My intervention in New Clause 20 of Building Safety Bill debate

Sir John Redwood MP (Wokingham) (Con): Is there any right of redress to the regulatory authorities in local government, such as building inspectors and others, who were responsible for signing off on these schemes?

Christopher Pincher (Minister of State) (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities): We certainly want to ensure though the Bill, that the building control mechanism and the industry are improved. I think that a suite of measures, including the introduction of better building control measures, the retrospection of the Defective Premises Act and further work that we may choose to do, working across parties, will help ensure that a very complicated and detailed set of challenges, which have emerged recently but have been developing over many years, are properly addressed.

 

76 Comments

  1. Narrow Shoulders
    January 20, 2022

    Why should tax payers be on the hook for freeholders’ costs?

    We get fleeced for plenty already. If we are forced to fund this there must be a clawback clause for any sales.

    Otherwise it us allowing recipients to profit similar to council home sales.

    1. Lifelogic
      January 20, 2022

      Freeholders and/or long leaseholders who are, in effect, the owners and the people who benefit. The real scandal is how a job that should cost perhaps £5,000 (and a bit of scaffolding shared between the flats) to take of a bit of cladding ends up costing up to £150,000 due to all the people on the make in the middle.

      No real answer to your perfectly reasonable question JR I note.

      1. Nottingham Lad Himself
        January 20, 2022

        Yes, foot-and-mouth cleanup in Netherlands, direct labour: £600 per farm.

        UK, private contractors: £100,000 per farm.

        1. Peter2
          January 20, 2022

          You’ve already been shot down on that comparison NHL
          You just keep coming back with this nonsense.

          1. hefner
            January 21, 2022

            NLH might be wrong on the exact numbers, but he is right on the orders of magnitude.

            webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk , NAO, ‘The 2001 Outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease’, Report by the Comptroller and the Auditor General, 21 June 2002:
            ‘The loss to agriculture and the food chain amount to about £3.1 bn. The majority of the costs to agriculture have been met by the Government through compensation for slaughter and disposal as well as clean-up costs. Nonetheless agricultural producers will have suffered losses estimated at £355 m, which represents about 20% of the estimated total income from farming in 2001’ (‘Economic costs of the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in the UK in 2001’, Rev.Sci.Tech., OIE (International Office of Epizootics)).

            ‘The foot-and-mouth disease epidemic in the Netherlands in 2001’, 03/2003, PrevVet.Med., 57, 3, 155, A. Bouma et al.

            The huge difference in costs came from the Dutch vaccinating their cattle after the first cases were detected (still 260,000 animals were killed), the Brits did not because of the opposition from the NFU, killed more than 6 m cows and sheep over six months (03 to 09/2001), let the epidemic develop then ‘naturally’ subside and … the UK tourism industry is thought to have lost £250 m.

            Also of interest to the most curious: Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 04/11/2020, ‘Parallels, differences and lessons: A comparison of the management of foot-and-mouth disease and Covid-19 using UK 2001/2020as points of reference’, doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.0906, K. Sumption et al.

            Sorry P2, another point on the graph: I can confirm, you are just full of … winds.

          2. hefner
            January 21, 2022

            Sir John, I really do not see what in my post on the FMD outbreak in the UK and NL was making it ‘unprintable’. But yes, it is certainly true: ‘The Lord works in mysterious ways’.

          3. Peter2
            January 22, 2022

            Oh hi hef.
            Glad to keep you busy.

            Try comparing farm sizes and numbers of animals and density of farms ie close to each other and take a deep breath.

            But good Google searching again.

            Another example of you failing to post where you seem to need to personally attack others opinions.
            Sad.

        2. Mickey Taking
          January 20, 2022

          Don’t you get tired of repeating all this stuff.?

          1. hefner
            January 21, 2022

            And you too, MT.

          2. Nottingham Lad Himself
            January 21, 2022

            No, because it is true and makes you feel awkward.

          3. hefner
            January 29, 2022

            P2, your comment is rather strange as Dutch farms are less expansive than British ones and this more ‘intensive farming’ could be thought to give a better ground for the diffusion of any disease.
            So taking into account the density of animals per farm actually invalids your ‘argument’.

          4. hefner
            January 29, 2022

            P2, your comment is rather strange as Dutch farms are less expansive than British ones and this more ‘intensive farming’ could be thought to give a better ground for the diffusion of any disease.
            So taking into account the density of animals per farm actually invalidates your ‘argument’.

  2. Narrow Shoulders
    January 20, 2022

    Weren’t these cladding schemes supposed to be environmental improvements?

    More environmental costs heaped on the taxpayer

    1. Lifelogic
      January 20, 2022

      Climate alarmist schemes – spend many hundreds of thousands on insulation & cladding and save £50PA in gas or electric bills but then spend £100k to remove it.

    2. rose
      January 20, 2022

      The direction came unscrutinised from the EU.

      1. rose
        January 20, 2022

        The original cladding put on the Grenfell Tower in 1974 was supersafe, when fire safety was paramount and CO2 wasn’t a consideration.

  3. Nottingham Lad Himself
    January 20, 2022

    It is anti-collectivism which has caused these problems.

    The Tory fixation with preventing public bodies from doing things in-house means that councils have had to outsource building regs inspections to private “consultancies” which are often no more than a part of the construction industry itself.

    They have also allowed effectively “self-certification” in the manufacturing of building products, with the inevitable results.

    This is what “deregulation” and “rolling back socialism” mean.

    A similar thing happened with Boeing, and it is unclear whether matters have improved in the US, from where these concepts were so slavishly imported.

    ReplyNothing stopping Labour Councils doing it in house.

    1. Peter2
      January 20, 2022

      It’s not “effectively self certification” NHL
      What actually happens is that companies send products out to testing labs to get certification.

      1. Nottingham Lad Himself
        January 20, 2022

        To usually private labs, which are again effectively just another part of the same industry.

        1. Peter2
          January 20, 2022

          They are audited by prominent licenced auditors.
          There are laws governing their behaviour which can result in the removal of their ability to do what they do or even court cases concerning people involved.
          So NHL…
          Apart from the State is there any organisation you trust?

          1. Nottingham Lad Himself
            January 21, 2022

            Whatever – didn’t work, did it? And hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps millions, live in dangerous, unsellable properties as a result.

          2. Peter2
            January 21, 2022

            That’s a different question.
            The enquiry is still considering its conclusions as to why Grenfell happened.
            Perhaps wait to see what they conclude.
            Or have you already made up your mind?

        2. Margaret Brandreth-
          January 21, 2022

          quite… and happening throughout all industries public and private!

  4. Denis Cooper
    January 20, 2022

    What a good question, and what a rubbish answer.

    If builders were actually told by the government “It will be OK if you do that” then how can it be right for the government, including Michael Gove, to blame builders if it turns out not to be OK?

    So what are the facts about this, did builders follow the regulations that were in force at the time, or not?

    1. Gary Megson
      January 21, 2022

      The builders, eager for a fast buck, did not follow the regulations. Many people died, horribly. And the MP for Wokingham is trying to have you believe the fault lies with planning officers who, thnaks to the cuts imposed on the public sector over the last 11 years, did not have the time or money to do the proper checks that were needed

      1. Denis Cooper
        January 21, 2022

        So do you have any evidence that the builders did not follow the regulations in force at the time?

    2. Walt
      January 21, 2022

      Take a look at the Grenfell enquiry, available online, and watch the people giving evidence about the cladding. Among other things, they tell of cladding that failed its fire safety test, was modified to pass a re-test, but the modification was not employed in the cladding supplied. They tell of a manufacturer selling product with a changed, more flammable, composition, but doing so with literature that described the previous, less flammable product. There are three named companies in particular who should be shamed and held to account, financial and legal.

  5. Duyfken
    January 20, 2022

    Your question invites an answer of yes or no. The answer given, as a lesson in circumlocution, invites contempt.

    1. Lifelogic
      January 20, 2022

      +1 but this is the norm.

  6. Nig l
    January 20, 2022

    As usual didn’t answer the question which would obviously mean no. Cant expect public sector to be accountable. Look at No 10.

  7. Mike Wilson
    January 20, 2022

    What’s the context?

  8. X-Tory
    January 20, 2022

    Err … so that’ll be a “no” then, right? Another deceitful, arrogant and contemptuous minister who refuses to give you a straight answer. They really are scum, aren’t they?

  9. jerry
    January 20, 2022

    An interesting question with perhaps some unexpected, but logical, conclusions give the fact that most planning and building control regulation is made nationally in Whitehall, some of which has to be enacted by Westminster…

    1. Stred
      January 20, 2022

      There are over 300 pages of building regulations on fire precautions. When there was another judicial enquiry on a similar fire to Grenfell in South London , the judge couldn’t understand them any better than the builders and firemen.
      In the case of Grenfell, the plans and specs were submitted to the council before construction and inspected during.

    2. Peter2
      January 20, 2022

      Odd, I always thought it was local authorities that took the main regulatory role on planning and building control decisions.

      1. jerry
        January 20, 2022

        @Peter2; Well you thought wrong! Go read up on the Building Act 1984 (and as amended), plus the various Building regulations in the United Kingdom, Parts A through to R inclusive, they are statutory instruments or statutory regulations set by govt/parliament, local authorities merely police then via their planning departments.

        Pertinent to the debate and our hosts intervention might well be the “The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005” https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/1541/contents/made

        1. Peter2
          January 20, 2022

          But those laws give the powers to local authorities
          duh!
          As you often say.

          1. jerry
            January 21, 2022

            @Peter2; You are trolling once again, or you have not bothered to look at the citation I gave, not even the first line of the introductory text. Local Authorities can not make Statutory Instruments, only HRH or a Minister of the Crown…

            LA planning departments are like the police, they can only act within the powers or regulations that govern their conduct, as set by Whitehall, Westminster or in very rare cases by Order in Council.

          2. Peter2
            January 21, 2022

            You always revert to the T word when your argument is lost.
            Try a better level of debate Jerry

            As I said governments make laws.
            Local Authorities sometimes have the job of implementation of those laws.
            You don’t seem to understand the difference.

          3. jerry
            January 22, 2022

            @P2; “As I said governments make laws.”

            Well either you’re a liar, as well as a now confirmed troll, or we have two people posting as “Peter2″… Otherwise please explain your apparent comment; “Odd, I always thought it was local authorities that took the main regulatory role on planning and building control decisions.”, posted on the 20th, compounded by your later follow up comments refusing to accept the evidence within the URL I posted.

          4. Peter2
            January 22, 2022

            Oh the L word as well as the T word now Jerry.
            Very poor.
            Try and keep calm.

            You still seem unable to understand that governments make laws and get local authorities to deal with that work.
            It is quite simple Jerry.

  10. formula57
    January 20, 2022

    The poor soul had been sent out to waffle for his Department without having a clue.

    It is understandable adrift ministers cannot answer your questions, germane and astute as they are, and I can accept they do not want to admit candidly that they have no suitable reply. Perhaps in these instances Father Ted’s example could become an accepted routine with ministers looking thoughtful and saying “Ah, that would be an ecumenical question”. People in the know would thereby understand the minister had reached the limits of capability but government embarrassment would be spared somewhat and we would all be spared the ridiculous waffle.

  11. alan jutson
    January 20, 2022

    As I understand it there are two methods of Building Control Approval.
    Firstly planning applications have to go through Local Authority Building Control and approval has to be gained for the detailed (Technical) plans before work on site commences.

    For actual Inspection you have two options.

    One is Via the Local Authority and their own staff visiting site, and giving approval or not at various Building stages as the Work in progresses.
    The second is Self Certification where a developer or Home owner goes to a Private Inspector to visit site, Inspect and approve or not the work being completed.
    In both cases Professional Indemnity Insurance should be in place, and should cover any Inspector or organisation that inspects the Work.
    Thus the Local Authority or indeed the Self certification system should both be covered by insurance.
    Likewise a developer should be covered by their own private comprehensive insurance for third Party and Public Liability risks, that often includes product as well..
    Given the above, I simply cannot understand why taxpayers money should be at risk at all.

    1. alan jutson
      January 20, 2022

      In addition to the above .
      I am sure most manufacturers have Product and Third Party Liability.
      If a product has “passed” approved testing methods, then surely the testing house is covered by it’s own Insurance if they got it wrong.
      If the results have been manipulated in any way by anybody, then I can only guess that may be a potential and possible criminal act.
      Unless a criminal act has occurred, I simply cannot understand why the various Insurance Companies can’t sort this out between them.
      As usual it’s all about MONEY !

  12. Gary Megson
    January 20, 2022

    Shameful question. The problem here is not hard-pressed under-resourced public officials, the problem here is dishonest profit-grabbing private companies

    reply So what is the point of building inspectors and regs if they do not stop dangerous cladding?

    1. Nottingham Lad Himself
      January 20, 2022

      Gary has explained that the officials – where they are actually on the public payroll – are under-resourced and overstretched.

      Construction knows this, and so they e.g. use legal cladding at a level where the inspectors can physically reach near the ground, but cheaper dangerous stuff above that where they cannot.

      He answered your question implicitly in his post.

      1. Peter2
        January 20, 2022

        If you have proof of that allegation NHL then give actual proof to the Police.
        And copy it into this site.
        You do have actual proof don’t you?

        1. Margaret Brandreth-
          January 21, 2022

          The police don’t seem to understand criminal evidence and civil evidence..it changes who ever you talk to in the force.

        2. Nottingham Lad Himself
          January 21, 2022

          Government advice to inspectors is now to make sure that they take samples above 18m to detect precisely this abuse.

          1. Peter2
            January 21, 2022

            And have they found many examples of this abuse do you know?

          2. Nottingham Lad Himself
            January 22, 2022

            Maybe you should research your case?

          3. Peter2
            January 22, 2022

            You are the one making scurrilous allegations
            Yet when asked for examples you say run away
            Hilarious and pathetic NHL

      2. Harry F
        January 21, 2022

        Exactly right. It is a classic Tory trick to defund the public sector – planning inspectors, environmental health – then tell people it’s not doing its job, so they can scrap controls to free things up for corporate looters. It’s the same wicked trick they’re trying to pull by cutting the NHS and the BBC to the bone

        1. Peter2
          January 21, 2022

          Funding of the public sector increases every year.

      3. dixie
        January 21, 2022

        GM has explained nothing, merely asserted something that he does not substantiate, makes an unfounded accusation and does not address the question at all – to whit are the regulatory authorities responsible for redress where they do not regulate or their regulations cause a problem.

      4. alan jutson
        January 21, 2022

        NLH
        Sorry but you are misinformed, Building Inspectors can and should actually inspect all aspects of a building, whilst under construction or modification, that is why it is done at set stages, where product or work methods are not hidden or covered up.
        A developer has to provide safe access to all elements of the building project at all times which includes Building Inspectors.
        If building inspectors do not do their job properly, then that is the responsibility of their employer, who then has to accept the risk of such action.

    2. Ian Wragg
      January 20, 2022

      What’s the point in energy ministers when they don’t secure safe continuous supplies.
      Next year we will be getting similar responses after people freezing to death. ……Britain has a range of power generation we couldn’t be expected to know on the week the wind didn’t blow the sun didn’t shine and the Qatari lng tanker wad diverted to China that we might run out of power.
      In answer to your second question, we have mo plans to issue more explanation licences I the North Sea or agree to fracking but we will accelerate the building of windmills during this extended becalmed spell around the coast.

    3. Richard1
      January 20, 2022

      I suspect it will emerge that the real problem is green crap.

  13. Rapt
    January 20, 2022

    David Davis is speaking right now in the HoC in a way that is really, really good.
    I don’t know anything about the subject but its the way to go .
    Stand up and speak fact after fact in public.
    Excellent

    1. Nottingham Lad Himself
      January 20, 2022

      If you know nothing about the subject, then how do you know that what he is saying is fact?

      1. dixie
        January 21, 2022

        Your lack of self awareness is quite entertaining.

        1. Rapt
          January 21, 2022

          My post was about the mechanics of getting a message, any message out.
          It was a crossparty, almost left leaning debate about suppression.
          He and the others, left and right, spoke compellingly.
          Now I’m moved to learn the facts.
          As to lack of self awareness
          It is irrelevant if one gets one’s information across.

          1. Nottingham Lad Himself
            January 21, 2022

            Thanks for the clarification, and I now see your point.

  14. Peter Aldersley
    January 20, 2022

    As reported 7th December 2021 in the architectsjournal.co.uk, ref ongoing Grenfell Inquiry:

    “The government failed to crack down on a loophole allowing hundreds of high-rises to be clad with combustible materials because it was colluding with the construction industry, the Grenfell Tower Inquiry has been told”

    1. Denis Cooper
      January 21, 2022

      I’m looking at the first page of results of a google search for [grenfell inquiry collusion] and the picture emerging is that the government may be partly to blame and the builders may be partly to blame but the leaseholders cannot be blamed for whatever wrong the government and the builders did between them.

  15. Original Richard
    January 20, 2022

    The question surely is :

    “Who gave approval for this combustible cladding to be used for any building applications?”

    And yet another example of the unforeseen consequences of the energy saving Net Zero policy.

  16. Bryan Harris
    January 20, 2022

    Another woolly response – doesn’t any minister know how to answer logically and specifically.

    We have to wonder just what dreadful conditions will apply in this new act – How else are they going to make life more difficult, more complicated and more expensive beyond need?

  17. Mike Wilson
    January 20, 2022

    What is the most effective form of insulation? Polyisocyanurate. Is it flammable? Yes. Is wood flammable? Yes. Wood is used as floor joists and rafters/trusses in most houses. Why isn’t wood banned?

    Putting polyisocyanurate insulation on the OUTSIDE of a building ought to be okay – because it is unlikely a fire inside will affect the outside until the fire inside is out of control.

    That said, putting it on the outside of a block of flats should have been okay provided fire breaks were provided at each floor and at regular horizontal intervals.

    As usual, media hysteria reigns. Instead of removing cladding at a cost of billions, money should be spent on simple fire security measures like fire alarms and inspections to make sure all fire doors, alarms and smoke detectors etc. are in place and working.

  18. Mickey Taking
    January 20, 2022

    or…Well, we are very serious about it, but it has many levels, all subject to later consideration, we , as expected will have to consider carefully, respecting everybody’s position, in order to perhaps be firm with a possibility of changes to certain standards.

    or… no idea – what do you think ?

  19. Mickey Taking
    January 20, 2022

    BBC WEBSITE.
    The UK government has refused permission for a £1.2bn electricity link between England and France.
    Aquind Ltd wanted to lay cables through Portsmouth, Hampshire, to Normandy.
    But a decision notice posted on the government’s website said Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng was not satisfied “more appropriate alternatives to the proposed route” had been fully considered.
    Aquind said it was “disappointed” and would consider a legal challenge.
    The company – which is part-owned by Russian-born Victor Fedotov – and another of his businesses, have donated £700,000 to 34 Conservative MPs since the Aquind project began, the BBC Panorama programme reported in October. Another director, Ukrainian-born Alexander Temerko, has donated a further £700,000 to the party.
    Aquind has previously said the planned 2GW interconnector could supply up to 5% of the UK’s energy needs.
    How generous, etc

    1. Mickey Taking
      January 20, 2022

      generous no strings attached donations…..how wonderful.

  20. Geoffrey Berg
    January 20, 2022

    Yes, if anyone is to be sued it is the Councils because their building Inspectors approved the construction and also because Councils unlike companies and individuals are enduring as bodies.
    However Grenfell Tower should really have been treated as a freak accident which over many years before and since has not been repeated. So nothing and no remedial works should be done on the basis of one freak accident. I am sure the attempts to do remedial works on all tower blocks has caused more life destroying worry and misery than the freak accident ever did.

    1. Nottingham Lad Himself
      January 21, 2022

      So it is the police who should be punished for failing to stop every crime, and not the criminals then.

      Thanks for clearing up a long-standing matter.

  21. a-tracy
    January 21, 2022

    Don’t builders pay into a NHBC scheme that gives 10 years of protection to homebuyers? If this is an insurance scheme then why isn’t the cladding replacement funded from that insurance investment fund?

    1. alan jutson
      January 21, 2022

      a-tracy

      Probably because it will not cover cladding as it is not a structural problem.
      If you ever get the chance to read the exclusions on the so called 10 year NHBC warranty, you will find it is not really worth much at all.

      1. a-tracy
        January 22, 2022

        Well the NHBC warranty needs investigating properly, how much is put into it from each home made 1% of the selling price, 2%? What is done with the money taken? Is it invested to provide proper insurance if homes are substandard. These flats are substandard and unsafe I don’t know anyone that owns one or lives in one but I feel terribly sorry for the people that do.

Comments are closed.