BUILDING REGULATIONS

HC Deb 16 November 1966 vol 736 cc575-91

10.15 p.m.

Sir Gerald Nabarro (Worcestershire, South)

I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Building (Second Amendment) Regulations 1966 (S.I., 1966, No. 1144), dated 12th September, 1966, a copy of which was laid before this House on 19th September, be annulled. This is one of the rare occasions when I deliver a speech in this House strictly of a non-party political character. It is a highly technical and complex matter that I seek to deal with in this Prayer. My hon. Friends and I approve this Statutory Instrument, save for one major exception. Among the Regulations contained in Statutory Instrument No. 1144 this is the only one which has persuaded me to set down the Prayer.

I refer to Regulation 19 which, in the terms of the Explanatory Memorandum to the Statutory Instrument, printed on page 7 and referring to Regulation 19, says that the Regulation exempts certain elements of structure in a single storey building from the need to have fire resistance. This Regulation will exempt the structural frames, columns and beams of many single-storey buildings and, in particular, will exempt single-storey factories from the requirements of the present Building Regulations concerning fire resistance. Until the Building Regulations, 1965, were introduced, structural steel work in single-storey industrial buildings had not got to be protected against fire, since the buildings themselves were exempt from the statutory fire requirements. But in those Building Regulations it was laid down, for the first time—and this was uniform throughout the United Kingdom—that definite minimum requirements for fire resistance would be introduced in respect of such single-storey buildings.

In this regard England and Wales followed the excellent precept of Scotland, which already had minimum fire requirements of a general character in its Scottish Building Regulations. I recall saying in this House, as long as seven years ago, that England and Wales would be well advised to follow the example of Scotland with regard to its legislation on minimum building standards, which are enshrined in the Building (Scotland) Act, 1958, the provisions of which rested on the recommendations of the Guest Committee a year before.

To many laymen, and no doubt to many Members, there might well appear to be nothing dangerous in using exposed mild steel for beams and columns for structural purposes in single-storey factories. Most people imagine that steel columns and beams would have fire resistance of a high order. But that is not the case, as many factory fires have demon-stated in recent years. The striking fact is that there is a 60–70 per cent. loss in the strength and rigidity of mild steel columns when there is a rise in the temperature, caused by a fire, above 550 degrees centigrade which, in itself, is not a particularly high temperature for a fire of any intensity.

That figure is below the initial temperature of gases produced by most industrial fires. They are, according to the Fire Bulletin of December, 1965, issued by the Fire Protection Association, usually in the range of 800 to 1,200 degrees centrigrade. Moreover, a mild steel beam will expand considerably under the drastic rise in temperature which occurs in most factory fires. The intensity of the fire and the materials in the factory which are on fire will determine the level of temperature, but the expansion of mild steel structural steel beams and columns can easily cause them to crack and the walls and the roof collapse. This is notoriously dangerous when firemen are inside the building trying to quench the fire.

It seems extraordinary that these Regulations should be before the House and it calls for a comprehensive explanation from the Parliamentary Secretary that, in a period when fire losses have risen to an unprecedented extent, when we have seen a series of examples of disastrous and shockingly expensive fires in large single-storey factories, the Government at this moment are seeking to exempt single-storey factories from these otherwise stringent Building Regulations and due regard to fire hazards.

You will know, Mr. Speaker, from your long Parliamentary experience, that I have had an intimate association with fire resistance matters. In 1957, with the help of the then Minister of Power, Lord Mills, I took through the House a piece of unique legislation called the Thermal Insulation (Industrial Buildings) Act. In the passage of that Measure, which was principally designed to impress minimum standards of thermal insulation on all new factories erected in this country, it became evident to me that, pari passu with the thermal insulatory requirements, it would be necessary to have minimum fire resistance requirements in regard to insulatory materials used for heat retention in the buildings.

That was two years before Scotland proceeded. So far as I can see, the Minister can attempt to justify these Regulations on fire precautions in factories on the grounds that, in any Building Regulations, he must only take into account the requirements of health, safety, amenity and so on. But if that is so, on what grounds were the relevant provisions in the 1965 Regulations based and why were they then justified? Is it really not in the power of the Government, if necessary, to amend the law in this relatively minor regard, so that our building byelaws will take into account baisic economic considerations as well as health and safety?

I should like to remind the Parliamentary Secretary, at this time when production in all our factories is so vital to the national economy, and when huge losses of production effort and time occur as a result of fires, that it is more than ever essential to avoid setbacks to production.

The number of fires in buildings attended by United Kingdom fire brigades has risen from 40,000 in 1954, to over 80,000 in 1964; it has thus doubled. The monetary losses have also risen at an alarming rate. I would quote the last five years. In 1961, fire losses in the aggregation in this country were £37.4 million. In 1962, they had risen to £55.5 million; in 1963 to £66.4 million; in 1964 to £76.7 million; in 1965 they were £75 million and in the first nine months of this year, they were at £65.6 million which, pro rata to the whole of 1966, would give a figure of £88 million of fire losses. That is more than double the figure of £37.4 million in 1961.

Moreover, these fires in large factories, the majority of them being single-storey factories, account for the greater part of fire losses. For example, in 1964 the small proportion of one large factory fire per 200 attended by fire brigades accounted for more than 50 per cent. of the total fire losses during that year.

Even if the Minister maintains tonight that it is not possible for the Government to take any kind of economic considerations—other than health, safety and welfare—into account in drafting Building Regulations, I am sure that he appreciates that there must be a substantial ultimate element of safety involved in the modification which I should like to see in Regulation 19. Here I run into a matter of Parliamentary good order. I cannot plead the amendment of the Regulations. I can only plead their total acceptance or rejection and, therefore, I have been skating on rather thin ice in applying my remarks to only one Regulation. The device is to oppose them all.

The task of firemen is already arduous and dangerous enough from being exposed to heat and smoke. But if they consider that the fire is in an industrial building which may quickly result in its total or partial collapse, as a result of the high temperatures causing the unprotected steel structure—that is, as specified in Regulation 19—to collapse, they will either have to allow the fire to go by default—which, knowing our firemen, I doubt they would ever do; they would far sooner risk their lives—or engage in risks of a kind which I believe are somewhat unjustified.

How helpless a fire service can be to control large industrial fires in certain conditions was well shown by the disastrous fire at Jaguars in Coventry in 1956. The fire spread very rapidly from the blackout material underneath the roof. It started in the paint shop on Sunday afternoon and rapidly demolished the whole building. It was established after the fire that the unprotected structural steel columns had collapsed long before the fire had burnt out.

The Minister may quote experts who think that this proposed relaxation of fire precautions is justified, but I should like the hon. Gentleman to comment on the views of the experts who have briefed me fully in this matter, because all the organisations in Britain concerned with fire prevention and abatement have made their voices loudly heard on this issue. For example, I draw attention to a passage from the First Report of the Fire Grading of Buildings Committee. That impartial authority stated: On balance the correct view would seem to be that with the exception of those parts specifically designed to vent an internal fire, a roof should preferably be adequately fire resistant to internal fire". Another quotation I wish to make in support of my argument is from the Fire Protection Association's Journal No. 72 of September, 1966, only eight weeks ago. It stated: Post-war buildings are not necessarily immune from the effects of fire simply because they are modem and those who contend that the Building Regulations, 1965, are unnecessarily restrictive will find no support for their arguments here". By "here" was meant the Fire Protection Association. The co-operative research programme undertaken by the Building Research Station and the Fire Research Station into fire resistance of uncased steel stanchions or columns produced the report that: Mild steel suffered deterioration in its strength on exposure to high temperatures and required protection against fire. I appreciate that these matters which I have raised as shortly as I could, occupying about 15 minutes this evening, are extremely technical and complex. I make no apology for that, because of their great importance to our national economy and, much more so, to the lives of firemen in all parts of the country. Those of us who dwell in or sit for industrial areas know the devastating effect of many factory fires during recent years and the appalling loss of life among very courageous men in the fire service. In my judgment, they should be afforded by specific Statute the maximum protection in dealing with fires, in the form of minimum requirements for fire resistance purposes in statutory Regulations passed by the House.

10.31 p.m.

Dr. Reginald Bennett (Gosport and Fareham)

I support my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro), who has expressed himself with his customary clarity, in his usual orotund and magnificent periods, slightly tempered on this occasion by, I believe, a mild indisposition. He has set forth his case in a way which needs only support and not elaboration.

It is incredible that fire regulations such as are set out in this Statutory Instrument should counsel the abandonment of fire resistance as part of their job. This is a complete contradiction in terms, and I am very glad that my hon. Friend has brought up this matter. I give him my warmest and fullest support in his endeavour to bring these wrongs to the light of day in the House, or, rather, the artificial light of this evening.

Anyone who has seen the results of fires knows, of course, that wood burns and steel does not. But anybody who has ever seen a burned-out building knows that steel buildings collapse in a fire. As a small boy many years ago in the small town of Saltburn in North Yorkshire I remember seeing a burned-out garage and being puzzled as to why a vast steel beam that ran right across the building should be lying distorted across the ruins of the building, looking like a giant pretzel after only quite a minor fire. I am sure that everybody has seen many examples of this.

Therefore, we must recognise that there is the paradox that very often in a fire the upper rooms of a building are safer if the supporting structure is made of wood than if they are made of steel, for the simple reason that wood does not yield. Burning wood baulks of the size normal in construction are shielded from the fire by the layer of burnt wood on the outside, and the wood must be very nearly burnt through before it will give way. That is a matter of common observation.

But if mild steel is used in buildings, as my hon. Friend has so adequately reported from the findings of various research organisations, the steel simply softens to a surprising extent at a surprisingly low temperature. It bends and distorts so that it will yield and give way easily. Furthermore, as my hon. Friend mentioned, the co-efficient of expansion of the metal is such that an ordinary steel girder across a building may lengthen as much as 2 in. in the early stages of fire, so pushing the walls outward and breaking the whole lot down before the steel has had time to yield.

This being so, I feel that this Regulation is an extraordinary publication. It seems to give up all hope of saving single-floor factories once they are on fire. "Let them collapse", it says, a defeatist point of view regardless of the lives of firemen and other gallant fellows who have gone into the building to try to limit the damage that a fire can do. This weights the whole fire heavily against their efforts. It is most unfair to the factory owners, the country's economy and, of course, the lives and safety of the people who seek to put out a fire.

This is a most costly and dangerous attitude. Surely the Government cannot really mean it. Surely all steel used in structures even of one storey should be encased somehow. It is not surely a very expensive matter. Indeed, it must be well worth while.

I therefore support my hon. Friend to the full in what he has said and give it all the strength I can in asking the Parliamentary Secretary, if he cannot amend the Regulation, at least to think again.

10.37 p.m.

Mr. Bernard Braine (Essex, South-East)

My hon. Friends have put forward a cogent and compelling argument, and in so far as it applies to most of the range of industrial buildings, I wholly support what they have said.

But there is another angle that I should like to put. Their arguments and mine, I think, will serve to show that it is a mistake to try to draw Regulations covering every conceivable situation, because this can only end in frustration and difficulty in particular cases.

Regulation 19 is designed to amend Regulation E5 of the Building Regulations, 1965, by exempting single-storeyed buildings from the requirements for fire resistance. Why does Regulation 19 apply only to single-storeyed buildings? My hon. Friends will, of course, at once give an answer to that. But what I have particularly in mind is why it does not apply to the large industrial plant installations such as one finds in the petrochemical industry, where the situation is totally different. Often these are not buildings in the ordinary sense of the word. They are open steel-framed structures designed to support process vessels at various levels together with associated piping and access floors. Nevertheless, they are also buildings within the meaning of the Building Regulations, and almost every substantial structure in the petro-chemical industry falls within the practical scope of the Regulations.

As I understand it, the whole point of Part E of the 1965 Regulations was to safeguard life. I entirely endorse the remarks of my hon. Friends in that connection. There could be no objection to these Regulations if they had the effect of making safe types of plant installations which have been a danger to life in the past. But this is not the case in regard to the petro-chemical industry. The kind of installations that I am referring to would, I understand, fall within purpose group VI of Part E, which covers factory buildings. Yet they are nothing like conventional factory buildings since they consist largely of automatic or semiautomatic plant which has a very low density of occupation. Danger to life can hardly be said to exist.

This, if I remember aright, was precisely the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Murton) in the debate on the Building Regulations last November, when he gave the example of a 30 ft. high cooling water pumphouse which the Regulations at present would require to be fireproofed. This is quite ridiculous. What my hon. Friend said on that occasion seems to have been overlooked altogether, for the amendment before us tonight does not rationalise the position at all, but is a piecemeal amendment of the fireproofing requirements under Part E which are still unrelated to hazard.

What the Minister seems to have done is completely to ignore the representations which I know have been made to him by the petro-chemical industry. I want to know why he has done so. After all, there is a safeguard in the present position in Section 50 of the Factories Act, 1961, which enables the Minister of Labour to make special Regulations as to measures to reduce the risk of fire breaking out in any factory, and he has power among other things to prescribe Regulations as to the construction of a factory and the materials used in the construction. All I am asking is why regard has not been paid to the very special conditions which obtain in this industry, which has a splendid record of safe construction and which has a high regard for the safety of its employees.

I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to give an off-the-cuff reply and it may be a little unfair to press him to do so, but my sole reason for intervening tonight is to ask him if he can tell us why the representations of the petro-ohemical industry, which contributes enormously to the country's economy and to its exports, have been apparently ignored in the drafting of these new Regulations. If he cannot give an answer tonight, I hope that he will give an undertaking that with his advisers he will look into the matter.

10.42 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page (Crosby)

My hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) has done a very valuable service to the House in bringing before us tonight this rather difficult matter which arises out of the Building Regulations, and I am very sorry that there were not more hon. Members present to hear his very important speech, because the history of these Building Regulations shows an incredible state of muddle-headedness on the part of the Government. The Parliamentary Secretary who is here tonight is not responsible for this and comes here tonight only because of the empire-building of his right hon. Friend the previous Minister of Housing and Local Government who wanted to seize the job of these Building Regulations from the Ministry of Public Building and Works and who continued the mess which had been made ever since the present Government came to office.

Before the present Government took office, the previous Government had circulated draft Building Regulations for comment. That was in 1962. Comments were received from all those interested and a second draft went out in 1963 and further comments were received. I imagine that the Regulations were then partially in preparation.

But when the Regulations came forward in July, 1965, there was an outcry from all those concerned that there were mistakes throughout the whole of the Regulations and that amendments were required to them and other Regulations. The first set of amendments which we received was in an Order, Statutory Instrument 2184, the Building (First Amendment) Regulations, 1965. When that Order came before the House on a Prayer, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Public Building and Works, that Ministry then having charge of these Regulations, gave us this assurance: A second set of amendments to the Regulations—to substantial and important Regulations—has been formulated. The proposals have been put into legal form as draft amendments to the Regulations by the Treasury Solicitor, and they will be circulated to interested bodies in the course of the next week or two. The Advisory Committee has been established. I have had discussions with the Chairman and put to him the need for urgency combined with accuracy. This will be the first task of the new Advisory Committee. He went on to describe the subjects of this consultation with the Advisory Committee. The subjects which are ready for submission to the Advisory Committee are small sheds, buildings housing large industrial plant—a point made by the hon. Member for Southend, West—damp proof courses, sprinklers—mentioned in a previous debate—plastic insulation, plastic ceilings and plastic tiles."—[Official Report, 21st February, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 183.] Those, we were told, were to go before the Advisory Committee and to come forward in another batch of amendments. What have we before us tonight? Regulations which do not touch at least four out of those six subjects. This, after a period of nine months.

Subsequently, some 23 Amendments were circulated to the interested trades. Very few of them appear in the Regulations now before us. When the first amendments came before the House, and there was a Prayer asking that they be annulled, we complained that the Minister had not consulted the Building Regulations Advisory Committee before putting those Regulations before the House. This is a statutory requirement for the Minister and it was recited at the beginning of the Order that he had had those consultations.

It was perfectly clear that he had had no consultations whatever on those Regulations, and he tried to justify this by saying, "Oh, well, I consulted the Advisory Committee on the main Regulations, and that consultation carries through into the amendments." At the time that the amendments were made, the Advisory Committee was not in existence so it could not have been consulted. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South is based entirely on the fact that the Minister then in charge of those Regulations failed to consult the Advisory Committee, as he was required to do.

In those first amendments, by subsection 3(2), Regulation E5 of Table A, Part 2 of the original Regulations was altered. In the heading to column 6 to the words "External walls" were added the extra words "Other elements".

I would not dream of going into the technicalities of this at this time, but what that did was to impose on single-storey buildings certain fire resistance requirements, which the original Building Regulations had never intended to impose. Had the Minister then consulted the Advisory Committee, as he was required to do by Statute, he would have found out that these Regulations were nonsense.

Regulation 19, which appears before us now, has been found to be quite unintelligible to the building trade, like a lot of the legislation of this Government. The trade does not know what is meant by a structural frame. It is nowhere sufficiently defined and some local authorities are constructing it as one thing and others as another. The word "gallery" in the Regulations is not a term of art in the building trade and there is doubt as to what it means. Regulation 19 will cause even more trouble than the mistaken Amendments in the first set of amended Regulations.

I ask the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to tell us tonight whether this Amendment is intended to retain the requirement for fire-resisting qualities on load-bearing frames for single-storey buildings or whether it abolishes that requirement altogether. It is generally understood that this Regulation will still require fire resistance measures to steel frames which bear a certain load, and to that extent it may satisfy my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South. I am entirely with him in not knowing whether it could satisfy that requirement, because the Regulation is quite unintelligible. If we were to be told whether, in a single-storey building, there will still need to be fire resistance to a steel structure which is load bearing, it might satisfy all my hon. Friends who have spoken in this debate.

We have talked about fire resistance to steel girders and steel frames without, perhaps, saying what we mean by that. It is, I understand, cladding a steel structure in cement or some other substance which prevents the fire getting at the steel and causing a buckling or expansion of the steel which might cause it to come away from the brickwork or push the brickwork out and cause a collapse of the roof. If, under these Regulations, there is still to be some fire resistance for those steel structures in a single-storey building which are load-bearing, that may satisfy my hon. Friend and myself.

Because the main Regulations were brought out in such an unsatisfactory form, the Building Regulations Advisory Committee has had to spend its time on what I might call fiddling little amendments in trying to put the Regulations right. I am sure that this was not the intention when the Committee was set up. I understand that the Committee meets only every two months. It has subcommittees dealing with various subjects. But it is not a drafting committee. It is not a committee which should go through Building Regulations in detail and alter the words here and there. It should be a committee which does research work and considers the new forms of structure, so that through the Minister it could bring to the House Regulations with regard to new forms of structure.

I suppose that new ideas on building are coming forward every week, and they have to be considered from the viewpoint of safety in construction. Those are the things that the Building Regulations Advisory Committee should deal with. Because, however, the Regulations are in such an unsatisfactory state, it has been turned into a sort of drafting committee and its talent is being wasted.

10.53 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Robert Mellish)

The hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) is an extraordinary Member of the House. One day I meet him discussing new towns, the next time I come into the House he is arguing with somebody about sea fishing and tonight he is on his feet arguing about Building Regulations. I do not know anybody else who works so hard on his side of the House.

The hon. Member is involved in numerous matters. There is a story about being a Jack-of-all-trades and master of none, but that does not apply to the hon. Member because he really does his homework. I concede at once that his knowledge, certainly of Building Regulations, is far better than mine, because it goes back over a longer period and he has been involved in debates on these subjects for a considerable time. I am, however, getting a little tired that every time the hon. Member gets up, he wants to make a party political row of everything.

Mr. Graham Page

Why not?

Mr. Mellish

All right. I do not mind, so long as we get it clear that there are some issues taken in this House on which party politics do not count very much, and I should have thought the one we have tonight would have been one of them. But the hon. Gentleman has got the Blackpool ozone in his system. He tries very hard to prove that there is at least one Member on the Opposition Front Bench who is determined to fight the Government on everything. I am getting a bit fed up with it, because I am the one who is always having to take it. By comparison, the Prime Minister is having an easy time taking on the Leader of the Opposition, and I think I shall ask my right hon. Friend to take on the hon. Member for Crosby in my place.

Now I want to come to the main problem we are talking about tonight. I thank the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) for the fact that he was kind enough to write to me in advance. I appreciate his courtesy in giving me in advance some indication of the problems he was going to raise, and what later I have to say to him will, I hope, show him that I have given great care and personal attention to the problems he has raised.

However, in view of what has been said by the hon. Member for Crosby since the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South spoke, there are one or two things I want to get straight and on the record. Therefore, if I take longer than I had intended to do, it will be because the Blackpool ozone has come over on this side of the House and I am feeling a little bit refreshed.

This Regulation actually amends Regulation E5 of the main Regulations which prescribed fire resistance requirements of certain elements of structure according to the type of building and the purposes for which it was to be used. After the Regulations had been made it was felt that the requirements for fire resistance of certain elements of structure of single-storey buildings were more severe than necessary for the safety of the occupants. They were found to be particularly onerous in relation to isolated agricultural buildings such as Dutch barns, cattle sheds, and grain storage buildings. We had received representations from the National Farmers' Union and other interested bodies. It was felt that this increase in severity was probably unnecessary for the beams and walls of single-storey buildings which performed no other function than that of supporting the roof of single-storey building.

Now to say a word about the general position with regard to the Building Regulations as a whole. The first set of national Building Regulations started from a draft prepared by the Ministry assisted by a small working party. This draft was circulated to a very wide range of interested bodies in the building and building materials industries and the associated professions. Some 2,800 comments were received, and these were considered by the new statutory Building Regulations Advisory Committee which had been set up under the 1961 Act. The Committee recommended a number of changes in the original draft, and eventually the Regulations were made on the basis of the Committee's recommendations, in July, 1965, to come into operation on 1st February, 1966.

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Crosby chided this Government. He blames everything on to this Government, but as a result of certain errors found in the Regulations, certain amendments had to be made by the central Advisory Committee. The truth of it was that a document was produced, a document of about 170 pages containing complex tables and schedules, and an Order was made to make what amendments were needed. This Order came into force at the same time as the main Regulations.

I am sorry the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South has to listen to all this. I had not intended to go over all this. It is because of the hon. Member for Crosby. He started it, and now I have started I want to get the matter straight. There was not as much substance in what he said as he would have us believe.

It was hardly to be expected that in fact the Regulations would be perfect in their content when they were first made. In view of the changes in the original draft proposed by the Advisory Committee, it can be argued that there might have been merit in circulating an amended draft for further comment before the Regulations were actually made. Some organisations advocated that, but the Ministry—then the M.P.B.W.—considered that it was more important to get the first set of Regulations made quickly.

Once the Regulations were introduced, the process of improving them and keeping them up to date could then begin. This is the answer to the point raised by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine). He asked why there were no Regulations on other aspects of building. The process has begun, and it will be a continuing one. It is not the end of the story. I have taken note of what he said, but he can be assured that there will be Regulations dealing with other aspects of building coming before the House. My Ministry welcomes suggestions from outside.

In considering proposals, my Department is assisted by the Building Regulations Advisory Committee. I should like to say a word about that, because I do not want it thought in the House that, somehow, everything is done by my Ministry in Whitehall. It is true that. at the end of the day, we have to make decisions, but we do that on the basis of the recommendations and advice of that Committee.

The Advisory Committee consists of an architect, a consulting civil and structural engineer, the chief fire officer of Hampshire County Council, the director of a firm of air conditioning, electrical, sanitary and ventilating engineers, a county architect, a chief building surveyor, an engineering surveyor, a senior health inspector, a county councillor, the representative of a very important building firm, a town clerk, a district surveyor, an industrialist and an administrative officer. It is a very competent body. It takes into account any recommendations which are put before it for approval. It would be a very ill-advised Ministry which ignored that enormous source of technical advice.

Hence the Regulations which were made, and here I turn to the point which the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South was good enough to raise. The particular Regulation 19(1), to which the hon. Gentleman referred with his usual eloquence, arose out of the Ministry's consideration of the effects of the Regulations on single-storey buildings. Our Ministry was advised that the fire resistance requirements of certain elements of the structure were more severe than was necessary for the safety of the occupants of the building or of adjoining buildings. I understand that that view was confirmed by experience in dealing with individual applications for relaxation related to single-storey agricultural buildings, as I said earlier.

The requirement in the Regulations was more onerous than the corresponding requirement in the byelaws, and it was felt that this increase in severity was probably unnecessary. The amendment has the effect of removing any requirement for fire resistance in columns, beams and walls which perform no other function than that of supporting the roof of a single-storey building.

When the draft amendment was circulated for comment, while many organisations, such as the British Iron and Steel Federation, the British Constructional Steelwork Association and the National Farmers' Union welcomed it, there were some organisations, such as the Chief Fire Officers' Association and the Cement and Concrete Association, which criticised it, mainly on the grounds that it might increase fire losses or endanger firemen. The Building Regulations Advisory Committee, the strength and composition of which I have indicated, after considering all the comments, recommended that the amendment should be made. My Minister is satisfied, in the light of that, that it does not import any undue risk to safety and health.

The broad aim must be that the Regulations are stringent enough, but not too onerous. It is quite possible to envisage Regulations which would provide enormous protection, but the buildings would never be built because of the cost. People are always saying that the Regulations are either too strict or not strict enough. The Minister must and does rely on his expert statutory committee, the Building Regulations Advisory Committee, to take a balanced view.

In the case of Regulation 19(1), we have only gone back to the old byelaw standard. In view of past experience, that is not so very terrible. I understand that, in general, firemen did not find it so during the many years when it was the usual rule. The hon. Gentleman made a point about Scotland. I have checked this, and I understand that it is not true that the Scottish Building Regulations have a requirement for fire resistance in the beams and columns of single-storey buildings. Indeed, this Regulation, broadly, brings England and Wales into line with Scotland in this respect.

I have considered this matter in my own personal position as Minister with responsibility given to me by my right hon. Friend, and I certainly have read the brief that one gets from one's own Department. I have listened with great interest to what the hon. Gentleman has said. He had a right to put down this Prayer. I take his point that although he is asking in the Prayer for annulment of the whole of the Order, that is the last thing he wants, and I am quite certain that this Prayer was fully justified.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I propose personally, to see this Advisory Committee and go back again over all the arguments that have already been advanced, because I should not like it to be thought that either my right hon. Friend or I, or anyone in our Department would wish to be associated with any amendment of any Regulation where there was a possible hint of danger to firemen. The hon. Gentleman and I are united on that. If tonight he will withdraw this Prayer, I undertake to have further consultation, not only with the Central Advisory Committee but with my right hon. Friend. I cannot tonight promise that there will be any change, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that there will be the most searching inquiry.

Sir G. Nabarro

Having regard to the conciliatory and most constructive response by the Parliamentary Secretary, for which I should like to express my appreciation and gratitude; and to the fact that the point raised by my hon. Friend and myself is to receive further consideration by his expert advisers, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.