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Building Regulations (Amendment) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I said on Second Reading that we very much support what the noble Lord is endeavouring to do in and with the Bill—I well understand that it is a tool for taking forward further work to ensure that sprinklers using the best regime are required for all buildings, subject to some of the concerns which have been expressed. I do not think that I need today to plump for one or other, or all or none, of the amendments; I will just make a very few remarks. I read the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bates, as being a little less supportive and a little more tentative, but that may be because he has found it irresistible to list some of the political points that he wants to make, such as those about home information packs. I understand that temptation. There will not be an impact on home information packs, although there may be an impact on the regulations covering how home information packs are developed, to take one example. Of course there should be an impact assessment before regulations are made. I do not think that sustainability is a nebulous concept, but I will not develop that further. The noble Lord, Lord Best, before he gets to the sweep-up phrase, "other interested parties", lists a number of organisations. I just suggest two that might fall into that sweep-up provision. One is developers who already have experience of installing sprinkler systems—we have heard that this is not a wholly new concept. The other is the insurance industry. It is quite right to raise the economic issues, but one would hope that there would be a benefit which insurers were able to debate, and perhaps even put a price on. One would hope that buildings with sprinkler systems would attract lower insurance premiums because, after all, they should certainly be safer, and perhaps more sustainable.