My Lords, I concur with and support entirely the comments made by my noble friend Lord Stunell and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, about the amendments in this miscellany transferring the building safety regulator from the Health and Safety Executive. I hope the Minister will be able to give us a very clear reason why this change is being made in the Bill—indeed, why it is being made at all.
I want to focus my comments on Amendment 467F. It is a good job I am speaking after the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, because it was not at all clear to me that that is what it is about. That is the problem with this group of government amendments; as I said earlier, a miscellany of issues has been put together because this is a levelling-up Bill and we can throw anything in. My guess was that it came from the Schools Bill, but reading the amendment without any explanation, it was not clear at all, so I have a few questions to put to the Minister.
First, can she assure us that the comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford are accurate and this is entirely about schools with religious
foundations, because that is not clear? In fact, I have a series of questions so that I can understand what the Government are seeking to achieve. Having been a school governor for very many years, I know that it is important that land use for schools is clear—whether they are part of a trust or a local authority—because otherwise future changes are very difficult. I speak from the heart in that regard.
This amendment puts forward four conditions that must occur. The heading of the new paragraph is “Compulsory transfer to trustees”, which is what first made me think that this perhaps needs more questioning. The idea is that a local authority has some premises, and an academy or trust has some, and they can do a swap. As this is to be a compulsory swap, what local consultation will there be and will it be a democratic decision? The implication is that it will not be a democratic decision of the local authority; it will be a compulsory land—or premises—swap. That is one issue on which I would like an answer. The second is, what if the premises to be exchanged are in a different location? If a school becomes located in a different part of the borough, what will that mean for the provision of school places within that council area? Would planning consent be required for schools to be relocated? Who will pay local authorities’ costs for the transfer? What if one set of premises was of higher value than the one that a school is taking over? How does that work? There is a series of questions to be answered. The Government had directed local authorities to sell their assets to help fund local services. What if the set of premises had been earmarked for sale for the benefit of the local authority? How does that work?
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, asked similar questions to mine, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford explained that it is all about religious foundation schools. That is not clear in the Bill, and there is no Explanatory Memorandum. Apparently, there was one in respect of the Schools Bill; well, that is not very helpful to us.
Having just resigned as a governor of a voluntary controlled school which had a lot of land issues when it became an academy because of land ownerships and trusts, I really do want answers to this series of questions. As far as I am concerned, the building safety regulator and the compulsory transfer of land to trustees are two major issues that should not have been put in this Bill. They are nothing to do with levelling up.