No, we stopped before the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and I had had a chance to speak. That is what comes of stopping mid-flight, but here we go—if anybody can remember what we were doing an hour ago. Before I go on, I remind the House of my relevant interests, as a member of Kirklees Council and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
First, I speak to Amendment 15, which is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, and to which I put my name. I raised a number of concerns at Second Reading and in Committee about the consequences of the part-privatisation of building control inspectors some 20-odd years ago, whereby developers can and do appoint their own building control inspectors. As noble Lords will know who have been here throughout all these stages, I have referred before to my favourite: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” Who will call these folk to account? At the moment, nobody does, and the result is what we are trying to deal with today.
If we had a band of building control inspectors who were like terriers in pursuit of bad practice and cutting corners, we would not be here today trying to put things right. So this is absolutely key to what we are doing—and, of course, I support the creation of the building safety regulator, and all the other parts of the Bill that the Government have introduced, but I recognise that it affects only buildings of 18 metres and above. Dame Judith Hackitt brought to our attention in her report her grave concern about developers who can choose their own inspector. Two things need to be dealt with: they should no longer be able to do so, and we should not create a two-tier inspection system. This amendment tries to put those two things right, and I am sure that the Government will accept it. It is, dare I say it, common sense. Why would you have such a stringent regulatory system for 18 metres and above, which I totally support, and then say, “Oh well, for the others it’ll be okay.” It will not be okay, and it has not been, so let us put it right.
The amendment proposes that local authority building inspectors take on that role. I support that idea not because they are local authority, but because they are based in an area and are therefore attached to the council and know who the builders are in that area. They know the particular problems of building in the Pennines, for example, where there is not much ground before you hit solid stone, or of building in London clay, where the problems are different. If we have building control inspectors who recognise the different problems across the country, we are more likely to get regulations that are adhered to. This is an important amendment, and I hope that the Government will treat it in that light.
My noble friend has already introduced Amendment 264, which is also in my name. It is also fundamental to building safety, because unless you have a workforce imbued with the knowledge and experience of building in a safe way, we will have the current corrosive construction industry culture that we and the Minister have spoken about. This is one way, one route, one of the tools in the toolbox—another phrase he loves—to try and put that right. Both those amendments are
key. I think the Minister will say: “Yeah, that was really good. Why did we not think of it?” But I am an optimist.
3.30 pm
I am going to just mention the other amendments, in the names of my noble friends Lady Brinton, Lord Foster and Lady Jolly and others, because they raise important issues. Here are just two statistics. First, according to my noble friend Lord Foster, there were 355 fires in high-rise buildings last year, and over 50% had electrical causes. Why would we not try and put that right? Here is an amendment that does that. Secondly, regarding my noble friend Lady Jolly’s amendment, 700 lives are lost because of falls on stairs. Why would we not put that right? Why would we not? They are sensible. Let us do them—in the interests of co-operation and collaboration.
Finally, Amendment 261, in the name of my noble friend Lord Foster, is one he feels very strongly about and rightly so. I am just going to mention that, 15 years ago or a bit more, Kirklees Council, of which I was then leader, had a scheme we called the “warm zone scheme” that introduced free loft insulation and cavity wall insulation to all 200,000 houses in the borough, regardless of tenure. We just did it for the reasons that my noble friend Lord Foster brought to our attention—because people were dying of hypothermia. That is not acceptable. Why did we do it? We did it 15 years ago, and the benefits have shown: fewer deaths, warmer homes, lower bills. The challenge to the Minister is to take that cry to the Government and say, “Look, it has been done once: 200,000 homes were offered it, and nearly 100,000 homes in a cold part of West Yorkshire took it up, and it worked.” We are being constructive and positive. There is no denying the force of our argument. I look forward to the Minister’s response.