Select committee: Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee

Recommendation 9

Fifth report: Pre-legislative scrutiny of the Building Safety Bill Published 24 Nov 2020 Paragraph 39 Addressed to Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee Pre-legislative scrutiny of the Building Safety Bill All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗

Recommendation (the committee's words)

The Government must announce, before they publish the Bill, its proposals for funding all historical building safety remediation works. These proposals should impose no costs on leaseholders and explicitly acknowledge that in the short term the Government must foot the bill, until such time as mechanisms for cost recovery have been developed. We also urge the Government to explore the options for reform of the law preventing building owners with no contractual remedy claiming against developers for defective construction more than 6 years old which has not caused damage. The New South Wales legislation offers a possible model.

From: Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, Fifth report: Pre-legislative scrutiny of the Building Safety Bill (HC 466), paragraph 39, 24 November 2020

Government response

The government responded to the whole report on 7 July 2021 (deadline 24 January 2021).

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The Government responds to the Committee's 43 recommendations on the draft Building Safety Bill by agreeing with many, including on publishing secondary legislation during the Bill's passage and excluding historic costs from the building safety charge, while disagreeing with others and giving its reasons.

On delegated powers, it agrees with the Committee and will remove the power at paragraph 16(1)(c) of Schedule 8 from the introduced Bill. It intends to publish detail on Gateways and construction products "before the relevant clauses are considered in committee".
On leaseholders, it agrees that historical costs should be excluded from the Building Safety Charge, which "will only cover the ongoing costs of the new regime". It does not consider it appropriate to rely on existing service charge provisions, giving variation between leases as the reason.
On the regulator, it does not agree that factors for expanding scope should be specified in the Bill through a 'have regard' requirement. It also does not believe property protection should be a statutory objective "at this time".
On competence, it agrees with the objectives for third-party accreditation but does not agree that provisions should be in the Bill, preferring statutory guidance for "greater flexibility". It will publish outline transition and cost recovery information, the latter in "Summer 2021".

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