Amendment 3

Part of Building Safety Bill - Report – in the House of Lords at 12:45 pm on 29 March 2022.

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Photo of Lord Best Lord Best Crossbench 12:45, 29 March 2022

My Lords, I shall say a few words on behalf of my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson in respect of Amendments 13, 20 and 35, to which her name is attached. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, explained, my noble friend sends her apologies; she is attending the thanksgiving service for His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh in her capacity as chair of the wonderful Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme. I think we all agree that that event should take priority.

She wanted her thanks to the Minister and his officials to be recorded for the new amendment, which will require the regulator to report regularly on engagement with residents who are disabled. She has greatly welcomed constructive talks outside the Chamber and is keen to keep working with the Minister on personal emergency evacuation plans to meet the needs of people with disabilities so that they have correct and useful information and can feel safe where they live.

Amendment 86 in this group is in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. I will also comment on government Amendments 73, 85 and 263. In Committee, I raised the issue of leaseholders managing their own blocks of flats who would be given onerous new responsibilities for safety issues by this Bill. These new duties and liabilities could deter many from acting as the voluntary unpaid directors of their resident management companies and right-to-manage companies. These self-managed blocks depend on their volunteer directors to give up their time—and, indeed, risk falling out with their neighbours since not all their decisions will be popular with everyone—but who wants to risk a criminal prosecution and a criminal record for failing to carry out all the correct safety actions required of an accountable person by the Bill? Recruiting and retaining volunteers to be directors of resident-run companies is already difficult yet there is widespread agreement that more, not less, leaseholder control should be strongly encouraged.

The Minister has recognised the issue and brought forward government Amendment 73 to enable lease-holder-controlled companies to take on board a paid expert building safety director to provide this service to the company if, and only if, the leaseholders wish to delegate the job. Amendment 85 means that the cost of engaging that professional as the person responsible for building safety can be included in the service charges for all residents. These government amendments are very welcome; I thank the Minister very much for listening to the arguments and acting accordingly.

However, the Institute of Residential Property Management and the Association of Residential Managing Agents—they are now becoming a single entity, to be known as the Property Institute—noticed one obstacle to the Government’s otherwise excellent solution: quite a few resident-controlled companies prohibit the appointment of any director who is not themselves a leaseholder in the block. My amendment would address that point and enable an external expert safety director to be appointed in such circumstances, with necessary protections on costs and the ability to get rid of the building safety director if the arrangement does not work out.

In the not-too-distant future, we discuss leasehold reform and improvements to the commonhold system whereby the occupiers of blocks of flats or groups of homes both own and manage them directly. These amendments pave the way for those discussions. They send out a signal for future developments that resident control will be supported and facilitated, not overburdened and undermined by extra regulatory requirements on their volunteer directors.

Following helpful discussions, the Minister has explained that our Amendment 86 is acceptable to the Government. I am delighted to move it as a technical but necessary addition to the provisions of the Bill, with repeated thanks to the Minister, who has listened to the arguments and acted accordingly.