My Lords, this has been an extremely interesting debate. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions on this group of amendments.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for covering all the technical bits that brevity forced me to omit; I am grateful to him for that. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford gave an outstanding and thought-provoking commentary on, among other things, corporate motivation and where that should sit in the rules-based order.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, asked me some specific questions. I will give it a go in terms of giving her a brief response, but if she wants more information then I ask her to let me know because I may need to write to her. She asked me about the potential damage to the construction industry. My belief is that the construction industry should be able to build its way out of the liability—admittedly, probably at a lower profit margin, but that should be a viable option for it, so I do not see this as being a total loss. One of her later points was about market damage. The best estimate at the moment is that about 10% of the blocks are affected, which effectively means that 90% of them are built to good standards and do not present a problem. The risk is that if we do not deal with those forthrightly, and if the Government’s programme is not continually ahead of expectation, the rotten apples will end up infecting a much wider cohort than would otherwise be the case.
The noble Baroness also picked me up on the demonisation of the term “polluter pays”. I hope that I avoided using that term in referring to the building safety remediation scheme, but I know that outside it has attracted that moniker. That is of course a reflection on the environmental liability; coming further forward in time from that strict liability, we have a more direct example. It is of health and safety, particularly on construction sites. The strict liability that was imposed under that regime substantially improved the rate of death and injury in construction. I believe the same focus that this liability would generate is applicable here, bearing in mind that we are talking about vulnerable people in their own homes and that they are asleep and unconscious for maybe 25% to 30% of the time. They really need to know that that is their safe haven and not to feel threatened in it by issues of safety or finance, such as not being able to transact their property.
I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Pinnock, for their support. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has been an absolutely doughty supporter of the principle throughout. I pay tribute to that, as I do to my noble friend Lord Cromwell for his contribution. I am most grateful.
I thank the Minister for her response but I am disappointed. The fact of the matter is that a very large number of flats are excluded. There is no prospect of any early protection from costs that their owners are not responsible for. Litigation against freeholders is all very well, provided that the freeholders were those who were responsible for the problem in the first place. But if they are not, because they just happen to be from a pension fund that picked it up along the way, no doubt relying on the same sign-off and building warranties as all the occupiers, then I have to say that this looks like the Government plucking at low-hanging
fruit for the purposes of PR and marketing. I am sorry, but I do not buy the principle that letting others off the hook should necessitate going after people who may themselves be, beyond peradventure, innocent.
The Minister also referred to the comment made just over a year ago saying that the amendment I moved then, of which I hope this one can be regarded as a new and upgraded version, was not cost effective because it would require a building-by-building assessment. But you do not establish anything unless somebody goes and looks at the building on an individual basis; I know that as a surveyor. I have looked at hundreds of buildings in my professional life and that is where it starts. The Government’s own approval to any sub 11-metre matters is described as being on a case-by-case basis, so what is the difference?
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The views of the independent expert panel were referred to, and a very worthy panel it is, but I saw that the issue of where this critical life safety came out had a different algorithm. It was a different function of the problem from the one that I am trying to address. The noble Lord, Lord Young, referred to the fire at Richmond House in Worcester Park, which happened about 11 months before the independent expert statement was published. My understanding is that fatalities there—mercifully there were none and, I gather, no injuries—would have been far more likely had the “stay put” instruction not been ignored by the residents, who got themselves out of the building, and just as well. But that exemplifies the fact that low rise does not mean zero risk; it is a matter of judgment as to whether the risk is acceptable. If you look at risk on the spectrum that we are considering, you simply would not accept that level of safety in a car or in many household goods.
I am sorry to say to the Minister that I do not follow the arguments here. I do not regard the rather labyrinthine approach that the Government are embarked on as satisfactory. I will ponder what she says but I may very well return to this issue later in the Bill’s progress, as it is clearly not going away and there is a huge expectation outside this House that something is going to be done about it. The Government seem to be relying on levies and developer contributions. I am not clear whether that adds up to anywhere near what some industry observers, with no axe to grind, are suggesting will be the totality of billions that will be involved in remediation on a national scale. Having said that, I will consider this further and while I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, will tell me if I have not succeeded in answering her questions, for the time being I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.