Building Safety Bill - House of Lords Report Stage and Third Reading - What You Need to Know
As the Building Safety Bill closes in on its estimated date for Royal Assent in Q3 2022, activity has ramped up from both Government, who are seeking to change aspects of the Bill to coincide with data and evidence received during the committee stage, as well as from MPs and Peers who are looking to influence the Bill prior to it becoming legislation.
With that in mind the policy and public affairs team felt that it would be pertinent to provide an update of where the Bill is and what changes have been made since the recent House of Lords report stage that took place on the week commencing 28 March 2022.
Currently the Building Safety Bill is on its way back to the House of Commons having passed through its third reading in the House of Lords on 4 May 2022. MPs in the Commons will now have to consider, line by line, the amendments that have been proposed by peers and vote on whether they will be included in the final bill. The third reading of the Bill was an uneventful session, with the Bill and its proposed amendments gaining cross-party support from peers. However, there were many changes that came about during the report stage that will have a significant impact on how the new building safety regime will be implemented.
To help you understand what was decided on during both the report stage and third reading we have listed some of the most impactful amendments that were either added to the Bill or defeated in the House of Lords chamber.
Amendments
Implications
While some of these amendments will have serious implications on the operations of the new safety regime it is worth noting that the Government defeats on key amendments were in large part due to the weak Conservative majority in the House of Lords. It is likely that many of the Government defeats will be undone in the House of Commons where the Conservative Party hold a significant majority.
Of the amendments proposed and passed in the House of Lords we would like to draw your attention to two specifically:
Firstly, Amendments 30 to 34 proposed by the Minister for Building Safety & Fire, Lord Greenhalgh. These amendments are associated with the removal of Clause 82 to 86 of the Bill which required the appointment of a building safety manager to ensure a buildings compliance with new and existing fire safety rules. This new role would have had a major impact on the safety regime as it would facilitate the long-term management of a building specifically relating to fire safety and would position the building safety manager as one of the key points of contact for residents who hold concerns about the safety of their building. Alongside this, the building safety manager role would share the liability associated with building safety with the Accountable Person (in many cases this would be the building owner) effectively reducing the risk of not gaining the correct level of insurance needed.
The removal of the building safety manager role comes after concerns from Government over the necessity of the role given some of the shared responsibilities with the Accountable Person role as well as the associated costs that leaseholders would face. However, while the removal of this role could help alleviate some of the concerns raised by the industry on the ability to meet the demand for the role given the current skills gap, there are renewed concerns about how the functions will be translated over into the day-to-day operations of the Accountable Person. There may still be instances in which a building safety manager will be appointed as, while there is no legal requirement for their appointment, it is at the discretion of the Accountable Person to make the final decision on their necessity. Despite this, the responsibilities of the Building Safety Manager still remains in the Bill and will need to be carried out, in large part, by the Accountable Person.
Further guidance will be published by Government on how the Building Safety Regulator will help support the Accountable Person in its now increased functions. However, until this is published, CIOB holds concerns about how building owners will be able to correctly carry out functions that were previously assigned to a trained and appointed professional.
Secondly, Amendment 115 as proposed by the Earl of Lytton. This amendment effectively extends the cost protections set out in the Bill to all buildings, instead of just those above 11 metres. This amendment will have significant implications on the operations of the new safety regime as it would extend the responsibilities of the new roles required in the Bill to cover all buildings, therefore, requiring a large number of additional entrants into the construction industry at a time where numbers of entrants is at a low. Additionally, the number of new buildings that would be in scope of the Bill will have ramifications on the costs needed to ensure that the safety regime is effective. The current agreement between housing developers and the Government will set aside around £4bn as part of a cladding remediation fund. While there are discussions that this will be scrapped in favour of requiring developers to pay for the costs of cladding remediation on the buildings that they have developed, if this is not the case, £4bn to cover the remediation of every building will not be enough to ensure that the new regime is effective.
As mentioned above, the jury is still out on whether these amendments will form part of the final wording of the Bill and the industry will wait with bated breath to see how many amendments the Government will look to overturn when the Bill returns to the Houses of Commons for considerations on 20 April 2022.
The team will continue to provide updates on the progress of the Bill through our Building Safety Newsletter which you can sign up to here.