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Building Regulations (Amendment) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Harrison on securing this Private Member’s Bill. Fire safety is a most important subject, one in which he has previously taken a considerable personal interest, and I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. A number of noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Whitty and Lord Brookman, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, have stated explicitly that this Bill is about saving lives. Moreover, as my noble friend Lord Whitty identified, it proposes to proceed via the route of the building regulations, so it is not about retrofitting existing properties. In England, we have a strong record in fire prevention, a record of which I think we can be proud, but not complacent. The latest fire statistics show improvement, with fire deaths in the home in England at their lowest since 1980, and the long-term trend is downwards. In 1997, 362 people perished in domestic house fires in England compared with the figure of 217 fire deaths in the home in 2008. But let me be clear: one death is one too many. Since 1997, our key strategy to drive down preventable fire deaths has been through proactive community fire safety activities, a discipline that involves efforts to reduce the incidence of fire through education, information and publicity. Indeed, few people may realise the impact which fire has on our society. Although people are very frightened of having a fire and its potential consequences, they do not believe that it will happen to them. But the impact of fires on families and households is often greater than many crimes. It can wipe out entire families in one go, kill all the children, or have a lifelong impact with terrible injuries on those who may survive. Even if casualties do not arise, the impact of needing to be rehoused and losing all possessions, photographs, memories and treasured items can be very profound. Most fires in the home are preventable. Community fire safety is therefore about providing basic fire safety information to householders to help them alter their behaviour and to think more about fire safety as an important issue that could affect them and their families. In particular, it is about reminding people of the importance of having working smoke alarms installed in their homes and testing them regularly, the safe disposal of smoking products, and about taking extra care when cooking with fat, using grill pans and so on. The installation of properly maintained smoke alarms in every household has been the centrepiece of our efforts to reduce fire deaths in the home as they provide the vital early warning of fire and help people to escape. Through the Fire Kills campaign, the Government have conducted high-profile national television campaigns promoting smoke alarms and maintenance messages which have proved very successful. Ownership of smoke alarms in England now stands at 85 per cent of households and we are seeking to raise that further, as evidence suggests that those without alarms are often in the groups that are most at risk from fire. The 85 per cent smoke alarm ownership figure is a real achievement. I am delighted to say that during the period 2004-08, the Government invested £25 million in grants to fire and rescue authorities, to whom I pay great tribute, to enable them to purchase smoke alarms for installation in domestic dwellings. This pump-priming funding stream has provided authorities with the resources to carry out home fire risk checks to target the most vulnerable people in society such as the elderly, mobility impaired and single parents. Our latest figures show that around 2 million home fire risk checks have been carried out in England, with more than 2.4 million smoke alarms being installed. This type of fire prevention work should now be mainstream for fire and rescue authorities. Since 2008-09, funding is now available through the revenue support grant that these authorities receive directly from central government. The increase in the ownership of smoke alarms as a result of these campaigns and other actions is a success story. In 1987, only 9 per cent of dwellings were fitted with smoke alarms, but as I have said, by 2007, this had risen to 85 per cent. Indeed, in the social rented sector, the English house condition survey suggested that in 2007 more than 88 per cent of homes had smoke alarms, with nearly 40 per cent of them being hard-wired, mains-powered alarms. I am confident that these figures will be even higher as we reach the end of 2009 and move into the current year. Sadly, a percentage of households remain resistant to our messages and, in the first instance, each of us must take responsibility for safety in our own households. Of course there is a place for regulation where it is appropriate and justified to help make people safer from fire, particularly where they are vulnerable or where the risk of fire is outside their control. Duties are imposed on landlords through the licensing measures for houses in multiple occupation and under the Housing, Health and Safety Rating System, and the requirements of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order impose duties on people responsible for commercial premises and for the communal parts of blocks of flats. Through the building regulations, we also have a powerful tool at our disposal to design out the life safety risk of fire in newly-built or altered buildings. Part B of the regulations and its supporting Approved Document have extensive provisions for the means of escape, means of warning, means of restricting fire spread and access for the Fire and Rescue Service. The provision since 1992 for all new-build dwellings to have hard-wired, interconnected smoke alarms, along with our on-going campaigns promoting their use, has contributed to that success. The Government are aware of the calls that this Bill exemplifies for the building regulations to be amended further to require sprinklers in new dwellings and other types of new buildings. We recognise that sprinklers have an important role to play and there are already provisions in place for their use. Our view is that sprinkler provision should form part of a package of measures. However, some stakeholders have persistently argued for more regulation to require sprinklers in new build. I have already mentioned Part B of the building regulations. Requirement B3 of the regulations, which deals with internal fire spread within a building, already sets out that, subject to the size and intended use of the building, suitable fire suppression systems, such as sprinklers, and sub-division by fire resisting construction should be provided. My department issues guidance in the form of Approved Document B, which sets out what is considered to be a reasonable provision to satisfy the requirements of Part B. This guidance is developed using the best available evidence and expert advice and with the assistance of the Building Regulations Advisory Committee. Any new measure we introduce through the building regulations—the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, touched on this issue—must be proportionate, evidence-based and justified in terms of the lives they save and the injuries they prevent. Before any new measure is introduced, the Government’s policies on better regulation require the department to carry out an impact assessment. This involves estimating the potential costs and benefits of introducing the measures to ensure that those measures that are introduced are demonstrably proportionate to the problem they seek to address. This impact assessment, along with the draft Approved Document and supporting research findings, are then published and are subject to a public consultation exercise. My department has recently undertaken a review of Part B and its Approved Document and the subsequent revisions resulting from that review took effect on 6 April 2007. As one might imagine, the review looked at the potential of extending the existing provisions for fire suppression to residential premises. This review drew on an extensive four-year research project looking at the issue of residential and domestic sprinklers from both an effectiveness and cost-benefit perspective. The conclusions are clear: sprinklers are an effective measure but it would not be cost-effective to impose their installation on all new residential buildings. However, there was a case for higher risk buildings. A number of noble Lords mentioned the research which led to the current guidance on residential properties. It was an extensive four-year project and the methodology used in the cost-benefit analysis was developed in consultation across the industry group, including the Fire and Rescue Service and the sprinkler industry. A similar cost-benefit exercise carried out in the US by the National Institute of Science and Technology reached a similar conclusion. The revised Approved Document B (Fire Safety) therefore included a provision for sprinklers to be installed in tall blocks of flats over 30 metres in height—a matter to which my noble friend Lord Harrison referred—and included their use as an option in residential care homes. This option offers an alternative to an otherwise more onerous set of standards for care homes introduced at the same time. This is one of a range of measures which can be varied where sprinkler systems are installed. The benefits that such installations can offer are explained in the Approved Document and the guidance can be structured such that those benefits are realised in reduced construction costs. The process to review the buildings regulations was overseen and supported by both the main Building Regulations Advisory Committee and its Fire Safety Working Group, which comprise key stakeholders, such as the Business and Community Safety Forum, the Fire Brigades Union and the Chief Fire Officers Association. As set out in our implementation plan for the future of building control, my department currently has no plans to review the fire safety elements of the building regulations again until 2013. In the mean time, we continue to consider and develop the evidence base in preparation for that review. I am sure that some might consider that this is a rather long timescale, but these are not simple matters. The standards of fire protection in modern buildings are very high and the casualty figures are, thankfully, low. We cannot justify imposing further burdens on industry—a point pressed by the noble Earl—without targeting them at where they can be most effective. That said, and as part of our collective desire to see buildings which are even more sustainable, we are exploring the impact of fire and fire protection on the environment. The changes made to the Building Act 1984 by the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act 2004 extends the scope of building regulations to include requirements made for sustainability purposes. My department commissioned a scoping study to consider this issue and the available evidence and to identify a way forward. The report from this project is due to be published shortly and will help to inform this important debate. While we do not consider there is a case for more regulation now, we are looking at what we might do to encourage or facilitate the greater use and installation of sprinklers through non-regulatory routes. We have therefore commissioned three research projects to help facilitate this process. These relate to low-cost sprinklers, the cost-benefits of sprinklers in areas of new homes and the cost-effectiveness of sprinklers in high-risk buildings. On the low-cost sprinkler project, a major barrier to the wider use of sprinklers in the domestic market has been that they are expensive. My department has therefore undertaken research into the potential for lower cost domestic sprinkler systems. As a result of this research, and in collaboration with the Fire Protection Association, we have developed a design guide for such systems. Initial findings suggest that a lower cost system can be put into a new-build house and work effectively given adequate means of water pressure. A number of noble Lords have raised the issue of water usage. However, the water industry raised concerns about the design guide as it did not comply with the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999. However, we have worked with the water industry to resolve these issues and, I am pleased to say, we now have a system which complies with the water regulations. We are currently trialling the compliant lower-cost system in four fire and rescue authority areas—Lancashire, Kent, Suffolk and Northumberland. The pilots are designed to test cost assumptions and to iron out any technical issues during installation. We also recognise that the Government’s commitment to build new homes in areas such as the Thames Gateway presents challenges to the Fire and Rescue Service. As I have already explained, the Government do not legislate or regulate for the provision of sprinklers in domestic properties. Long-term research has demonstrated that the costs and benefits of doing so do not stack up; the costs are so high that it cannot be justified for life safety. However, we consider it worth revisiting the installation of sprinklers as an active protection measure where large numbers of houses are being built at one time. The CLG has therefore commissioned consultants to look at the costs and benefits of potential options to address the fire and community safety needs of areas of new build housing. As part of this we will revisit the work of the BRE, to which noble Lords have referred. There is no suggestion that by carrying out this work the Government would regulate for the installation of sprinklers in domestic properties; rather, they are looking for approaches that are persuasive enough for planning communities at the local level to consider the value added by non-statutory fire safety protection measures such as sprinklers. This work is nearing completion and we shall share the outcomes of the research with fire stakeholders at an event on 19 January. The third research project that my department has commissioned is looking at the cost-effectiveness of sprinklers in high-risk buildings. As part of this study, we wish to gain an understanding of the perceptions of building owners and occupiers as well as of designers involved in a building’s construction or refurbishment. The key outcome of this work will be the development of a tool that building owners or responsible persons can use to establish the fire risk for their building, and what measures they can take to protect their building, their residents and their employees. The work should be complete by summer 2010. The Government have done much to exploit the benefits of sprinklers in reducing fire deaths and injuries. We are continuing to explore opportunities to encourage, where appropriate and justified, the greater use and installation of sprinklers through non-regulatory routes. As I have said, the Government take fire safety issues very seriously indeed. We are implementing a significant programme of work to drive down further fire deaths and injuries. To recap, I say that our fire safety strategies are succeeding. The latest fire statistics are improving; fire deaths in the home in England are at their lowest since the 1980s. The long-term trend is down. However, as I have said, one death is one too many, so we should never be complacent. Some international comparisons and issues were raised. Within the past couple of years, the Governments of the United States of America, Japan, Belarus and South Korea have been knocking on our door to learn about our work and successes. However, we cannot and will not be complacent. Government and fire and rescue service personnel have shown tremendous commitment to the fire safety agenda. Our challenge is to maintain the momentum. There is clearly a place for regulation. We have and will use it, but only where it is shown to be reasonable and proportionate to do so. I think my noble friend will understand from that our reservations about the precise focus of his Bill, but I believe that we have common cause in what we are seeking to achieve.