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12.34 pm
Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon) (Lab): I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) on securing such a high place in the ballot and bringing forward the Bill. I shall probably pick up where the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) left off.
As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I sit through many private Member's Bill debates on Fridays. For such a Bill to make real progress, it must be seen to be doing some good, not to be imposing significant costs on taxpayers or the public at large, and to be modest. Thought provoking though the Bill is—I support the aims of sustainability and security—I am worried that the hon. Member for Hazel Grove might have bitten off rather more than he can chew for a private Member's Bill. If he had focused on one or other of those aims, the Bill would have received much less criticism today and might have had a better chance of achieving one of them. It is laudable that the hon. Gentleman has put so much detail in the Bill because such enabling Bills usually contain little detail, and most of our debate is focused on what might be included in regulations that we would consider at a later stage. However, the natural consequence of that is that whole avenues of detailed scrutiny at this stage have been opened up.
My inclination, on balance, is that the Bill should receive its Second Reading, subject, of course, to what the hon. Gentleman says in response to the debate and the points that I put to him in my speech and interventions, and subject to what my hon. Friend the Minister says on behalf of the Government. However, unless significant changes are made to the Bill, the hon. Gentleman might find difficulties—certainly with me—getting it through Report and Third Reading. I hope that there will be significant changes to the Bill as it progresses.
At the heart of my objections, some of which I flagged earlier, is the question of cost and cost benefits. Conservative Members were right to identify that point, as I tried to do during one or two of my interventions. We cannot only compare capital costs with revenue savings because we must consider some of the people whom the Bill would be likely to affect. I think of a pensioner in Edgware in my constituency living in a big old three-bedroomed house from which her family has long since moved away. She might be thinking of downsizing to a granny flat or, perhaps, moving elsewhere. It would cost her a significant amount if she were expected either to take the hit on the house's capital sale value or to spend capital to bring the house up to the standards required by the Bill. We already know how hard pressed pensioners are in my constituency and more widely, so it would be too great a burden to impose such a capital cost on people who would see little, if any, of the revenue savings. Although I am sure that such a
pensioner would like a more energy efficient home—the Government have introduced many important measures to assist with the cost of achieving that—imposing such an obligation would make her situation difficult.When Labour ran Barnet borough council, the authority in which I live, I was pleased that it introduced measures to give pensioners financial assistance to make their homes secure. However, those measures were not available to every pensioner because they were dependent on income. I am worried that although a pensioner might wish to make improvements to fire precautions or to help crime prevention, a significant cost element would be involved. One cannot consider capital costs on the one hand and the money that would be saved over 20, 30, 40 or 50 years on the other, because we must also consider who would pay and who would benefit. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove must address those serious points.
There are serious practical considerations in relation to costs. The hon. Gentleman's costs were probed, but so far we have received very few satisfactory answers from him. He runs the risk of the Bill being added to the Prime Minister's list for Question Time on Wednesday when he exposes the dodgy accounting practices of the Liberal Democrats, who make promises without considering the costs involved. The hon. Gentleman should think carefully about what the costs of the Bill would be to the taxpayer or the public at large, if he does not want the Prime Minister to add it to his shopping list for debate at Question Time.
We need to deal with the physical practicalities of the Bill. Is it, in physical terms, practical or realistic to do some of the things the hon. Gentleman expects, particularly in relation to older buildings? I shall deal with that shortly. I question the practicality of and necessity for the reports that the Secretary of State would be expected to produce under the Bill. We are told in great detail what the reports must contain, but we are not told why they must be compiled. The cost of producing them once again involves dodgy accounting. The Liberal Democrat estimate is £100,000, the notes on clauses say £50,000 and the Opposition say it is probably £100,000 per local authority. Bearing in mind that we would have to create a second Domesday Book, I suspect the latter figure is correct, rather than £100,000 for the nation as a whole.
Sue Doughty: Although it would be perfectly valid to discuss Liberal Democrat policy at another time, we are considering a private Member's Bill. Members' time is valuable, and it is wrong to make cheap political points in an all-party debate. Hon. Members are waiting to introduce other Bills.
Mr. Dismore: The hon. Lady may be aware that I have my own Bill on the Order Paper today, so her criticism is not fairly addressed to me. As a Member of the House, it is my job and, indeed, hers to make sure that any Bill that goes through its Second Reading is properly scrutinised. If, as a consequence of that, my own Bill unfortunately cannot make progress today, I have to take that risk, and so be it. If she suggests that I should
be derelict in my duty to debate the present Bill in order to take my own Bill forward, that is another example of Liberal Democrat opportunism.The hon. Lady is correct to say that on Fridays Bills are not whipped. The Government may well wish to see the Bill progress, but as the Bill is not whipped, that is not necessarily a view that I share, although I have indicated to the House that I am minded not to press it to a Division and to allow it to go through its Second Reading, subject to the response from my hon. Friend the Minister and from the hon. Member for Hazel Grove when he replies to the debate. Other Members may have their own views. The hon. Lady's intervention has, of course, taken up a considerable amount of my time and that of the House. I suggest that she bears that in mind, should she wish to make any further interventions.
The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge made an important point when he said we must see how the Bill is stripped down during its progress through the House. In Committee, we need to strip it down and see how many bits are left on the garage floor when we try to put it back together again, and whether, having left all those bits out, the Bill continues to run. The hon. Gentleman was wrong to say that the Bill had a narrow focus. If it did, we might be able to make more progress with it. One of the problems is that it is so broad in its scope.
Mr. Hammond: The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the point. By focusing narrowly on the sustainability agenda—on improving the energy efficiency and crime resistance of homes—the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) has ignored the impact of pursuing that agenda on the wider questions of affordability and trying to get everybody in this country into decent housing.
Mr. Dismore: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. I agree. The hon. Gentleman also made a valid point on the issue of voluntarism, but in reply to him and in support of the hon. Member for Hazel Grove, I would say that it is not necessarily an either/or.
We can use a carrot and stick approach. The very fact that to a degree the Bill is permissive and gives powers rather than forcing them on people is welcome, but the extent to which its provisions are mandatory militates against that welcome. Perhaps one way forward is for my hon. Friend the Minister to tell the building industry that, in respect of sustainability and security, it is drinking in the last-chance saloon; or, if the Bill is passed, for there to be a lengthy period before it comes into force, perhaps backed by a code of practice and, initially, light-touch regulations that might be ratcheted up if the industry does not get its act together. I am mindful of the fact that there is no regulatory impact assessment. The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge made a telling point in that respect.
There is little in clause 1 to which one can object. I put my concern about subsection (1)(f) to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove in an intervention: the Bill makes no reference to fire prevention. It seems to me—perhaps this contradicts my previous argument—that we should not consider these matters in isolation. When one
requires, rather than advises, crime prevention measures to be implemented, there may be a conflict with other regulations on fire precautions. There is a tension between making one's house secure against burglars while allowing it to be sufficiently porous to enable one to get out quickly in the event of a fire. Window locks, for example, could have two opposing effects. I would have preferred the Bill to propose that building regulations take a combined approach to fire and crime prevention to ensure that the regulations do not conflict, and that the police and fire service put their heads together to produce a common approach that satisfies the requirements of both. That would be an important improvement to the Bill.Subsection (3) refers to demolition, which is important to consider when building new properties. I assume that the provision is not retrospective in the sense that it applies also to existing buildings—it cannot be, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will clarify that point. The problems now with the disposal and/or recycling of building materials may be very different from the problems that will face us in 100 years' time. Materials that are in short supply today may be plentiful in 100 years, and vice versa. Take the example of oil: if people building houses or using oil 100 years ago had been told that oil would be a scarce natural resource in 100 years' time, they would have laughed, but we now know that to be the case. Perhaps we are expecting a degree of foresight that will be extremely difficult to achieve.
My particular concern about demolition is not dealt with in the Bill. Fly-tipping is the bane of my constituency and many others, and if anything can be done through the Bill to reduce its incidence, that would be of great benefit to all concerned.
Clause 2 has a lot to recommend it, but I am concerned about the generic reference to "buildings". Introducing his Bill, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove seemed to switch between domestic buildings and buildings used for business purposes as it suited his argument, but the Bill does not make that distinction and therefore does not allow him to do that. It may well be feasible to expect a commercial operator—for example, a bank with enormous resources behind it—to implement security measures, which are probably already in situ, or, more important, sustainability measures, which are probably not, when it occupies a new building or moves on—
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