Examination of Witnesses

Part of Building Safety Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:44 pm on 14 September 2021.

Alert me about debates like this

James Dalton:

As we made clear in our written submission to the Committee, the professional indemnity insurance market internationally and particularly in the UK—especially in construction and building—has very significantly hardened at the moment. That is due to a range of factors.

One of the things we want to understand in more detail from the secondary legislation in the Bill is the specific regulatory requirements on those professionals involved in managing a building because that has an impact on whether, the extent to which and the price for professional indemnity insurance that could be available.

As I said in answer to a question on this in the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, now is not the best time, frankly, to be introducing new requirements on new professionals in building and construction from a professional indemnity insurance perspective. The industry wants the detail and I am committed to working with my insurance company members to understand what the availability and cost of professional indemnity insurance might be once we have the detail.