Fire Safety Regulations and Guidance

Ironically, the then chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group, the late Sir David Amess MP, wrote 21 letters to successive Ministers pleading with them to bring forward a few of the life-changing, critical safety matters outlined by the coroner before the planned three-year or four-year review into regulations; they were all refused. Following the tragic loss of 72 lives in the Grenfell Tower, Sir David made the public statement that, had Ministers listened to him, that

“fire … would not have happened”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/7/17; col. 334.]

It was not just one Minister; it was a succession of Ministers.

The APPG’s fire adviser and administrative secretary, Ronnie King OBE, provided a 34,000-word statement and approaching 100 exhibits to the Grenfell public inquiry following a four-hour interview and follow-up meetings with the legal team, which was extensively quoted in the evidence. That was after a four-hour interview under caution with the Metropolitan Police.

As noble Lords are aware, stage two of the Grenfell inquiry finished in October 2022. In his closing statement, the lead counsel to the inquiry, Richard Millett KC, said that many firms giving evidence at the Grenfell inquiry indulged in a

“merry-go-round of buck-passing”

to protect their legal positions. He said that it was regrettable that many of,

“those responsible for the buildings and the building environment as it was on the night of the fire sought to exculpate themselves and to pin the blame on others”.

He said, however, that the firms then blamed

“the professionals in the design team for not reading the marketing leaflets”

which required a full system fitting test before the block of flats was built.

The brief from the Home Office to Dame Judith Hackitt was clear that she should undertake an independent review of building and, in particular, fire safety regulations. Dame Judith’s recommendations included a new regulatory framework to address those weaknesses. The overriding theme was to move towards an outcome-based approach to building safety, where industries take responsibility for their own actions. The key proposals included a new joint competent authority, comprised of local authority building standards, fire and rescue authorities and the Health and Safety Executive, to oversee the management and risk of high-rise residential buildings.

A set of rigorous, demanding roles and responsibilities for duty holders was introduced to give stronger focus on building safety and a single, more streamlined regulatory route to oversee standards across the board and to determine where enforcement can and should take place. Dame Judith established six work groups to consider those elements, including how to build effect regulations to make homes safer for people. Some of those groups had 10 people. Significantly, not one All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group adviser was selected for to serve on any of those groups, despite their enormous wealth of experience in the fire industry.

I now turn to the overlap of grey areas in government departments and will explain why we think this needs to be looked at. I will give a couple of examples of the fragmentation across departments and the need for greater integration, beginning with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. The All-Party Parliamentary Group had a second meeting with the Minister only yesterday—quite surprisingly, as the debate is today. That was because of frequent changes in the secretarial staff in the department, but I suspect that it was not helped by the number of government reshuffles. It must be said that the Minister was very amiable and helpful; he attended the meeting. He assured me that he was taking a horizon-scanning approach to fire safety, and I wait to see what that means.

I point out that since Grenfell the department has taken numerous policy decisions relating to tall blocks of flats, such as setting a height threshold of 11 metres, at which new-build blocks must have automatic fire sprinklers and protection, removing the dangerous Class O certification from Building Regulations Approved Document B. It also took the immediate decision to remove ACM combustible cladding from all existing tower blocks taller than 18 metres and broadened that out for combustible cladding on less tall buildings. It is now working hard to sort out leaseholder issues, but clearly that is more complicated and a debate for another meeting.

The recent Luton Airport multi-storey car park fire followed an earlier fire at Liverpool Arena. A report commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government in 2006, published in 2010, showed the impact that having automatic fire sprinklers would have had on that fire and the earlier fire at the Liverpool Arena in 2017. The report said that tests found that sprinkler systems were effective in controlling developing fires and equally effective at controlling fully developed fires. In addition, without sprinklers, fires are likely to spread from car to car. With sprinklers that is very unlikely. The report found that structural steelwork was not affected by less than 30 minutes’ fire exposure. With sprinklers, the steelwork would have remained unaffected. So why was that not implemented and why did that fire at Luton Airport happen?

The second issue relates to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the charging of lithium-ion batteries in e-bikes inside blocks of flats, where there have been several deaths due to the ferocity of the explosion when a fire takes hold. Most of these e-bikes are being charged in communal areas that are the only exits for the people living in those flats. This matter should be addressed. The Department for Business and Trade and the Home Office are responsible for fighting fires, as well as the Department for Transport which is now involved because of e-bikes. We need clarity about which department has overall responsibility for fire safety.

The third issue is a second staircase in new blocks of flats taller than 18 metres, which was agreed. Second staircases must be built. The Minister has now deferred that decision for further consultation. Why?

The Department for Education produced a revised fire safety design guide for new schools Design for Fire Safety in Schools: Building Bulletin 100 for a public consultation. Two years ago, it received a resounding rejection by the whole of the fire sector including the National Fire Chiefs Council, which still has not had a response. The current BB100, which was prepared with the oversight of the then Schools Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, concluded that all new schools, apart from a few low-risk schools, to be determined by a risk toolkit, would be expected to have automatic fire sprinklers installed. So, every new school should get a sprinkler system. However, the recent Department for Education draft provision reversed that decision and concluded that all schools, apart from a few high-risk schools, will not now get a sprinkler system. The risk toolkit will be scrapped and high-risk schools will be determined by the Department for Education. They include those taller than 11 meters, which are very few; special needs schools, which are now integrated into mainstream schools, and so there are very few such schools; and the sleeping parts of boarding schools—not the whole boarding school, just the sleeping part—and again there are very few.

The department did not do an impact assessment that fire damage to the school has on its children’s attainment levels, until we told it and it had to address it. The department did not provide a compartment size for large single-storey schools before it need fire suppression, and we had to tell it that. In the original guidelines, a school could be half a square mile before any regulations were needed. It has now set the size at 4,000 square meters. The DfE confessed it did not have professional fire safety adviser when we asked to meet the advisers. It is now recruiting a fire service engineer and will meet the group before seeing politicians.

The APPG has had one meeting with the Department for Education in four years, at a time when fire has been high on the agenda with school fires, Covid and the impact on children’s mental health and development. Our children should be in schools interacting and developing. Will the Minister tell us how the DfE can continue to be permitted to manage fire safety, post-Grenfell Tower, with such a poor risk attitude? Following the evidence of asbestos and RAAC concrete in school buildings, it gives me no confidence.

In summary, the APPG and the entire fire industry feel we cannot accept such poor standards. History tells us that with fire, legislation normally follows disasters and subsequent inquiries bring recommendations from the Woolworths fire in Manchester, the King’s Cross disaster, Grenfell Tower and numerous train accidents. This cannot be a coherent way to determine fire safety policy. We must integrate fire in one place, where all the standards and policies will be made and where one person will be held accountable. It needs specialist advisers who will not necessarily tell the Minister what he wants to hear, but what he needs to hear. Will the Minister comment on why ex-police chief constables seem to arrive in this House like London buses, but not one ex-fire chief has ever be ennobled in its history? The experience of 30 or 40 years in that industry, understanding the issues, is to me unfathomable. Sometimes, it is that simple.

As far as I can find out, Bedfordshire police have since confirmed that the initial vehicle involved in the fire was a diesel car—apparently not an electric car. A man in his 30s has been arrested in connection with the fire and was later released on bail, but the police investigation is on-going. As Mr Neil Thompson, the operations director at Luton Airport, said, the car park would need to be fully demolished due to the extent of structural damage. This is a tragedy all round and it raises and re-emphasises the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, in his speech

There are myriad parts of the Government involved in fire safety and we all know some of them: they run from the Home Office to the Building Safety Act 2022, which is really a local authority Act, and the Health and Safety Executive; the Department for Business and Trade has responsibility for lithium-ion batteries and the Department for Transport is apparently looking after scooters and e-bikes. I am not sure why we have to have quite so many departments involved. We certainly need some co-ordination.

We now have two classic case histories. One is the huge tragedy of Grenfell, where it has taken too long to bring the report out. I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench can confirm that that report will now be published, in the next month or so, and will not be put off even further. Will he also make sure that we do a proper analysis of that second case history at Luton? These fires should not occur, and something is going wrong in the system when they do. I do not want to read in 2024 of a third major tragedy somewhere in the United Kingdom.

I want to add another thing. It is well known that we have been training Ukrainian service men and women with our Ministry of Defence in the United Kingdom, since Putin invaded Ukraine 18 months ago. What is less known is that our fire services and firefighters have run convoys of fire safety vehicles and kit to Ukraine, which has helped its people to respond as their own needs for fire safety and rescue have monumentally increased. I would very much like to see the scheme that is used in the Ministry of Defence also operating for the five service, because we forget that the effect of bombing puts a very particular burden on fire safety and rescue.

Grenfell stands as a marker for failure and we need to remember the victims: 72 killed and many more injured. Many of the reviews and changes in legislation outlined by my noble friend since 14 June 2017 have identified the problems that need addressing. There is no doubt that some progress has been made, but, as we are already hearing in this debate, there are still some gaping holes. However, let us just note that progress. There is no doubt that the current fire safety regulations have played a vital role in reducing fires, fire deaths and injuries over the years.

We know that there is still much to do. One of the most urgent things that has not been discussed so far is the updating of Approved Document B, part of the building regulations guidance. It is very out of date. Not one of the government fire-risk assessment guides has been revised since its publication in 2006. Especially worrying is the lack of clear guidance on evacuation lifts and multiple staircases in high-rise buildings. At the All-Party Fire Safety and Rescue Group, we have been chasing this with Ministers since I joined it in 2011, but it is always just around the corner. I understand why, post-Grenfell, there had to be a pause, given the inquiry, Judith Hackitt’s report and government departments having to decide what their priorities are. However, 2017 is six years ago and the time must come for it to be published. I ask the Minister: when can we expect to see it?

There is a specific need for guidance for the disabled and the vulnerable. The Minister’s predecessors wavered on personal emergency evacuation plans, known as PEEPs, claiming they were too hard to do in a high-rise block. But 40% of the disabled residents in Grenfell died that night. That is shocking. Can the Minister tell your Lordships’ House what progress there is on keeping disabled residents safe in high-rise flats?

PEEPs are also important for other reasons. We need them in every environment in which disabled and vulnerable people move around. I was in Portcullis House about five years ago when the fire alarm started going off. My PEEP is for the House of Lords; as an involved member of the public in Portcullis House, I have to know my own way round it. My problem was that nobody knew what to do once the refuge had been closed off. I was literally on my own; I had gone where I was told to and did not know how I could contact people. I am really grateful to the House authorities because, as a result of my experience, they have changed the arrangements in Portcullis House. They now ask people when they are organising their PEEPs where they are likely to travel in the building. However, this is unusual. I went to a conference held earlier this year—ironically, it was the fire conference—and four days beforehand, I was asked to fill in a PEEP before I had ever been to the building and to return it before I arrived. Training is absolutely vital, because disabled people and vulnerable people are the most vulnerable.

I turn briefly to sprinklers, already well covered by my noble friend Lord Goddard. It is well documented that sprinklers play a significant role, but I am appalled that the Government are not considering adding them automatically to new builds, or even new parts of buildings, particularly for the disabled and the vulnerable. This includes new care homes, hospitals and schools. Schools are a particularly sore point. As my noble friend outlined, we have had a real problem in our APPG when trying to get the Department for Education to engage. In 2003, when I was the chair of governors of a primary school that was built in the 1960s, a young arsonist set it afire. It had RAAC, as we now know. We did not also know, until it burned down, that the entire structure of the building was reliant on the windows, and when they caved in the entire building started to fall afterwards. In the new building that went up, we were not permitted to have sprinklers.

The change in the schools landscape in the past 10 years worries me. When our school burned down, we still had a local education authority that was responsible for ensuring that alternative provision was made as soon as possible. Local authorities no longer have the resources for that. Academy chains are finding it really difficult to find alternative provision when they are affected by fire. The other reason we need sprinklers is because children need continuity in their education. It can take far too long to replace what is lost.

I turn now to the emerging, life-threatening danger that is lithium batteries. I thank both my noble friend Lord Goddard and the noble Lord, Lord, Naseby, for their comments, and I say to the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, that there was a fire at Bristol Airport last week. Luckily, unlike the Luton fire, it was not in a multi-storey but in an open-plan area. Already, fire service people in the area are saying that the fire was made much worse by lithium battery cars which caught fire—not that they were the cause of the fire, but the fire is so intense that it is dangerous.

There are people dying regularly as a result of lithium fires. In July, in Cambridge a mother and her two small children died in a fire in a low block of flats. It is thought that an e-bike was being charged in the flat, but, as my noble friend Lord Goddard, said, in too many places, it is possible to use power points in common-part areas, and a number of fires have been caused like that. A firefighter described what happens when a lithium battery catches fire. It is not like any other fire you have seen. It is like a phosphorus fire, it is 1,000 degrees centigrade, it is a complete explosion of fire and it is devastating. To have anything able to be recharged in common parts is appalling.

We need registration for lithium batteries. Part of the problem is that we cannot get different departments to talk to each other. Officers of the all-party group met with Kevin Hollinrake, the Minister for Trade and Enterprise, who covers regulation of batteries, and he absolutely understands the issue. But until every government department looks at the use of batteries in whatever area of work it is covering, we will not start to solve this problem.

I want to end on the future. We have already heard about the plethora of government departments, with each having little bits of fire safety to look after. There must be co-ordination across all departments. I will not call for a Minister in Cabinet with overall responsibility for fire, but it is not beyond the wit of government to get people together to start to talk about this, because, at the end of the day, this is about life saving, ensuring the reduction of costs in destruction of buildings, and we need to make changes.

Let me end on a positive note. At the Fire Conference 2023, which I attended, I heard very encouraging dialogues between firefighters, those making provision in the construction industry and specialist fire services. All of them were saying that the Government’s approach at the moment is too complex and too slow. They are very willing, but they need more help from the Government to make the changes that both the Grenfell inquiry and the Judith Hackitt review demanded, if we are to keep people safe in future.

When one applies that to the risk of fires in schools, the likelihood of the risk eventuating is well known to be far more frequent in schools—unfortunately, often because of arson—than in many other public buildings. On the magnitude of the damage if the risk eventuates, true, it will not often cause death or even injury, because evacuation is easy and schools often put on fire at night when nobody is present. But that magnitude incorporates the issues that the noble Baroness mentioned a moment ago. It is not simply the cost of replacing the building; it is the disruption to the lives of children and their families and to other educational establishments in setting up alternative education for those children while the building is replaced.

Against that, there is the cost of the precaution to avoid the risk. The fitting of sprinklers prospectively is relatively trivial in the cost of any building. Even retrospectively, it is a minor cost. With the APPG, about 18 months ago, with Sir David Amess in charge, we went on a visit to a block of flats in Stoke-on-Trent to see a multi-storey block which had been retrofitted with sprinklers. The cost was only something between £1,000 and £2,000 per flat, which I do not think is a lot of money. Even retrospectively, these things can be done at reasonable cost.

I ask the Minister whether the relevant department would disclose the methodology for risk assessment that led to this curious reversal in policy, and whether he would accept some kind of peer review by the experts—I do not include myself in this—who, as the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, mentioned, are present in the APPG on Fire Safety and Rescue.

Secondly, I will raise the question of compartmentation. This is what led to the “stay put” policy adopted by the fire brigades at the Lakanal House fire and the Grenfell Tower fire. I have no doubt that this policy and the issue of compartmentation will be dealt with in the Grenfell report when it emerges. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, about the need for that report to be produced as soon as possible, but I am sure he appreciates the magnitude of the task and the extent of the evidence and engineering and fire assessment reports that have been taken into account by that inquiry. It is understandable that it has taken a considerable amount of time to produce the report.

One of the most harrowing experiences of my professional life was in the Lakanal House inquest. Many pieces of horrific evidence were heard, but one of them was the transcript and recording of a phone call made by a young woman resident in one of the flats in Lakanal House to the control centre for the fire brigade, in which she reported smelling fire and seeing smoke and flames; it lasted for 40 minutes until the line went silent. The control operator on the other end was giving her what advice she could and telling her to stay put in accordance with the policy because she would be rescued; unfortunately, she was not.

I felt that tragedy personally; I also felt it was a tragedy for the poor woman who was the call operator dealing with that call—and there were many like it, and many similar calls at Grenfell Tower. The policy of “stay put” depends on the construction principle of compartmentation, which means that the building is so constructed that each housing unit will be able to withstand fire for long enough for the fire brigade to effect a rescue. The problem is that, although Lakanal House and Grenfell Tower were built with that principle in mind, and no doubt were effective when they were built, over years the compartmentation was breached. There were obvious breaches in both cases: the panel under the windows that caught fire in Lakanal House and the cladding that caught fire in Grenfell Tower, with the compartment breached by fire coming through the windows. At Lakanal House, the compartments were defective in many other respects as well: pipes had been driven through the walls and not sealed up properly; and pipes had been boxed in with wooden shuttering, which of course was material for fire to catch hold of.

The whole issue of compartmentation, as a building principle, needs to be looked at again, because it is not good enough to simply have a guarantee that the compartment will withstand fire when it is built. Since the building will be standing for the next 50 or 100 years, there has got to be some guarantee, or some means adopted, to check that the compartment will still withstand fire over the intervening years. Otherwise, fire brigade control room staff are put in this awful position of assuring residents that they must stay put when, in fact, the principle on which that diktat is founded is defective. Can the Minister say something about the protection of compartmentation, or the inspection of compartments, and the assessment of risk when compartments are broken in any way in future?

Thirdly, I will raise the issue of staffing. Recent developments have required increasing numbers of experts in fire safety to make risk assessments and carry out inspections. One of the problems of the increasing inequality of income between the public and private sectors is that the private sector—not surprisingly—is luring away experts whose expertise is needed in the public sector. It is not just a question of salaries; it is also terms and conditions, training and promotion prospects. Can the Minister say something about how this will be addressed in the future? What overall increase in the number of suitably qualified experts will be required and how will they be retained in the public sector?

Finally, I will speak about the fire and rescue services. I share with the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, his respect for the heroic men and women who serve in our fire brigades—both the paid and the unpaid. The national salary increase that was awarded to firefighters this year is, of course, most welcome. Can the Minister say something about retention and recruitment, in consequence of that salary increase: whether it is satisfactory at the moment or whether we are losing firefighters? One essential aspect of that salary increase is that it was achieved by national collective bargaining in the fire service—I am sorry, just give me one moment, this is my last sentence. There have been suggestions of the ending of collective bargaining to determine pay, terms and conditions; I wonder whether the Minister is committed to maintaining it?

Much of the briefing we have received reflects the difficulty for local fire and rescue services in keeping up with the increasing demands of current legislation on their professional advice, monitoring and inspection. Fire safety assessments of schools are done by school staff not trained to do so, with no requirement to provide evidence. FR services believe they should check this assessment but accept that this would put greater pressure on their resources. However, it should be done, and appropriately resourced.

Fire safety is, of course, not all that the fire brigades deal with. They rescue people from all kinds of situations, including the increased flooding events caused by climate change. It is very concerning therefore that they are finding difficulty in recruiting enough officers. Services are calling for more flexibility in the fire uplift grant, which pays for prevention services. In addition, in order to adequately meet fire safety requirements, all FRSs need greater council tax flexibility, a three-year government settlement and an allocation of the protection grant that reflects local circumstances. Can the Minister comment on this?

While many colleagues have focused on building safety, I would like to focus the main thrust of my remarks on issues of the fire standards for furnishings. According to UKRI research, the UK is one of the highest users of chemical flame retardants—the chemicals that extend the time it takes for a material to catch fire. This is partly because of our open-flame ignition test. However, there are both health and environmental concerns about these substances. The researchers also found that a significant proportion of fire deaths are caused by inhalation of toxic fumes from these chemicals, as was mentioned by my noble friend Lady Brinton, including cyanide gas and carbon monoxide. That is not all: even before fires occur there are risks to health, including increasing diabetes, obesity and cancer risks, as well as effects on hormones, DNA, and heart and kidney function. Particular concerns have been raised about potential effects on babies and young children, who may be more susceptible to health impacts while they are developing and are likely to frequently put their hands in their mouths. This is because flame retardants migrate out of the products through wear, abrasion and disposal or recycling. They collect and persist, staying in the body, air, food and drinking water, as well as on surfaces; they also enter rivers and lakes.

What is being done? Not enough. In 2014 and 2016, the Government consulted on ways and means of reducing the use of flame retardants because of these concerns, but nothing was done then. In 2019, the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee report, Toxic Chemicals in Everyday Life, identified concerns regarding the use of flame retardants, including emphasising the potential health impacts for babies and children. It pointed out that the furniture and furnishings regulations have been under review by BEIS, as it was then, and by its predecessor department for 10 years.

In 2021, at last, the Office for Product Safety and Standards ran a call for evidence on a UK product safety review. It published research on fire risks of upholstered products this year. The Government now propose new fire safety regulations for upholstered products. The consultation ended in October. One of the intentions of the draft regulations is to:

“Enable and encourage a reduction in the use of chemical flame retardants.”

However, the draft regulations fall short of what is needed and would, for example, exclude from scope items such as small cushions and baby products, including playpens and carrycots. I hope that I can correctly assume that mattresses used in hospitals are included. Given that the smallest of items can cause a fire, can the Minister tell me why baby products are excluded from scope? There are also measures about better enforcement and compliance, all of which would require additional personnel and funding. Can the Minister tell me whether these measures would be adequately funded, given the concerns I expressed earlier about resources for the FRS?

I am not the only person expressing these concerns. In March 2023, scientists in the journal Environment International asked that

“a very high level of certainty about the human and environmental safety of flame retardants is demonstrated before they are approved for use”,

and to ensure that there are “monitoring systems” to rapidly flag issues and replace flame retardants. Dr Paul Whaley, from Lancaster University, said that

“there has to be a proper balancing of the harms and benefits of flame retardants, that includes a comprehensive evaluation of the effectiveness of flame retardants as a fire safety measure”.

The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee followed up its earlier report this month, complaining that

“many of the Government’s proposals stop short of what the Committee had previously recommended”.

Like me, it wanted to know why baby products are being excluded from scope, whether best practice from other countries is being considered, and what measures the Government are considering that would give more information to consumers on the chemical flame retardants used in their furniture.

The Fire Brigades Union considers that the proposals are deregulatory and put profits before firefighter and public safety. The Chartered Trading Standards Institute also felt that more products should be in scope, including products labelled for use outdoors—because they are often stored indoors.

What does the Minister have to say to all that criticism of the proposals? We need materials in our homes which deter fire risk but do not damage our health. I would like to know what research the Government are funding to identify such products and disseminate their use.

Many of these fires are caused by faulty, non-compliant or counterfeit products purchased from online marketplaces, or by wrong chargers being used with batteries. Electrical Safety First has found concerning trends in London-based e-bike and e-scooter users. For instance, it found that 71% of Greater London-based delivery riders using a converted e-bike did the conversion themselves; and 48% of those delivery riders who had a converted e-bike sourced the conversion kit and/or batteries from online marketplaces, which are not regulated in the same way as high street shops.

In a separate survey of e-bike and e-scooter owners, Electrical Safety First found that 40% of e-bike and e-scooter owners charged their batteries in the communal area of the property they live in, such as a hallway or stairwell; 52% of e-bike and e-scooter owners in Greater London charged their batteries overnight while sleeping; and 39% of them in Greater London did not have working smoke alarms in their properties.

Addressing the dangers posed by e-bike and e-scooter batteries requires new UK-wide fire regulations. Electrical Safety First proposes that new regulatory measures should include third-party approval for e-bikes and e-scooters and their batteries, mirroring regulations for fireworks.

In Committee, considering the Pedicabs (London) Bill on Monday, the Minister said:

“The Government recognise that there are issues with e-scooters that we need to address, but this Bill is not the appropriate place to do so. As has been mentioned, we recently extended the e-scooter trials until 31 May 2026 to continue to gather evidence on how best to legislate for micromobility, including e-scooters, in future. Given the pressure on legislative time, that legislation will not come forward in this Session, unfortunately. Ahead of that, the Government intend to consult on the detailed approach for regulating e-scooters”.—[Official Report, 11/12/23; col. GC 232.]

Given the obviously urgent need to deal with this rapidly increasing problem, will the Minister, when he replies today, tell us when this consultation will start and, particularly, when it will end? Most importantly, will he confirm that it will not wait until after the trials referred to have ended in 2026?

I turn now to another fire safety issue of particular importance and concern in London—that of high-rise buildings. In July this year, the Government defined 18 metres, or seven floors, as the height at which buildings are at higher risk and the threshold at which new buildings should have a second staircase. Some 67%—two-thirds—of all such high-rise residential buildings in the UK are situated in London.

None of the Government’s fire risk assessment guides have been revised since their publication in 2006. Two examples of issues where current guidance is not clear are evacuation lifts and multiple staircases. The timing for a revision is uncertain, so can the Minister tell us today when it will take place? The London Fire Brigade is also urging the Government to provide further guidance and revised building regulations, including those relating to access and use of buildings, particularly for those with accessibility needs. Further detail is also needed on the transitional arrangements for second staircases, to give developers, local authorities, fire services and communities clarity.

London local authority-managed housing stock is more likely to be older, densified, and found in flatted blocks rather than houses. London boroughs face multiple pressures beyond building safety, such as the need to raise standards, meet net-zero targets and supply new affordable homes. Housing revenue accounts in London are under significant strain, as they are everywhere. The Government’s 7% ceiling on social rent increases in 2023-24 is estimated to have a £590 million impact on London boroughs’ housing revenue account finances over the next five financial years. This exacerbated the impact of the four-year 1% rent reduction policy in place from 2016-17, which, by 2021-22, left London rents an estimated £459 million lower than expected.

Local authorities are facing an increasingly complex regulatory environment, with a multitude of changes and different regulators. Alignment between regulatory bodies must be central to developing new regulatory practice and requirements. The new fire and building safety requirements are stretching London borough resources—and I am sure those of every other local authority, too—and their capacity. The building safety regulator charging regime will put significant additional financial pressure on local authorities, particularly those with a high number of complex buildings.

Lastly, I turn to building control. Local authority building control teams are at the forefront of new responsibilities relating to high-rise residential buildings, especially with the formation of the building safety regulator’s multidisciplinary teams that will come into force imminently. The Government must work with local authorities to ensure that building control teams are sufficiently resourced and enabled to meet new obligations to ensure residents’ safety. London borough building control teams urgently require clarity and guidance on their roles within the multidisciplinary hub, to ensure that it is implemented effectively. When will that clarity be given?

In conclusion, London borough resources and capacity are stretched to the limit—I am sure all local authorities are in the same position—as a result of financial pressures on the housing revenue account and a lack of sufficiently qualified staff to deliver these functions. Local authorities urgently need more funding and greater financial flexibility in order to meet fire and building safety requirements, at the same time as raising the standards of tenants’ homes, meeting new consumer standards and delivering new affordable housing. This should include allowing a rent catch-up so that social housing providers can gradually recover some of the reduced financial investment available as a result of the 7% rent ceiling.

A post-2025 rent settlement that provides sufficient funding and certainty is also needed, and London Councils encourages the Government to launch a consultation at the earliest opportunity. Specifically, the Government should recognise and unlock barriers faced by boroughs attempting to access, and make best use of, remedial funding to realise intended outcomes for residents. For example, local authorities receive remedial funding only for external cladding, not for other corrective fire and building safety works.

I recognise that the Minister may not have been briefed on all these points and may not anyway have time, even in his 20 minutes, to answer all the questions he has been asked today, so I would be grateful if he would write to me, and indeed to other noble Lords, answering the many questions that so far remain unanswered.

That may be fine for straightforward, simple cases where there is evidently low risk, but I do not think it is generally true. As of now, for low and medium-rise residential property, there is seemingly no obligation on occupiers at all, despite the concerns around batteries and the use of certain types of equipment, identified by the noble Lord, Lord Tope. The obligation of the block manager seemingly is for common parts only, with no further obligation to investigate in additional detail.

Yet the incidence of fires is, I am told, far greater for domestic premises than for other types of use. I wonder how many residents in Victorian terraced houses divided into say two, three or four self-contained units are aware that they may now have collective responsibilities? If we are not enforcing regulatory compliance—and I hear the words of the noble Lord, Lord Tope, about inadequacy of resources, a point also made by others—one has to question the purpose and direction of policy in this whole area.

I believe that it is not necessarily generally the failure of equipment itself. The inherent safety in many cases is really quite good, but it depends on the use and occupation and the category of that occupation—for instance, as other noble Lords mentioned, trying to charge lithium-ion batteries with unsuitable chargers or inadequate storage space, with items packed into areas that lack ventilation or a way to allow heat to escape.

While I am fine with a light touch for low-rise blocks of flats, there needs to be a minimum standard of efficacy and the regime has to be proportionate to the actual risks. In July 2021, the independent experts advising the Government produced a statement determining that low-rise buildings were at materially lower risk from a life-critical fire safety standpoint. This fed into the legislation, despite noble Lords, including me, contending in this House that low rise did not equate to acceptably low risk. Moreover, the independent experts did not consider other structural issues of which fire safety surely forms part and parcel in any holistic approach.

The position of the responsible person or persons seems precarious if fire safety deficiencies are suspected but not actually known, where they have simply never been looked into at all, or where they are known but the original developer—as I am told in one case—declined to step in to remediate because, as it apparently put it, “the level of risk has not been established”, or words to that effect. Residents are inevitably put at a degree of unquantified risk.

But the statement from the independent experts did not cover economic security or the effects on those in buildings requiring remediation but with no clear recourse or defence against huge costs, financial ruin, disruption to lives, lifestyles and life chances because under the Building Safety Act they might not in any way be protected against such eventualities. I also did not detect that the structural integrity of buildings—which cannot be considered in isolation from fire safety itself—was part of their remit.

Turning to the points made earlier by noble Lords, I entirely take the point about the calculation of risk assessment, but it seems that at various points things are stopped part way for policy reasons. I think this is fundamentally a dangerous approach. There is a particular lesson that the noble Lord, Lord Tope, will be familiar with: the year before the independent experts’ statement came out, there was a major fire in one of several similar blocks. This was not mentioned by the independent experts, but it could have been. It clearly indicated that fire risk in some low-rise buildings is a critical matter and very much depends on the characteristics of the buildings in question, especially construction quality and use of materials internally. The noble Lord, Lord Hendy, made exactly that point, and I can verify it from my own direct experience.

The reason for half-hour or one-hour fire resistant compartmentation is primarily to enable safe escape and, where escape is not possible, to enable fire and rescue services to control the outbreak. In a higher-rise building, it is clearly a question of staying put, or at least staying put in certain parts of the building, because of the sheer impossibility of people getting down 20 floors to safety, so stay put has to be in place. However, the fire that I am referring to that the independent experts seem to have ignored was in fact in a low-rise building. Were it not for the fact that the occupants decided they were going to ignore to a man the stay-put advice and get out, several of them would have been killed or injured because the building was effectively completely ablaze after 11 minutes from the time of the 999 call. It clearly was not going to maintain any structural integrity, but buildings need to retain structural integrity in terms of modern usage. For vulnerable occupants, things are much worse still.

Yet there seems to be little appetite for a regime of professional or other curiosity that might foresee and counter risk that may be self-evident, or for a regulatory regime to encourage that. It might be too much to insist on individual owners and occupiers of residential flats carrying out assessments or immediately ceasing the habits of a lifetime, but I venture to suggest that a programme of public awareness, like the ones with graphic images that I remember in relation to drink-driving and the failure to buckle up your seat belt, would be beneficial. We did that effectively with Covid. I invite the Minister to agree that more needs to be done to tidy up, update and clarify the regulation as to who is responsible and to create a more holistic approach, leaving fewer things to differential interpretation and avoiding the risk of matters being left to happenstance or falling between the jurisdictions of different government departments.

The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, referred to the situation in which the standards of fire suppression that we now know are necessary have been abandoned. That is lamentable. The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, referred in detail to the Luton Airport car park fire. I am told, I think on reasonable authority, that the structure of that car park was lightweight. I am tempted to wonder what the wider safety issues and possible fire consequences would have been if all the cars had been electric, with the weight considerations in such a structure.

There is a great deal that needs to be brought together here in this Motion. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred to non-ACM combustible materials. I simply refer to the widespread use within buildings of expanded polystyrene, a product that was researched under commission from the Victorian Building Authority in Australia and considered to be as bad as ACM or worse.

It is not acceptable to conduct public administration by expecting safe outcomes from underspecifying assessments and regulatory adherence. I wish not to add to regulation but to design it to be efficient and likely to be observed. I am therefore entirely supportive of the Motion from the noble Lord, Lord Goddard.

To return to the theme of today’s debate, it is right that a new integrated review to update fire safety guidance now takes place in all parts of the country, especially in areas that have high-rise buildings but also in schools and hospitals, about which we have heard so much today. A recent example of that is the school built just four years ago in Essex that had to be demolished because of its modular construction—again, we have heard about that today—which many new buildings now seem to prefer but which can be a definite fire hazard.

Then there is the recent finding of RAAC, which is posing massive concerns throughout the country in our schools, hospitals and other public buildings. Can the Minister tell us how far we have got with checking on all these buildings? Do the Government check the use of construction materials coming into the country? Is there a particular safety compliance for buildings with these materials? Is their fire performance a prerequisite for obtaining planning permission?

Modern buildings consist of large quantities of plastic and vinyl-based materials that have a high combustion toxicity and pose a risk to life. Fire suppression systems should be fitted to all new high-rise buildings and, as we have heard, most of our schools, while illuminating paint, additional signs and marked pathways should be indicated as a matter of course. All new buildings should have automated fire sensors installed. Between 2012 and 2016, smoke alarms failed to operate in an average of 25,700 home fires per year, causing 440 deaths and 1,440 injuries annually. That is an appalling number.

Coming back to North Yorkshire, when the transfer of governance to the police and crime commissioner for the overseeing of the fire authority took place three years ago, there was already a deficit of £2.5 million, so the service has had to make savings equivalent to 10% of its budget over those three years. As I mentioned previously, the draft plan for the fire service has many ambitions, which of course I endorse, but enabling the fire service to fulfil those ambitions and objectives on such a reduced budget will be nigh on impossible.

North Yorkshire and the city of York combined unitary authorities cover an area of 3,209 square miles with a population of around 830,000—an area that stretches almost from coast to coast across the top of the north of England. It can take well over two hours to drive across it in good weather. It is incredibly challenging for all our emergency services, in particular our fire service. We have only five whole-time shift fire stations, seven whole-time day-crewed stations, 24 retained stations and two volunteer-crewed stations. The firefighters may not have to deal with significant numbers of high-rise buildings, being in a predominantly rural area, but they have vast areas of land to cover, with significant risk of moorland fires and the concomitant problems of climate change and danger to protected habitats, wildlife and livestock. The Vale of York suffers badly from flooding, as do parts of the Yorkshire Dales. These are all difficulties our fire service must deal with and overcome. The public expect it to do so.

Here, I too extend my thanks for the many lives and buildings that our firefighters have saved, often in dangerous and highly toxic conditions. The North Yorkshire brigade attended 8,256 incidents in the year ending June 2023—13% more than in the previous year. There were 3,252 false alarms; we have not heard much about those today. There were 2,055 fires and 2,949 non-fire incidents, almost certainly road traffic accidents. That is quite a workload for only 592 firefighting personnel.

The fire and rescue national framework requires each fire authority to produce an integrated risk management plan. The public must be able to see this. The plan must reflect all foreseeable fire and rescue-related risks and set out its management strategy, as well as showing that effective consultation with communities has taken place. It must also consult its workforce and other partners, and cover a three-year time span. Those are all important requirements, which presupposes that there will be money for the service to undertake these duties—duties that require the very highest calibre of personnel, who will all require extensive training and first-class equipment.

My next concern is how all this will be paid for. The Fire Standards Board produced national professional standards but recruiting firefighters is becoming more difficult, especially for hard-pressed local government, precisely because the private sector can poach the brightest and best as it pays better money; that was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hendy. Indeed, privatisation of the service is looking increasingly likely. From buying expensive safety equipment to high-vis jackets, you can see adverts all over the internet for essential firefighting use.

Surely it is time we had an integrated review to look at updating fire safety guidance and ensuring that all areas of our country are protected as much as possible from the ravages of fire—from our high-rise buildings to our vast areas of underpopulated but important habitats, from our schools and our hospitals to other public buildings where people should be able to feel safe. All are important and need the assurance that they have been inspected by well-trained, professional people with the right skills to undertake such a specialist task. An integrated review looking at all these issues would be the right way forward; I urge the Minister to support this.