MSs reject building safety rights for Wales that are already in place in England

Martin Shipton

Building safety campaigners say they have suffered a serious blow after a Senedd committee rejected amendments to a Bill that would have provided them with extra protections already available in England.

The Building Safety (Wales) Bill is intended to strengthen residents’ rights following major concerns about defective construction raised by the Grenfell disaster in London in which 72 people died..

But the Welsh Cladiators group is disappointed that the Senedd’s Local Government and Housing Committee did not back amendments to the Bill moved by Independent MS Rhys ab Owen.

Three retiring Labour MSs – John Griffiths, Lesley Griffiths and Lee Waters – voted down the amendments after Housing and Local Government Secretary Jayne Bryant told the committee they could have “unintended consequences”.

Mr ab Owen’s amendments would have required landlords to remedy specific defects by a fixed deadline by complying with remediation contribution orders, and also require developers to make payments to meet the cost incurred of the defects.

He told the committee: “This is what Angela Rayner said last July in reference to remediation orders and remediation contribution orders: ‘When remediation is not progressing, leaseholders can apply to the tribunal for remediation orders, which can compel relevant landlords to fix relevant defects in their buildings, as well as for remediation contribution orders, which require developers to pay towards the costs of the remediation.’

“Why deprive Welsh victims of those levers championed by the then deputy leader of the Labour Party? Are the sections worthwhile? Well, yes, they are. As Dentons, a global legal firm, reported: ‘RCOs have fundamentally changed the landscape of liability for building safety remediation.’

“Just look at the cases they have brought forward in England. It works. Triathlon, the long leaseholder of social and affordable units in five London apartment blocks, applied for a remediation contribution order against SVDP, the original developer, and Get Living, an associate of SVDP, that acquired its interest years after the development. Even in a complicated case, both were ordered to pay Triathlon’s share of remediation costs to the management company overseeing the works in a timely manner.

“A year ago exactly, the first-tier tribunal published their decision, making a remediation contribution order to the sum of over £13.2m against 76 respondents as part of the litigation surrounding works to Vista Tower. The global law firm Taylor Wessing, when referring to the building safety landscape in England, explained how ‘tribunal decisions demonstrate the increasingly robust approach to building safety remediation.’

“That’s what the victims are calling for: a robust approach.”

Legal protections

Ms Bryant told the committee: “I note that the amendments seek to make provision similar to that which already applies in England. We have not previously sought to put in place similar legal protections in Wales because it has not been necessary to do so. In Wales, the cost of remediating in-built fire safety defects has been borne either by developers who have signed a deed of bilateral contract with Welsh Ministers, agreeing to a set of developer self-remediation terms, or by the Welsh Government through the Welsh building safety fund.

“The fund supports the remediation of in-built internal and external fire safety issues in residential buildings 11m in height or over and is not limited to buildings with unsafe cladding. In the event that a developer fails to adhere to a self-remediation term of its contract, it would be the Welsh Ministers who would take legal action against the developer, rather than leaseholders, thus ensuring that a leaseholder does not incur legal costs associated with taking enforcement action.

“This comprehensive approach to remediation has largely negated the need for legal protections here in Wales. However, I am aware that there have been ongoing calls from leaseholders and others who would prefer to have the additional security that these legal protections potentially offer. I’m also conscious that we have started to see structural safety issues emerge that may require a different approach.

“Furthermore, the long-term future of the Welsh building safety programme is not guaranteed. It will depend on who forms the next Government. In the light of these factors, I have concluded that it is time to futureproof the protections for leaseholders from certain service charges related to remediation of relevant defects by placing them on a statutory footing.

“I accept that [the]amendments represent laudable attempts to do just that, and I have no objection in principle to their underlying aims and objectives. However, I cannot support the amendments as currently drafted. There are various issues with them that we would need to address in order to make them work as intended. For example, neither set of amendments includes a cut-off date after which a new lease would not qualify for protection. Amongst other things, this could have unintended consequences for the housing market or the financial viability of relevant buildings.

“I am, though, very happy to commit to bring forward Government amendments at Stage 3 that will deliver in Wales legal protections similar to those that apply in England. I have already written to both Rhys and Siân [Gwenllian MS] to inform them that I will be willing to work with them to secure an agreement to those Stage 3 amendments.”

‘Extraordinary’

Mark Thomas, group lead with the Welsh Cladiators, said: “As Rhys Ab Owen so eloquently set out, the English laws are transforming the building safety landscape in England and yet they are being denied to Welsh victims. It is an extraordinary approach and Welsh victims have no sense of why the Welsh Government continually sides with the developers and not the very citizens who vote for a government to protect them.

“The Cabinet Secretary seemed in her statement more concerned about the impact ‘unintended consequences’ of these laws will have on the very toxic industry that created the crisis in the first place.

“So we have lost the committee battle but there is still a chance if one or two Labour MSs shifted their position the vote in the actual Senedd could go our way. We only have about a month now to convince Senedd Members.”