My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, for raising this issue about the necessity for a building safety manager in every block—this is of course in relation only to higher-risk buildings. However, residents in higher-risk blocks will have a managing agent, to whom they pay a fee—a service charge—who appoints an accountable person, for whom there will be an additional cost, and possibly a principal accountable person, if that is necessary. On top of that, each block will have to have a building safety manager. As the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, pointed out, adding on those roles considerably adds to the costs for each of the leaseholders; their service charge will rise considerably as a consequence.
I too have had discussions with some of the cladding campaign groups about the potential £60,000 role and the costs which will pass inevitably to them. They are very anxious that their lease will suddenly become unaffordable due to the piling on of costs from these roles.
The further issue in my mind is, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said, that there is a duplication of roles. Equally, when there is a confusion about roles—each block might have three people who potentially have conflicting roles—building safety risks will fall between the three. I can find nothing in the Bill that says how each will be accountable. In the end, we come back to this: quis custodiet ipsos custodes—to whom are they accountable?
The Explanatory Notes gives us this as an example:
“The Building Safety Manager may be carrying out day to day functions, as set out in the agreement with the Principal Accountable Person, to assist the Accountable Persons in discharging their statutory obligations. However, the Building Safety Manager could choose to resign of its own volition, and conversely the Principal Accountable Person may find that the service provided by the Building Safety Manager is below standard and choose to
dismiss that person. In both circumstances the Principal Accountable Person would need to replace the Building Safety Manager as soon as reasonably practicable.”
I hope everybody understood that. That is my argument: it becomes confused.
One of the issues with building safety and fire safety is that it needs clarity and simplicity. This is not clear and simple. I believe I raised at Second Reading the issue of too many rules causing confusion. When nobody really knows who will do what, it is always a recipe for a potential disaster.
Those are the two points: costs and duplication leading to confusion. The question is this: to whom are they finally accountable—the accountable person or the managing agent? It is not very clear.
The other point is about the competencies—a horrible word—of potential building safety managers. I could not find anywhere in any of the clauses which set out what those should be. The Bill talks about standards but it does not say what they will be. What should be expected of these folk?
4.30 pm
We already know there is a shortage of competent fire risk assessors; that was explored on the previous day in Committee. Clearly, these people will not be fire risk assessors. What building safety skills and standards will be required—and who will judge them? The building safety regulator? That would be a good starting point—but, so far as I can see, it is not in the Bill. There are a huge number of issues in relation to the building safety manager, and we want the Minister to be able to answer all those questions. We all want to find a way of making buildings safer, and we have to be convinced that creating this role will achieve that. I am not convinced. We will see what answers we get, and we may have to pursue this further on Report.