My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. It was bit like listening to one of the advertisements on the radio when, right at the end, all the terms and conditions are read out very quickly and one has to listen to them very carefully. I welcome the assurances that my noble friend gave right at the beginning; I will come back in a moment to some of the things he said.
In the meantime, I will speak to Amendment 56 in my name and also to Amendment 131 in the name of two of the three wise men. This group of amendments focuses on Schedule 8 to the Bill, which defines building safety charges. It takes up no less than 12 and a half pages of rules and regulations. My Amendments 58
and 60 would eliminate eight of them, but any benefit so gained would be wiped out by the 13 government amendments tabled since the Bill left the other place.
7.15 pm
The Explanatory Notes helpfully explain the background to the schedule, which was covered in part in our earlier debate. It is
“to facilitate transparency and accountability in relation to building safety measures and the associated costs. The charge will form part of a clear audit trail flowing from the statutory duties through the measures taken, the associated costs incurred, the apportionment of those costs, demands for payment of the building safety charge and the holding on trust of sums received.”
I do not have any issues with that but my amendments are designed to ensure that all this can be incorporated with full transparency within the existing service charge that leaseholders get, rather than requiring a separate invoice headed “Building service charge”, which is what is implied by the schedule. Although I am not a leaseholder in a higher-risk building, to which the schedule applies, I declare a potential interest as a leaseholder of a flat in London.
A standard service charge will already include some health and safety compliance costs. I looked up a recent service charge on my flat; indeed, there is a line headed “Health and safety”. However, under Schedule 8, either that will have to be removed and located under the new building safety charge or it will appear twice with an appropriate credit, and leaseholders will have the bear the cost of, in effect, paying another set of service charges.