UK Parliament / Open data

Building Safety Bill

Perhaps I should combine my question so that the Minister will not have to stand up twice. Saying that safety comes first and calling somebody a building safety manager does not mean that a building safety manager is going to make a building any safer. I do not think that it is entirely fair to suggest that those of us who are querying some of these things do not care about safety. We would not be sitting in this Committee, I assume, if we did not.

I want it clarified because I liked the Minister’s points about a common-sense approach to safety day by day and about eyes and ears. That all sounds sensible and in some ways I understand that point, but I am confused because it is not clear how many days someone will be there being the eyes and ears. The Minister read out that the competent person will have skills, knowledge and experience, but skills, knowledge and experience of what? It is still not clear. The idea of a volunteer, as described by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, keeping an eye on things—items being broken or the fire door being replaced by B&Q—is slightly different from how it was discussed by the professionals when they were talking about what kind of person would be a building safety manager. They kept saying that they must be competent and experienced with some skills in fire engineering and personnel management because they will have to go around to tell people off. I think that in the end this is a job creation scheme that will not add to the safety of the building, as do many leaseholders, and they are on the receiving end of it.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
819 c210GC 
Session
2021-22
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
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