UK Parliament / Open data

Housing and Regeneration Bill

moved Amendment No. 110DZA: 110DZA: After Clause 195, insert the following new Clause— ““Review of Safety Standards (1) The regulator may undertake reviews of such safety standards in respect of services in social housing as it considers appropriate. (2) The regulator shall advise the Secretary of State of its findings with regard to safety and standards including the introduction or modification of regulations. (3) The regulator shall, within 12 months of the commencement of this section, undertake a review of safety standards for water heating including the storage and supply of hot water.”” The noble Baroness said: This proposed new clause would require the regulator to undertake reviews of safety standards. It is prompted in particular by concerns over water heating systems. I understand from the Minister that the accident—if that is the right way to describe it—that prompted my honourable friend the Member for Taunton and the honourable Member for St Ives to raise this in the Commons took place on the Minister’s first day in office at the Department for Communities and Local Government. I am sure that noble Lords will remember the incident—a word I hate—where the appalling explosion of a water cistern above a cot in which a young child was sleeping resulted in her death. I have drawn the clause in broader terms because it seemed appropriate. We are so close to the end of the Bill that I am reluctant to raise narrow matters when they ought to be placed in the context of what the regulator will be doing, but in the case of hot water cisterns, the Government are conducting a consultation at the moment and a new British standard is to be introduced. However, it will not be retrospective, which means that water cisterns installed before the 2004 British standard came into effect are not the subject of it. My honourable friend has asked Questions of the Government, and the Answers deal with prospective work, not the retrospective implementation of the 2004 British standard. The Government obviously will want to await the outcome of the consultation since it is only a month or two away, but I hope that they will not sit on it and will take seriously the need to look at existing cisterns and their installation in order to ensure that they are safe. We would all be appalled if such a thing were to happen again. I beg to move.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
702 c404GC 
Session
2007-08
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
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