Building Safety Act 2022 (Consequential Amendments etc.) Regulations 2023

Considered in Grand Committee

Moved by

That the Grand Committee do consider the Building Safety Act 2022 (Consequential Amendments etc.) Regulations 2023.

My Lords, these regulations will make technical but important changes to the language used in existing legislation, bringing it into line with the new terminology and processes introduced by the Building Safety Act 2022.

I will start by providing some context for these regulations. After the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the Government recognised the need for an overhaul of our building safety regime. In 2017 we appointed Dame Judith Hackitt to conduct an expert review of the current regime. Her review identified the need for significant cultural and regulatory change, including recommendations focused on the building control process.

Part of the Government’s response to these building control recommendations included the introduction of provisions in Section 33 of the Building Safety Act that repeal Section 16 of the Building Act 1984. The Government consulted on these provisions, and they were subject to pre-legislative scrutiny ahead of formal consideration of the Building Safety Act.

Section 16 made provision for the deposit of plans with local authorities before starting building work, as well as the passing or rejection of the plans. The information provided to building control was not always consistent, nor always sufficiently detailed for the work to be carried out.

Section 33 of the Building Safety Act, which has yet to be enacted, repeals Section 16 and provides instead for a new system of applications for building control approval. For higher-risk buildings, this means a more stringent system, with the building safety regulator the sole building control body. Applicants cannot proceed with work without explicit approval from the building safety regulator.

For non-higher-risk buildings, there is no significant change from the existing procedure. Local authorities and approved inspectors will remain responsible for supervising this work, and work can begin before approval is granted. Applicants do so at risk of having to uncover or change work and could face enforcement action. In addition, provisions in the Building Safety Act largely transfer procedures for appeals under the Building Act from the magistrates’ court to the specialist First-tier Tribunal.

The purpose of these regulations is to align the Highways Act 1980, the Clean Air Act 1993 and 13 local Acts with the terminology and processes that will be established when Section 33 of the Building Safety Act is enacted. Provisions in the Highways Act that relate to the payment of charges for street works when building control plans are deposited are amended to refer to new systems of applications for building control approval. Section 16 of the Clean Air Act is also amended. This section requires local authorities to check the height of proposed chimneys to ensure that they are tall enough to prevent smoke and particulates becoming prejudicial to health. It is amended to replace references to the deposit of plans with provisions that refer to applications for building control approval.

My Lords, I rise to comment on this statutory instrument and thank the Minister for the introduction she has given to it. It goes in partnership with Section 32, which is not yet in force. She has rightly drawn attention to the fact that it does not cover the question of the actual application process, which is going to be dealt with later. So it is rather a small cog in a very big machine to make sure that the system works effectively.

I do not propose to spend a lot of time commenting on the local building Acts, with which I once used to wrestle in a professional capacity. I am sure that rationalising those makes a great deal of sense, regardless of the building safety and high-rise issues driving this change.

I note the frequent references to the building safety regulator in what the Minister put to the Committee a few moments ago. I share her view that the regulator is an absolutely fundamental part of the new machinery and, clearly, will be pivotal to making sure that, ultimately, the machine moves and works. The Minister will know that I have already expressed my concern about proposed amendments that the Government have brought forward in the levelling-up Bill to potentially change who the regulator is, perhaps on a timescale that could very likely interact with the implementation of Section 32 and the bringing into force of a new application process. What consideration has the department given to the potential for this process and the very tightly drawn and carefully designed machinery, of which this is a small part, to continue to function—or, rather, begin to function—smoothly and without effort or distortion when the new system comes into play, as outlined in the levelling-up Bill amendments by the Government?

That is a matter that we will obviously return to at the Report stage of consideration of that Bill—I do not want to enter that debate now—but I hope the Minister will give us what reassurance she can that the machine of which this is a small cog is intended to continue working seamlessly in the event that the Government proceed with completely reshaping the building safety regulator sometime in the next two years.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for setting out the proposals in these regulations. Although it could be considered a minor amendment dealing with just consequential matters, in view of the overall context of building safety and the fact that this is one of a number of steps we are seeing to ensure that the very serious issues that have arisen from the Grenfell Tower disaster and others are taken seriously and acted upon, we need to treat all these regulations with a degree of seriousness.

We were very pleased to learn that proposals for new building regulations were consulted on last year and that new regulations will come forward before the Summer Recess for enactment in the autumn. We look forward to hearing about the new process. As we are not able to amend these through the regulation process, I ask the Minister whether we will have the opportunity to see them in draft form before they come through to us.

Two aspects relating to building safety and building control that have emerged in recent years are, first, that the transfer to the private sector—the deregulation —of building control did not anticipate that there would be an impact on the quality or availability of the building control function. Neither did it anticipate the dilution of the independence of the building control function from the development industry.

Secondly, we hope that, as new regulations are developed, attention will be paid to the capacity, resources, recruitment and retention of the building control inspectors to ensure that they are sufficient to deal with what we hope will be tighter regulation for building safety in future.

We note the transfer of the appeals procedure to the First-tier Tribunal. Can we be reassured that the First-tier Tribunal will have sufficient resources to enable it to deal with those new duties? In view of the glacial pace of progress on building safety matters that leaseholders have had to endure, it would be unfortunate in the extreme if the level of appeals resulted in unacceptable backlogs and were not dealt with promptly. It will also be essential that matters such as stop notices are able to be progressed without delay. I hope the resources are there to deal with that.

I thank noble Lords for that and for their brevity; I think that was right, considering that these are quite technical matters. It is important that many of the things brought up by both noble Lords will be discussed further when we bring the building control SIs to the Committee later in the year. In particular, the question of whether building control remains as professional and regulated as currently is an important issue. That has to happen, and we will have that debate.

I was also interested in the capacity of tribunals; that is always important. We know that the magistrates’ courts are probably where a lot of things are being held up. I quite agree that the First-tier Tribunals must have the capacity to be able to deal with things in a timely manner.

As far as the building safety regulator and the LURB are concerned, I can assure the noble Lord that the Government will work to ensure that all these parts of building safety work together and that there is no black hole between one and the other. That will take some timings; I am sure that we will discuss that further before it happens. If the LURB goes through, there will be SIs to change the regulator and to ensure that everything works in a timely manner and nothing is lost in the meantime. I can assure noble Lords that we will work towards that end. To conclude—

Before the Minister moves on, it would be really helpful to understand the entire role of the building safety regulator. There has been a lot of heavy lifting as we have gone through the process of the LURB and the Building Safety Act, and it would be really helpful if the entire scope of the building safety regulator could be set out somewhere.

I am more than happy to write to the noble Baroness, and copy in the Library, about what we foresee that to be, although that concerns the LURB and not this instrument. I am happy to have a meeting on that, if necessary, before we go into that part of the LURB on Report.

As I said, these regulations will ensure that the Highways Act, the Clean Air Act and the 13 local Acts will continue to function as intended when the new system of applications for building control approval is brought into force. I hope the Committee will join me in supporting these regulations.

Motion agreed.