Clause 16.—(RIGHT OF APPEAL AGAINST NOTICE REQUIRING EXECUTION OF WORKS.) (Hansard, 27 June 1961)

§ Sir K. Joseph
I beg to move, in page 17, line 8, to leave out "the last foregoing section" and to insert: section fifteen or section (Provision of means of escape from fire) of this Act".

§ The Temporary Chairman
I think it would be convenient also to take with this Amendment the next four Government Amendments.

§ Sir K. Joseph
Yes, Mr. Hynd, and, with respect, I suggest that the new Clause—(Provision of means of escape from fire)—could be taken at the same time.

§ The Temporary Chairman
Yes.

§ Sir K. Joseph
This is an occasion when, I think, both sides of the Committee can take credit. My right hon. Friend had always intended that at some stage during the progress of the Bill provision would be made to ensure that local authorities had power to see that houses in multiple occupation had means for escape from fire. The same idea had occurred forcibly to the hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin). I hope that the new Clause and the Amendments consequential thereon will satisfy both sides of the Committee that my right hon. Friend has carried out his pledge.
The combination of the new Clause and the consequential Amendments will enable local authorities to require the provision of such means of escape from fire as they think necessary in any house in multiple occupation which does not already possess suitable means of escape. Where a local authority is not the fire authority, the new Clause requires that local authority to consult the fire authority.
I stress that the power in the new Clause can be exercised whether or not any power is exercised by the local authority under Clause 15. The suggestion is that the new Clause should follow Clause 15, and that explains why several consequential Amendments alter the references in Clauses 16 and 17 so as to take account of both Clause 15 and the new Clause. The purpose of the consequential Amendments is to write into the new Clause or in connection 324 with the new Clause the powers of appeal which are appropriate to Clause 15.
Hon. Members will wish to know why my right hon. Friend did not pursue the idea of merely writing into the Bill Section 60 of the Public Health Act. That Section is limited in various ways. For instance, it cannot be invoked except where the floor of a dwelling is more than 20 ft. above the highway. The new Clause is much wider. There is no such limitation. It can be applied to make sure that there are means of escape even from a basement. That is why my right hon. Friend, after consulting his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, adopted this course.
I assure the Committee that the powers will be sufficient to enable local authorities to ensure that doors are, for instance, protected in some way if the local authority thinks that essential in order to make sure that the escape route is kept clear. It will be my right hon. Friend's intention to include in the regulations which he proposes to make under this Part of the Bill the obligation to maintain the means of escape once they are established.
I think that that is all I have to explain to the Committee. I hope that the new Clause and the consequential Amendments will be accepted.

§ Mr. Parkin
This is a happy occasion, since at last, after all our sittings and arguments, we are able to thank the Parliamentary Secretary for something, although, in view of the pasting which he gave me upstairs in Committee, I am not sure whether he altogether deserves it even now. I have very little to say. I should have preferred the hon. Gentleman to say a little more than he did. It seems to me that the doubts which were expressed in Committee have been very generously met. The Parliamentary Secretary has given the assurance which is implied in the Clause, namely, that this provision is not limited to houses which are already the subject of an order in any other respect. It therefore appears that, for the first time in this Bill, here is an Amendment which—

§ Sir K. Joseph
I would hate to mislead the hon. Gentleman or any other hon. Member. It is limited to a house let in lodgings or occupied by members of more than one family.

§ Mr. Parkin
Yes, but it is the first time during our proceedings on this Bill that an Amendment has been by implication accepted which is applicable to the whole of this stock of dwellings as such. It is the first time that it has been accepted by implication that all these houses, having been built for one purpose and used for another, are ipso facto misused and need modification. That is a great step forward by the Government. It seems to imply that the fire authority or the local authority which is working under the fire authority, as in the case of London, will be obliged by a sense of duty and force of public opinion if nothing else to undertake a survey of the kind that we were urging when discussing the possibility of a register of this type of house. It will not be tolerable if the rate of accidents from fire continues at the present level and it is discovered that there has been no general drive to implement this provision.
I should like the Parliamentary Secretary also to confirm—I certainly would not ever again take the risk of asking the Minister to interpret his own Acts—that it is the Minister's intention that the words "means of escape from fire" should include, not only the outside fire escape staircase or the alternative of the structural alteration of the means of escape through a party wall into another house, but all the provisions of what I think is called the quarter-of-an-hour delay code which could be interpreted as a means of escape from fire in the sense that it gives people a chance to get away before a fire which cannot be controlled really gets going—in other words, that all the provisions of this code concerning partitions, self-closing doors, two-inch thick doors, and so on, could be enforced by the fire authority in any house which is in multiple occupation. If that is the intention, I at any rate welcome the new Clause and am glad to be able to congratulate the Government on having found a way out of what were supposed to be difficulties when we discussed the matter in Committee.