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Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, the Glass and Glazing Federation volunteered to do that—it offered to work with the interested parties in the industry. Why did it therefore decide to include the House Builders Federation and to exclude master builders and small businesses, which cater for 20 per cent of the total business involved?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I cannot and should not attempt to second guess what was in the heads of the
Glass and Glazing Federation when it formed that working group. The vast majority of replacement windows are carried out not by members of the Federation of Master Builders or jobbing builders but by firms that specialise in replacement windows. One would be a lucky Member of this House if one has not, at some stage, been invited by telephone to have one's windows replaced.
Baroness Maddock: My Lords, I recognise that what the Minister says is absolutely true. However, is it not the case that under the new building regulations if any window—an odd window here or there—is replaced, it has to be changed? The small builder who does so becomes involved in the process. That is why they feel so aggrieved.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I accept that. I was simply seeking to explain why the working group that was set up to explore the development of a self-certification scheme for replacement windows contained the bodies that it did; my noble friend Lord Graham said that he wished that that had been otherwise. Clearly, I cannot second guess its explanation.
There was a substantial debate in the trade press during that period about the development of a self-certification scheme for replacement windows. Moreover, there was a major advertising campaign to promote a large national event at the Aston Villa Conference Centre in December 2001. At that meeting, the Glass and Glazing Federation publicised its proposals for a self-certification scheme. More than 650 people attended. It was a complete sell-out and it is hard to believe that anyone who was active in the building industry would not have been aware of the fact that, besides the conventional building regulation route, there was the proposal to have self-certification.
My noble friend recognised that there was no issue with regard to Part L changes; I am thankful to him for that. The matter focuses on FENSA's wish to be formally consulted rather than the need to be aware of a larger consultation process. I do not know the relationships between the respective trade organisations in that regard. One has to seek to consult people and wherever possible to make them feel that they have been consulted. That avoids people feeling that they are out of the loop.
My noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, also raised the issue of costs. Self-certification will save people substantial amounts of money. If they do not believe that, they should not take part in it and should apply in the normal way for building control approval from a local authority. They have a completely free choice—that is not forced on them in the slightest. If applying for building control regulations as a result of changes to Part L involves costs, which it does, those costs are a product of the changes to the building regulations and not a result of the FENSA scheme. The FENSA scheme is substantially cheaper than the conventional route. For example, not all FMB members will have to pay for the vetting fee; they will have to pay a registration fee of £100, an annual fee of £50 and then, if they deal
electronically, as one hopes they will, the cost will be £1 per certificate. If the FENSA scheme works as well as we hope it will, the pay-back for any builder who replaces one or two windows using that scheme will be considerable.The noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, and my noble friend Lord Graham also raised the issue of small builders feeling that they had not been consulted or their views taken seriously. As indicated, I do not believe that there has been any failure in the consultation process. Nevertheless, I consider it important that the Government bend over backwards to ensure that people feel that they have had an opportunity to have their say.
To some extent, one also hopes that if people believe they are not being consulted, they will shout and express their views rather than wait a long time for change. Certainly when I ran a national organisation, if we considered that we were not being consulted, we knocked on the door fairly vigorously. I believe that it is always in the interests of those who are being consulted not to be passive in the process but to shout fairly early on and express that view.
Having said that, I know that my honourable friend in another place—the relevant Minister, Dr Whitehead—will be very pleased to meet the Federation of Master Builders, both to have a little canter over the history of this matter and also, probably more productively, to talk about the future development of the self-certification scheme, how it might develop and how it might also be in the interests of the general master builder or jobbing builder as well as the specialist trader.
Until now, these schemes have been single-trade issues, but there is clearly a question as to how they will develop in the future and whether a scheme might be extended or developed. I can give no commitment that that would be the case, but it would be fruitful to have discussions in order to discover whether it might be possible. I believe that that touches on some of the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, in terms of trying to ensure that what is intended as an efficiency of regulation applies effectively to all respective interests.
The noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, asked me an extremely challenging question on the comparative thermal efficiency of metal frames versus wood and plastics. Unfortunately, I cannot give the thermal coefficients of them all. The Approved Document sets out the thermal properties required for each type of window, taking into account their physical properties. We shall write to the noble Baroness setting out how the thermal values were assessed. They did not involve different regulations, but I shall write in the near future setting that out in greater detail.
In summary, therefore, we believe that the extension of the building regulations in the way that we have talked about is in the interests of the public. Certainly it is in the interests of achieving global warming targets. We also believe that self-certification schemes are very much in the interests of both the public and the responsible end of the building industry.
It is important that we see how these early trials—that is what they are—as an alternative to conventional building regulations, develop over the coming months and years. In the process of evaluating them, it will be crucial that we pay very close attention to the interests of all types of operatives, firms and organisations in the building industry, including the Federation of Master Builders. I repeat my offer that the Government will be very pleased to meet the Federation of Master Builders and to consider its past interest and ideas for the future.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken and joined me in giving the department a moderately sharp rap on the knuckles so far as concerns consultation of the self-certification schemes in general and the FENSA in particular. I am especially grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Graham of Edmonton and Lord Hardy, for totally different reasons. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Graham, because of his expertise in the building trade, acquired by means to which I have not had access. I am also grateful for the vote of confidence from my fellow member of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, the noble Lord, Lord Hardy.
I believe that there is still a slight misunderstanding. The point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Graham, about costs related to cumulative costs. Thus far, there are four self-certification schemes. In order to practise as a general builder, it would be logical and sensible to be a member of all four. I suppose that that runs into some £400 to £500 a year at present, albeit that the individual costs for each application after that are very small.
The Minister gave a clear hint that this was the beginning of a whole range of self-certification schemes. He said that discussions could be held—I do not believe that he put it any higher than that—in relation to rolling all the certification bodies for the building trade into one. It is clear that the Federation of Master Builders, the Federation of Small Businesses and all those who have already been consulted will be extremely interested in joining in those consultations.
My original complaint concerns the FENSA scheme. The point about that scheme is that it does not cover only double glazing. Much of the debate today has been about double glazing. The noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, asked about the coefficient of heat expansion—I believe that that is the technical term—of the various surrounds of double glazing units. Schedule 2A to the regulations talks about the installation,
- "as a replacement, of a window, rooflight, roof window or door in an existing building",
Whether the department came up with this scheme as part of its reaction to the Kyoto agreement or whether it would have done so in any case is a moot point. But that does not matter. And when the Minister claims that only a small percentage of the
replacement of windows is carried out by the general building trade as opposed to specialists, I am afraid that I find that extremely hard to believe.In summary, I am very grateful to the Minister for saying that his colleague will be happy to have—indeed, I got the impression that he would slightly encourage—a meeting within the department. I and the noble Lord, Lord Graham, for two, will ensure that that offer is taken up, possibly led by one of us. However, that is for the future. In the meantime, I am very grateful to everyone who has spoken. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
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