My Lords, I start by commenting on the amendments on building safety. I will not repeat the points that other noble Lords have made. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, went thoroughly into the reasons why there are concerns about these amendments, as did the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, so there is no need for me to repeat the detail; the concerns have been raised extremely clearly.
I want to ask just one thing. This provision seeks to transfer powers to the Health and Safety Executive, so that it will become the building safety regulator. When we left EU REACH, the chemicals regulation system, we raised a lot of concerns about the Government’s proposal that the HSE become the regulator for the
UK REACH. The concerns were about the skills and resource levels of the HSE in taking on these new responsibilities. If the Government now intend to give the HSE yet another very large responsibility, how is the department being set up to manage all these increased responsibilities that the Government keep putting on its shoulders?
I was quite interested that the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, said that one of the amendments extended the scope of the Bill to allow the others in. I congratulate the Government on finding anything that was out of scope of the Bill—it is quite an achievement.
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Amendment 467F, also spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, is about the transfer of lands to academy schools. I reiterate the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock: does this mean that local authorities have to transfer land even if they do not want to? How is that being managed and consulted on? The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford made an extremely helpful speech for understanding the background to this issue, giving the Church’s opinion about church school academies.
I want to make a point here. The local school in the village next to where I live where all the local children go was a lovely Church of England school. It had a poor Ofsted inspection, where it failed on one small part, and was then forced into being an academy trust. It is a church academy trust and the school is doing well, but the point is that the school did not want to do that; it just wanted to carry on as a Church of England school. I do not think any school should be forced to go down a route that it does not want to go down.
Lastly, I want to thank the Bill manager. He sent me a very helpful email explaining Amendment 504HA, so I put my thanks to him on the record.