UK Parliament / Open data

Building Safety Bill

I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, will not mind if I ask for clarification on a related point. First, I will say how much I agreed with the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, on the worry one might have about a shortage of experts for this purpose, leading to an escalation of costs that will end up with the ultimate consumer: the leaseholder. Clearly, given the history, we do not want confusion in the Bill.

My question is about how the safety manager will operate in practice. How often will he or she be expected to visit the building? Obviously, I know a lot more about shops, and in shops the safety manager is often a treasured member of staff who may not be an expert in safety but is an expert in making sure that other members of the team behave appropriately. You do not need much expertise on safety if you have a very good system—one that includes sprinklers, for example, which will work well because all you have to do is make sure that the sprinklers and the water that supplies them are checked from time to time. My question, which it would be good to have clarified, is: what is the vision of what this person is going to do, and will they be doing it once every five years, once a day, or whatever? That will affect both the cost and the risk that there will not be enough people to do the

important job of ensuring that we have safe buildings. Even in high-rise buildings, there will still be quite a bit of demand.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
819 cc206-7GC 
Session
2021-22
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
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