statistics, backed up by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, who drew attention to the way in which this will not only save a vast amount of money but, much more importantly, save lives. That is one of the key reasons why it is so important. It is certainly not overburdensome. If it is so overburdensome to require some form of certification for something or other at the point of sale of a property, why have the Government introduced that very approach by the requirement of an energy performance certificate at the point of sale? I have sought to mirror what the Government have already done in respect of energy efficiency of properties in relation to the security of energy installations The Minister suggested that some measures were taking place in respect of owner-occupied premises, and he is absolutely right. But I say gently to him that that applies only to those in high-rise premises, which is not the vast majority of the 17 million owner-occupied properties in this country. That remains a huge gap in the current regulatory regime. He talked about his concern about this being overburdensome. The cost of the checks I am proposing would be between £150 and £250. As a proportion of the cost of selling a property, that is a very small amount indeed. Nevertheless, I hear what the Minister says. I hope that he will agree with at least some of the representative organisations which are supporting the Bill, including those that would be responsible for providing it, the fire services and homeowner organisations. I hope that the rest of the House will be prepared to support the Bill. I commend it to the House.