Baroness Andrews
Liberal Democrat peer Lord Stunell, who was responsible in 2012 for Building Regulations at the Department for Communities and Local Government, said there should be a ‘key obligation’ to either the installer, the applicant or the client on conforming.
Using the analogy of a road traffic incident, Stunell said ‘you can’t say I was relying on the police to stop me’ and only the individual driving the car could ultimately be responsible for any subsequent actions – and this was the same for constructing buildings.
He referenced his own contribution to the Building Act 1984 with his own amendment, the Sustainable and Secure Building Act 2004. In this amendment, it made provision for a ‘named individual’ to be responsible for compliance with Building Regulations.
Using Grenfell as an example, the public inquiry would have to look at all the various organisations and businesses responsible, including the local authority, the tenant management organisation, the main contractor, and the numerous tiers of sub-contractors, who could all potentially be liable under the current system.
But Stunell said a whole building compliance inspector would potentially prevent future tragedies like Grenfell Tower by having a single person who would be responsible for everything, presumably above and beyond the current requirements of a building control officer and with oversight for an entire project.
“They would have the skills and knowledge to do the job. There would be far fewer breaches of regulations and be much less likely that there would be another Grenfell tower incident.”
He called it a ‘simple and ready-made measure’.
The debate was called by Labour peer Baroness Andrews, who said the ‘appalling and preventable tragedy’ of Grenfell Tower was an example of where the poorest and most vulnerable were being ‘put at greatest risk’.
She referred to the letter sent to prime minister Theresa May from 700 health and safety organisations and practitioners on stopping deregulation, stating that rules had been ‘acting as guidance rather than enforcement’ – and there had been a ‘increasing frenzy’ in the last seven years to cut red tape.
She said: “These independent associations have said ‘enough is enough’.
“For too many years, they have called for rules in health and safety to be axed as a matter of principle, even when it was recommended that mandatory fitting of sprinklers would make homes and schools safer, this was rejected in favour of non-regulatory action, which in practice, favours inaction.”
Andrews also said rules were not implemented due to an ‘exaggerated fear of liability’, and there ‘needs to be answers’ as to why a review of Building Regulations in 2010 was delayed, and why 2013 recommendations were not converted into legislation.
She said: “Regulation has been routinely derided as red tape. But red tape has in fact kept greed and exploitation in check since the beginning of the industrial revolution and continues to do so.
“It has meant our transport systems, our work and our homes are as safe as can be.”
She also said that ‘no-one defends keeping redundant or unenforceable legislation’ – and the Health and Safety Executive was doing much to ‘prune and improve’, making better legislation as a result.
But she called the move from the infamous ‘one in, one out’ rule, to ‘one in two out’ and then ‘one in three out’ approach to cutting regulations as a ‘battlecry’.
She said: “Having already pledged to kill off the health and safety culture for good, David Cameron in 2012 went on to describe it as an ‘albatross around the neck of business’.
“I wonder how that sounds to the families of the 13,000 people that die every year from exposures to chemicals and dust?”
She also said that the Department for Communities and Local Government had played a big role in removing tenants’ voices on issues – abolishing the National Tenants Voice in 2010 and diverting the independent Tenant Services Agency into the Homes and Communities Agency.
Baroness Andrews also referenced the recent announcement by Sajid Javid on £10bn-worth of red tape cuts and how he ‘boasted’ that ‘thousands of small businesses had been saved the regulatory burdens of health and safety inspections.’
She said: “How right he was, as surveys showed half of all business have never been visited by an inspector.”
She also referenced the fall in enforcement notices by the HSE due to budget cuts and changes in its remit and how a third of environmental health officers had gone.
“There is a long term downward trend in enforcement and a long-term downwards trend in improving health and safety in the workplace.”
Referencing the Great Repeal Bill put before the House of Commons, Baroness Andrews said that ‘stripping out the European regulatory frameworks is a compelling prospect for Brexiteers’ and how leading Brexit campaigner Priti Patel had said cutting half of the legislation would boost £4.3bn to the UK economy.
Summing up, Andrews said: “It is almost 200 years since the first inspectors were created to stop people dying in coalmines. We should be proud of the record on health and safety.”
Responding, parliamentary under-secretary at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Lord Prior of Brampton, said ‘all governments constantly review regulations’.
But he admitted the ‘tone’ around regulations ‘has not been a happy one’ or a ‘constructive one’
He said: “There are times that regulations have ticked the box but entirely missed the point.”
Prior said that previous business attitudes in 2010 on regulations had been ‘very negative’ but this had changed ‘without putting lives at risk by getting rid of outdated regulations’.
He said the number of fatal injuries in the workplace has halved in the last 2 decades – and there has been ‘robust assessment of risk’ whether there is an issue by bodies such as the Health and Safety Executive.
“The crux of this debate is pendulum has swung too far (towards cutting red tape) – that is a matter of judgement.” He said.
“This is a debate that will carry on into the future – the balance in the past 20 years has been about right.
“But it is time to stop demonising those involved in the enforcement of regulation.”
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And where in the world can we find sufficient numbers of people with the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to sign off on compliance with CDM, RRFSO, and the Building Regs after making stringent checks? This whole focus on inadequate Building Regulation Standards, rather ignores the Prima Facie evidence of various breaches of CDM 2007 (the Regs in place when the refurb was done) as well as possible breaches of RRFSO etc.