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Lord Hardy of Wath: My Lords, I shall be extremely brief. As a member of the statutory instruments committee I am well aware—the House will also be aware of this—of the indefatigability of the noble Lord and the vigilance with which he approaches the work of the committee. I hope that my noble friend has taken note of the arguments that have been advanced. The organisation concerned is at the reputable and respectable end of the building industry. The list of consultees seemed to me to be rather long but I hope that it can be extended in future as regards all relevant matters in which this invaluable organisation may be involved.

8.15 p.m.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale who has brought the Motion before the House today. I am grateful to him for doing that in the nick of time as I had heard that there were concerns on the part of both the organisations which have already been mentioned; namely, the Federation of Master Builders and the Federation of Small Businesses.

It is clear from what has been said today that there is considerable concern about the quality of the consultation which has taken place on the regulations. It is not a case of there not having been consultation but of a major part of the relevant consultees having been left out. Although others may have responded for them, they are not grateful for the way that that response has been made on their behalf. They would much rather have responded themselves and, if necessary, had discussions with the Government. There are concerns as regards this matter.

I have absolutely no connection with either of the organisations I mentioned and I do not suppose that any other noble Lord has. However, I have been inspired by their wrath and considerable concern at what has happened by the introduction of the regulations.

It seems to go against all common sense that the self-certification schemes should bring about the presumably unintended result—as seen by the people who are promoting the matter—of small builders facing huge extra costs. I refer to the introduction of the new regulations before the value of the quality mark has been assessed. I refer also to a plethora of self-regulation schemes which will affect small builders far more than large ones. I refer also to a new system which, as I understand it, is unlikely to do what it is intended to do and part of which is designed to protect consumers against rogue traders.

The Kyoto protocol commitment to encourage energy conservation seems to lie behind the proposals. My noble friend Lord Skelmersdale, the Federation of

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Master Builders and the Federation of Small Businesses request that at the very least the Government should agree belatedly to meet the relevant representatives and consider the effect of the regulations. I understand that this is only the first of other potential self-certification schemes. It is nonsensical that they should be introduced against the rationale of at least 20 per cent of members of the business world.

I hope that the Minister will tell us that the appropriate person will be willing to meet representatives of the organisations I have mentioned to discuss the problems they envisage will be associated with the regulations as they do not consider that their case has been heard throughout the consultation process. I hope that the Minister will give us some comfort, albeit that he is standing in, ably as usual, for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, to whom I offer our condolences.

Lord Filkin: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to discuss with the House the building regulations and the development of a major and important new initiative of self-certification.

In essence there are good reasons for extending building regulations to other aspects of building works both in the interests of the public in terms of their health and the thermal efficiency of buildings, for example, and in the interests of the responsible end of the building industry. However, were that to be done simply by rolling out the traditional method of extending building regulations and sending applications to building control officers or their private sector equivalents, there could well be legitimate concerns about the increased burden of regulation imposed on builders. It is in that context that the idea of self-certification has been discussed with the building industry from 1997. The aim of it in essence is to allow the building regulations to strengthen the quality of building works to ensure, for example, that we meet Kyoto commitments and to promote competent firms without imposing excessive burden.

The largest and most recent of the self-certification schemes is the fenestration self-assessment scheme, FENSA. We made replacement windows a controlled fitting as a result of changes we made to Part L of the building regulations dealing with the conservation of fuel and power—a total package of changes which will ultimately prevent 1.4 million tonnes of carbon being discharged into the atmosphere. As the House will recognise, there are very serious issues of thermal efficiency and of fuel poverty in the sense that the better the thermo efficiency of our buildings, the less fuel will be consumed. However, it soon became clear that there were 1.2 million replacement window contracts undertaken each year. One can therefore imagine what that would generate in terms of paperwork and process if it was all put through conventional building control. It is in that context that the FENSA scheme, along with others, is considered important.

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I focus on the nub of the debate; that is, the issue of the quality of consultation. Three distinct consultation processes have been going on at the same time. They all to some extent interconnect. There has been consultation on self-certification as a principle and how it should be rolled out in practice. There has been consultation on the changes to Part L of the building regulations dealing, as I indicated, with conservation, fuel and power. There has also been consultation on the FENSA scheme itself on the part of the Glass and Glazing Federation and others.

I turn first to the consultation on self-certification. As has been indicated, proposals for self-certification were first consulted on in 1997 in a document entitled, Proposals for Reducing the Administrative Burden with the Prospect at the same time of Enhancing Health and Safety. That was followed up in 1999 with a document, Taking Forward Self-Certification Under the Building Regulations. The department invited expressions of interest from organisations which considered that their members could comply with the building regulations and therefore were potential candidates for self-certification. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, rightly said that at that time windows were not mentioned in relation to a potential self-certification scheme because they were not then part of buildings regulations.

The consultation process on self-certification continued and an invitation was open to all. Twenty-nine organisations, including the Federation of Master Builders, expressed interest. The consultation went out to more than 250 organisations, as one would expect. After receiving 29 bids and in consultation with the Buildings Regulations Advisory Committee—BRAC—which is the statutory consultation body that was set up under the Building Act 1984, it was decided to interview 10 organisations. After a lengthy process, which involved interviewing by a BRAC sub-committee, that figure was narrowed down to three others. The regulations deal with that.

I turn to consultation on Part L. The relevant Minister, Mr Raynsford, announced a review of that in February 1998. The first round of formal consultations on it took place in the summer 1998 and suggestions were invited on what measures could be introduced to maximise the contribution that buildings regulations could make to achieving Kyoto targets.

In March 2001, Mr Raynsford announced that consultations on the first round of amendments were complete and that amendments to the regulations would be made as soon as possible later in the year. He also announced that the technical proposition would be published in advance of formal amendment. That was accomplished in April 2001. I point out—I do not believe that this is contested—that changes to the buildings regulations relating to windows have been well known for at least a year. The regulations were laid before Parliament in October 2001. As I said, BRAC has been involved throughout that process, as is required under the legislation.

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The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, asked: why the tunnel vision? I turn to the consultation required under the Building Act 1984. It states that before making any building regulations containing substantive requirements, the Secretary of State shall consult the Building Regulations Advisory Committee and other such bodies as appear to him to be representative of the interests concerned. That is the law, and that is what the department did. The Building Act 1984 refers to the changes to Part L. I do not believe that anyone criticises consulting on that.

Substantive requirements deal with technical matters and are distinct from procedural matters. The FENSA scheme essentially involves consultation on procedural matters. That scheme is a procedural option that firms can choose to follow if they wish. Dealing with the administration of building regulations, such as self-certification, is in most cases not covered by the Act. Invariably and properly, however, the department undertakes extensive consultation on possible policy changes or their application, as it did with regard to self-certification. It does not, however, consult on the drafting of regulations, other than with BRAC and other bodies that are directly concerned.

I turn to the nub of the concerns; that is, consultation on the FENSA scheme. When it became clear that the building regulations needed to be changed if we were to meet Kyoto targets—there was a strong consensus that that was sensible—it also became clear that, given the volume of replacement window contracts that were likely to take place, it was important to consider self-certification as the mechanism for dealing with that. As I said, that was not done in the 1999 scheme because at that time the building regulations did not cover windows.

The Glass and Glazing Federation, which had responded in 1999 saying that it was interested in taking forward self-certification if and when it became appropriate, of its own volition came forward again in, I believe, the autumn of last year and indicated its willingness to explore the development of a self-certification scheme. The department responded positively to that because it seemed potentially to be in all people's interests to do so. It therefore created a representative steering group in autumn 2001, which included stakeholders, as my noble friend Lord Graham said. With the benefit of hindsight, one might say that the House Builders Federation might well have been replaced with strong representation from small builders undertaking replacement work rather than builders undertaking new building work.

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