Higher-Risk Buildings (Key Building Information etc.) (England) Regulations 2023

Considered in Grand Committee

Moved by

That the Grand Committee do consider the Higher-Risk Buildings (Key Building Information etc.) (England) Regulations 2023.

My Lords, the regulations set out the high-level information to be provided to the Building Safety Regulator and clarify the parts of a building for which individual accountable persons are responsible. These regulations are part of the new regime for building safety created by the Building Safety Act 2022.

I will start by providing some context and background to these important regulations. After the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the Government appointed Dame Judith Hackitt to conduct an expert review of the building safety regime. Her review recommended a new approach to managing fire and structural safety risks in higher-risk buildings. She advised that there should be clear accountability and responsibility for building safety in these buildings. Her report also set out that the body which enforces the new regulatory regime will need accurate and up-to-date information about those higher-risk buildings. The Government accepted Dame Judith’s recommendations and brought forward the Building Safety Act, which received Royal Assent in April 2022.

The regulations are split into two parts. The first part, in line with Dame Judith’s recommendations, establishes the key building information that must be provided to the Building Safety Regulator by the principal accountable person. This information will support the regulator’s initial triage of the potential risk factors in existing higher-risk buildings. This will allow the regulator to determine the order in which buildings should be required to apply for a building assessment certificate.

Under the new system, principal accountable persons responsible for existing buildings will be required to register with the Building Safety Regulator from April this year, before applying for a building assessment certificate at a later point. Building assessment certificate applications will enable the Building Safety Regulator to review the wider risk management and safety arrangements in place for those buildings. The key building information will also be used by the Building Safety Regulator to analyse trends and risks in higher-risk buildings. In addition, if any issue emerges in higher-risk buildings, the regulator will be able to use the key building information to identify similar buildings, systems or features and contact the relevant accountable persons.

It is important that the key building information is provided to the Building Safety Regulator at an early stage, so that it can use the information to prioritise which buildings should be required to apply for a building assessment certificate first. The regulations require that the principal accountable person must provide key building information to the regulator within 28 days of applying to register their higher-risk building or buildings.

The Government are today laying regulations which set out the registration requirements in more detail. The principal accountable person must also promptly notify the Building Safety Regulator of any subsequent changes to the key building information. The regulations set out what information must be included as part of that. This includes information about the current uses of the higher-risk building and whether its principal use has ever changed. It also includes information about the structural design of the building, the number of storeys and staircases, the pitch of the roof, the energy supply, any energy storage and whether the building has a structural connection to any other building. The key building information also includes information about the materials used in certain parts of the building: the external walls, the external wall insulation, the roof and any fixtures attached to the external walls or roof. Information will also have to be provided about the type of evacuation strategy for the building, such as “stay put” or “simultaneous evacuation”, and about certain fire and smoke control equipment within the building.

The regulations set out that if there is only one accountable person then they are responsible for their building safety duties in relation to the exterior and structure, common parts, any balconies attached to the exterior and structure, and the residential or commonhold units. They also specify that the accountable person is responsible for residential units or commonhold units. However, if the accountable person has no control over that unit—for example, if it is a leasehold flat—then they will be responsible for mitigating or preventing the building safety risks within the flat only in so far as they impact on the common parts and other flats in the building. The regulations also set out a framework for determining responsibility when there are multiple accountable persons in a higher-risk building, and assign responsibility to the parts of a building with reference to the accountable person’s repairing obligation for that part under the lease.

Sometimes the entity responsible for part of a building is not an accountable person; for example, there may be an intermediate landlord for a flat who does not meet that definition. In these cases, the regulations assign responsibility to the accountable person with responsibility for the common parts adjoining the front door of that flat. This is to ensure that there is always an accountable person responsible for every residential part of a higher-risk building.

The accountable person can look to the fire safety order to help them understand whether their Part 4 responsibilities extend to a specific part of a building. There is also provision in Section 75 of the Act for interested parties to apply to the First-tier Tribunal for a determination of who the accountable person is for a particular part of a building.

These regulations are the key foundation for setting up the new regime for building safety. They are helping to bring about the systemic and lasting change that we know is needed to help people feel safe in their homes. I hope that noble Lords will join me in supporting them. I commend them to the Committee.

My Lords, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group. I also had a previous role for a decade, some years ago, as bursar of two Cambridge colleges. My questions for the Minister today are about the practical delivery of these regulations and how they will work.

The definitions in the regulations appear reassuring, but I want to ask how the systems between the accountable person, or AP, and the principal accountable person, or PAP, will work. What and where are the levels of signing off on buildings? This returns to an issue I raised three weeks ago, on 21 February, when we looked at the regulations setting out the definition of a high-rise building in Grand Committee. If there are 13,000 existing high-risk, high-rise buildings and the sections of the regulations are under prescribed key building information in two of these regulations, and are covered in Regulations 4 to 24, can the Minister confirm that the size of the directorate, and the level of qualified staff with the regulator, will be able to respond knowledgably to this deluge of information that the APs or PAPs will have to provide?

In the Commons, when asked about resource for the regulator, the Minister said:

“Of course we want to make sure that the regulator is properly resourced in order to fulfil its vital functions and, again, I will follow up with further information in writing.”—[Official Report, Commons, Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee, 22/2/23; col. 6.]

Given that that was three weeks ago and the deadline for starting to provide that information is moving pretty rapidly forwards for developers, leaseholders and commonholders, it is particularly important that the Secretary of State has set those deadlines. I do not disagree with them, by the way; it is vital that this is tackled. When will that information be available, because it is really important to make it work in practice?

My Lords, I note my membership of the LGA as a vice-president, which is noted in my details. I thank the Minister for her introduction to this statutory instrument.

We understand that these regulations have two key purposes. They specify what information must be provided to the Building Safety Regulator on higher-risk buildings and which parts of a building certain individuals are responsible for. We believe that this is part of the implementation of the Hackitt review of building safety, which recommended a new regulatory regime to improve accountability after the dangerous and destructive mistakes of the past, notwithstanding the tragedy at Grenfell which is still unresolved in so many areas after such a long time.

Labour welcomes these regulations and sees the instrument as uncontroversial, but we would like the Minister to offer greater clarity on the new building safety regime, especially for those with new responsibilities. I pose the following questions to the Minister; if an answer cannot be produced at this time, I would welcome a written response in due course. Given that the related consultation was in summer 2022, has the department engaged with relevant groups since then? Are the Government monitoring the new building safety requirements being introduced by the Mayor of London, such as for all planning applications for new buildings above 30 metres, which must now have second staircases before going to the Greater London Authority for final sign-off?

These fire safety measures have been brought in with immediate effect in London. This follows the Government’s launch of a consultation in December last year on requiring developers to include second staircases in blocks above 30 metres, which I believe is around 10 storeys high. This move has long been called for by the RIBA despite not being a recommendation in the Hackitt review, so is this monitoring taking place and will the Government extend these measures elsewhere? Furthermore, will the Minister update the Committee on the implementation of the Higher-Risk Buildings (Descriptions and Supplementary Provisions) Regulations 2023, laid in Parliament on 19 December 2022, which define higher-risk buildings?

I thank both noble Lords for their input. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in particular because I know that this issue, especially PEEPs, is a huge passion of hers. When she last caught me in the corridor, I went back and started to chase, but huge pressure is being put on the Home Office—as she knows, this is a Home Office issue. We will get an answer; I will make sure that I keep niggling away because this is important. For me, although quite a lot of this legislation is going well, this is the one thing that seems to be holding us back, as something that came out of the inquiry’s first report. We will keep working on it.

The noble Baroness brought up a number of things. I was scribbling away; I will have to go through Hansard and will write if I have missed anything. One of the first issues was about funding. The Building Safety Regulator will work with local regulator partners, including building control and fire and rescue, to deliver the new regime; obviously, it cannot do it on its own. It is important that they are not in silos and work together. We are working particularly closely with the Building Safety Regulator to ensure that the skills capacity and training are in place for it to deliver these programmes. That means quite a lot of recruitment because, as has rightly been said, this is a lot of work.

On 9 March, the Government gave £42 million grant funding to support the recruitment and training of building control and fire inspectors working with the Building Safety Regulator. The Government absolutely understand that this cannot be done for nothing; if we want more and better regulators and inspectors, we need to recruit and train them. That will cost money, and the Government are putting money in for that to be performed effectively. That was the first point.

On the size of the directorate and the answer to the question asked in Committee, I do not have that information. I do not know whether anybody has it, but it took three weeks to get that response. I will make sure that the noble Baroness gets a copy; I will find out where it is. Some of these things can sometimes take a little longer but we will get there, I am sure.

On information about local authority building control, a local authority should have all that information about any planning applications and permissions that have been granted. They should have that online; most, indeed all, local authorities do, so I would expect it to be there. If it is not, I will find out the rules for putting all that information online.

I thank the noble Baroness. I was asking for something slightly different. I am sorry; it is complex and I was not clear. It is really important that the information that the regulator has to hold is the same information, even if there is more information at building control and fire service level. I should have said, and probably did not, that it could be something like Companies House, where details of accounts and so on are available, including to the public; that is why I asked about the public. That is the golden thread; that is the core information, although there may be other information. Is that how it is envisaged?

I am not aware that that is how it is envisaged. I have not had any conversations about how the regulator will work with local authorities, but it is an interesting concept. I will take it back and find out for the noble Baroness how that golden thread is being joined up.

There was a query about paragraph 7.3 on the timescale of information. I do not have 7.3 here with me so I do not have the answer to that; I will have to write. On communications, of course communications are important, particularly to the almost silent people—the residents, agents and people who will talk to residents. For me, it is important that the department does some of that communicating about how the new regime will work. I am sure that we will because we have done an awful lot on the ombudsman service and such things. The new regulator has various roles and responsibilities and I would hope that the department will do this. I will probably get told off for saying that but, as a Minister, I think it very important that the people most affected—the residents—understand how that is going to work. I do not have anything else here but I will look again to make sure that there is nothing further.

I move on to the questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, and thank her for her support. Indeed, I thank both noble Baronesses for their support for these regulations; they are important. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, wanted to know how the regime is being phased in. The Building Safety Regulator was established in shadow form within the Health and Safety Executive in January 2020. The statutory functions of the Building Safety Regulator are being phased in and are planned to be fully established by April 2024.

The Building Safety Regulator is already working and engaging with residents, building owners, the industry and professionals about how the regime will operate, so by the time we get to next April everybody should understand—this comes back to the communications issue—how the system works, and it should be up and running very quickly.

I thank the Minister for that answer but, on the point that the resident can inform the regulator, I would like the Minister and the department to be mindful of consequences for that resident. We hear dreadful stories these days of difficult landlords and so on. I would like my concern about that noted and the department to look carefully at it, because it is very difficult for individual tenants to report in that way.