Fire Safety Bill — New Clause 1 — Duties of Owner or Manager — 7 Sep 2020 at 20:15

The majority of MPs voted against placing more fire-safety duties on those who own or manage buildings containing two or more homes.

MPs were considering the Fire Safety Bill^[1].

The proposed new clause rejected in this vote was titled: Duties of owner or manager and stated:

• ‘The relevant authority must by regulations amend the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (SI 2005/1541) to require an owner or a manager of any building which contains two or more sets of domestic premises to—
• (a) share information with their local Fire and Rescue Service in respect of each building for which an owner or manager is responsible about the design of its external walls and details of the materials of which those external walls are constructed;
• (b) in respect of any building for which an owner or manager is responsible which contains separate flats, undertake regular inspections of individual flat entrance doors;
• (c) in respect of any building for which an owner or manager is responsible which contains separate flats, undertake regular inspections of lifts and report the results to their local Fire and Rescue Service; and
• (d) share evacuation and fire safety instructions with residents of the building.’

The rejected new clause was accompanied by the following explanatory statement:

• This new clause would place various requirements on building owners or managers, and would implement the recommendations made in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase One Report.

The rejected amendment would not have implemented all the recommendations of the report, for example recommendations relating to communication within the fire service and between the emergency services are not covered.

• [1] Parliament's webpage on the Fire Safety Bill, Parliament.uk

Debate in Parliament |