Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for introducing this topic so comprehensively. I am glad to have the opportunity to welcome it not only from our Front Bench, but also as a member of the sub-committee of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I want to make only one or two comments. We all agree with the nowadays commonly held view that we want to get rid of unnecessary and burdensome red tape, but when it comes to the detail of specific proposals it is not always as straightforward as one might think to decide what is unnecessary and what is overly burdensome. To a certain extent, some trial and error takes place as regulatory reform orders come before Parliament. One of the jobs of   the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee is to come to a view, express that to Parliament and then to the House on whether the spirit of the Regulatory Reform Act has been met. It is true to say that there are one or two concerns about this order, not just in the substance but also in the principle. Of course, it is absolutely right that we should consider how to amalgamate this enormous raft of existing legislation. Very often we simply add more legislation on to legislation without really reviewing what already happens. That is one of the reasons why we on these Benches are often keen on sunset clauses which provide a chance to see whether a measure is still necessary. Certainly on fire safety, the measures have reached a point where it is counter-productive and inimical to fire safety to have such a complex situation. That has resulted in an RRO which is very large, and there are some concerns about whether this procedure is the correct one for such a large change to our legislative framework. That was particularly worrying as some fire legislation was passing through the House at the time. I want to put down a marker. I believe that the House will be concerned to ensure that the RRO procedure is not routinely used as a way of bypassing normal legislative processes, where proper scrutiny is available through amendments and through debate in your Lordships’ House. The substantive concerns brought forward by the committee were mostly concerned with provisions for necessary protection to ensure that there was nothing in the RRO that left holes that previously were covered by statutory protection. The key worry was the replacement of a statutory duty with a more general duty to enforce fire safety. I believe that the committee was very concerned to see that the fire safety enforcement authorities were monitored so that central government and Parliament have an idea about how well they are doing that job. In the end, after some discussion, the department was able to convince the sub-committee that that was all right. One remaining point is a personal concern rather than one that relates to something that was raised in the committee. It strikes me that the main beneficiaries of RROs are meant to be small businesses. Many small businesses share office premises with a number of other businesses. Often premises are rented from companies who often do not own them, so I am slightly concerned about how one pins down who is the responsible person. The RRO is very clear about it being the employers in the main, but if, for example, there are seven or eight companies in one building, who is responsible for shared areas such as lifts and stairwells? To an extent, the regime will be only as good as the least compliant person. Therefore, we have to be very careful to ensure that there are no loopholes in understanding who are the responsible people. With those comments, we offer our general support to this RRO.