Clause 6 - Proper person
Sustainable and Secure Buildings Bill
11:15 am
Mr Andrew Stunell (Chief Whip; Hazel Grove, Liberal Democrat)
In practical terms, amendments Nos. 10 to 13 are technical ways of achieving what is in the Bill. On Second Reading, I said that clause 6 would be improved—that it would be made more comprehensible and that legally correct words would be added. That is what these changes do.
New clause 1 introduces another tool to ensure that the regulations that are in place are carried out on building sites. The original measure puts in place a proper person. The new clause allows the power to be delegated. On major building sites where there is a contract manager who is the proper person there may be many specialist subcontractors working on heating, ventilation, electricity and water, or contractors with the same skills working on different parts of the project. The new clause simply allows the proper person function to be cascaded down to a specialist supervisor or a clerk of works for a particular part of the work, so that there is a chain of command or responsibility. That reduces opportunities for buck passing. The man in the cabin cannot say, ''Well, that was Joe,'' or, ''That was my day off.'' The new clause completes the link that was introduced by the initial measure by allowing a second tier of responsibility to be devolved in appropriate cases.