House of Commons Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee Pre-legislative scrutiny of the Building Safety Bill Fifth Report of Session 2019–21 Report, together with formal minutes relating to the report Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 19 November 2020 EMBARGOED ADVANCE NOTICE: Not to be published in full, or in part, EMBARGOED ADVANCE NOTICE: Not to be published in full, or in part, in any form before 00.01am on Tuesday 24 November 2020 in any form before 00.01am on Tuesday 24 November 2020 HC 466 Published on 24 November 2020 by authority of the House of Commons Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Current membership Clive Betts MP (Labour, Sheffield South East) (Chair) Bob Blackman MP (Conservative, Harrow East) Ian Byrne MP (Labour, Liverpool, West Derby) Brendan Clarke-Smith MP (Conservative, Bassetlaw) Ben Everitt MP (Conservative, Milton Keynes North) Paul Holmes MP (Conservative, Eastleigh) Rachel Hopkins MP (Labour, Luton South) Ian Levy MP (Conservative, Blythe Valley) Abena Oppong-Asare MP (Labour, Erith and Thamesmead) Mary Robinson MP (Conservative, Cheadle) Mohammad Yasin MP (Labour, Bedford) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the internet via www.parliament.uk. Publication © Parliamentary Copyright House of Commons 2020. This publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Open Parliament Licence, which is published at www.parliament.uk/site-information/copyright-parliament/ Committee’s reports are published on the Committee’s website at www.parliament.uk/hclg and in print by Order of the House. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Jack Dent (Second Clerk), Eldon Gallagher (Committee Operations Officer), Paul Owen (Committee Specialist), Edward Hicks (Committee Specialist), Thomas Lacy (Committee Operations Manager), George Perry (Media Officer) and Mike Winter (Clerk). EMBARGOEDContacts ADVANCE NOTICE: Not to be published in full, or in part, EMBARGOED ADVANCE NOTICE: Not to be published in full, or in part, inAll any correspondence form before should 00.01am be addressed on Tuesday to the Clerk 24 of November the Housing, Communities2020 in any form before 00.01am on Tuesday 24 November 2020 and Local Government Committee, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 5364; the Committee’s email address is [email protected]. You can follow the Committee on Twitter using @CommonsHCLG Pre-legislative scrutiny of the Building Safety Bill 1 Contents Summary 5 Introduction 9 Background 9 Structure of the draft Bill 9 Our inquiry 10 General Observations 11 Support for policy intention behind the draft Bill 11 Reliance on secondary legislation 11 Transition to new regime 13 1 Leaseholders and the building safety charge 14 Background 14 Remediation of historical safety defects 14 Leaseholder liability 14 Responsibility for funding remediation 16 Building safety charge 18 Separation of building safety charge from service charge 19 2 The Building Safety Regulator 22 Scope of the regime 22 Meaning of “higher-risk building” 22 Definition of “building safety risk” (clause 16) 24 Duties and functions of the regulator 25 Inclusion of property protection among the regulator’s objectives 25 Duty to establish system for giving of building safety information (clause 8) 26 Duty to establish and maintain a Building Advisory Committee, a Committee on Industry Competence and a Residents’ Panel (clauses 9, 10 and 11) 26 Operation and funding of the Building Safety Regulator 27 EMBARGOED ADVANCE NOTICE: Not to be published in full, or in part, EMBARGOEDIs it right ADVANCE to establish NOTICE:the Building NotSafety to Regulator be published within the in Healthfull, orand in part, Safety Executive? 27 in any form before 00.01am on Tuesday 24 November 2020 in any formHow beforeshould the 00.01am regulator on be funded?Tuesday 24 November 2020 28 3 Design and construction 30 Industry competence 30 Dutyholder regime 31 Role of principal designer 31 Access to professional indemnity insurance 31 Accreditation and registration 32 Gateway process 33 Building Control Reform 35 Removal of dutyholder choice of building control body in respect of higher- risk buildings 35 Conflict of interest arising from the BSR’s dual role 36 Registration of building control professionals 38 4 Occupation 39 Accountable person 39 Background 39 Identifying the accountable person 39 Relationship between accountable person and responsible person (Fire Safety Order) 40 Residents as accountable persons 41 Duty to prevent a major incident (clause 73) 41 The safety case report (clause 74) 42 Building Safety Manager 43 Role of the building safety manager 43 Competence framework 43 Accreditation and registration 44 Access to professional indemnity insurance (building safety manager) 45 Sanctions regime for accountable persons and building safety managers 46 Residents 47 Resident engagement 47 Access to dwellings 48 Electrical safety in occupation 49 5 Construction Products and Supplementary Provisions 51 Construction products (clause 110 and Schedule 8) 51 Product testing 51 EMBARGOEDThird-party ADVANCE certification NOTICE: Not to be published in full, or in 51part, EMBARGOED ADVANCE NOTICE: Not to be published in full, or in part, in any formProduct before testing 00.01am (capacity andon resources)Tuesday 24 November 2020 52 in any form before 00.01am on Tuesday 24 November 2020 Product testing (combination of products) 52 Definition of “safety-critical” products: field of application and product families 53 Designation of European technical assessments 54 Designation of European harmonised standards 55 Miscellaneous provisions 55 Removal of the democratic filter. 55 New Homes Ombudsman 55 Architects 57 Conclusions and recommendations 58 Annex: Technical and minor issues 68 Formal minutes 70 Witnesses 71 Published written evidence 72 List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament 82 EMBARGOED ADVANCE NOTICE: Not to be published in full, or in part, EMBARGOED ADVANCE NOTICE: Not to be published in full, or in part, in any form before 00.01am on Tuesday 24 November 2020 in any form before 00.01am on Tuesday 24 November 2020 EMBARGOED ADVANCE NOTICE: Not to be published in full, or in part, in any form before 00.01am on Tuesday 24 November 2020 EMBARGOED ADVANCE NOTICE: Not to be published in full, or in part, in any form before 00.01am on Tuesday 24 November 2020 Pre-legislative scrutiny of the Building Safety Bill 5 Summary The purpose of the draft Building Safety Bill is to remedy the flaws in the building safety regime identified by Dame Judith Hackitt in her final report, Building a Safer Future Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, commissioned by the Government following the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017. It aims to do so principally by establishing a regulator, the Building Safety Regulator, to oversee a rigorous new regulatory regime for the design, construction and occupation of higher- risk buildings. We believe the draft Bill could dramatically improve building safety but are concerned about some of its provisions and, in particular, the lack of detail on key parts of the new regime. Our key recommendations are as follows: • We urge the Government to include as much detail in the Bill itself or to publish the secondary legislation alongside it. It is especially important that this be done for core provisions such as the Gateways process and the regulation of construction products. The draft Bill is largely a framework Bill that provides for key parts of the new regulatory regime to be established by delegated legislation and building regulations. We accept that much of the detail belongs elsewhere, as it could not sensibly be included in the Bill itself, but this is not always the case, and even where it is reasonable for the Bill to rely on delegated legislation, we do not think it possible to properly scrutinise its provisions without sight of that draft legislation. • We recommend that the Government publish with the Bill a clear timetable for commencement so it is clear by when the industry has to demonstrate compliance and the Building Safety Regulator establish the regime. The final Bill will establish new duties, some of them extremely onerous, on individuals and organisations responsible for building safety throughout the lifecycle of higher-risk buildings. We do not think it right to expect individuals to implement its provisions and assume such heavy responsibilities without sufficient transition periods. • The Government must recommit to the principle that leaseholders should not pay anything towards the cost of remediating historical building safety defects, and, in order to provide leaseholders with the peace of mind they deserve, amend the Bill to explicitly exclude historical costs from the building safety charge. EMBARGOED ADVANCE NOTICE: Not to be published in full, or in part, EMBARGOED ADVANCE NOTICE: Not to be published in full, or in part, The draft Bill provides for landlords to recover the cost of building safety measures in any form before 00.01am on Tuesday 24 November 2020 in throughany form a new before building 00.01am