HC Deb 13 May 1968 vol 764 cc996-1006

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. McBride.]

10.40 p.m.

Mr. Arnold Shaw (Ilford, South)

I am glad to have the opportunity tonight of raising with the Minister of Public Building and Works a subject which is of concern to all who take a real interest in the building industry, and one in which I believe the Minister is greatly concerned. This is the question of the Agrément Board and the disappointingly slow rate at which agrément certificates are being issued.

I would not for one moment dispute that we need a body such as the Agrément Board to test and approve new materials. From a Ministerial reply I gather that something like 300 new products come on to the market in the construction industry every year, and there is clearly a need to sift and to assess these so that designers and builders can know just where they stand.

It is obviously impossible these days for a private individual to keep up to date with developments on his own and distinguish the good from the bad, yet unless this is done people are shy at accepting new ideas which may be of considerable value. So we need the Agrément Board, or something like it.

The Minister's recent replies in the House reveal that so far only eight certificates have been issued by the Board, but in answer to a question at the beginning of February this year the Minister indicated that twice this number would be issued by mid-April. The Board was set up over two years ago and I am sure we had all hoped for something rather better than this. I want to ask my right hon. Friend whether he is satisfied that all that can be done to expedite the issue of certificates is being done, and whether the Board's organisation is the best in all the circumstances.

I accept that the Board cannot issue certificates faster than the manufacturers can be persuaded to submit their products for testing. It seems to me a weakness of the present system that manufacturers have to pay something like £750 for the necessary testing in order to get a certificate. This must surely have a discouraging effect in a field where encouragement is so necessary.

I understand that in some Continental countries the cost of testing has government subsidy, and even if we cannot do this I should like to hear from the Minister why the cost of testing is so high and whether something cannot be done to reduce it. Even a small reduction might persuade manufacturers to approach the Board for certificates.

The Government are at present paying the Agrément Board a grant-in-aid of £60,000 a year. This is as nothing compared with even the wastages in defence expenditure, and a relatively small increase here would probably enable manufacturers to obtain their certificates at a more reasonable figure. I would ask my right hon. Friend to consider this. It seems a small thing to do in support of an industry which makes such a major contribution to our economy and which, in particular, builds the nation's houses.

It has been suggested that, because the Board depends on its income from manufacturers to keep going, there may in time grow up a tendency to give a product of marginal value the benefit of the doubt because "he who pays the piper calls the tune." Is there any evidence of this happening yet, and has the problem been considered? Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that there are adequate safeguards?

Another weakness of the present system is that not only is there no compulsion on the manufacturer to obtain an agrément certificate, but also a product with a certificate will not necessarily satisfy the local authority under the Building Regulations.

There are many places in the Building Regulations where a "deemed to satisfy" clause operates to the benefit of certain materials and methods of construction so that local authorities are bound to accept them as satisfying the Regulations. But the fact that a product has an agrément certificate does not automatically bring it within the scope of the "deemed to satisfy" clauses and it is difficult to see why it should not, granted the very comprehensive testing which the Board must have given before issuing the certificate.

I should like to see the discretion of the local authorities to reject such products as not satisfying their particular interpretation of the Regulations removed and certificated products always treated as being within the "deemed to satisfy" clauses. The Building Regulations make frequent reference to British Standards and this brings me to another point which gives me some little concern.

We live in an increasingly complex society and there are already a number of bodies working in the testing and approving of building materials. For instance, the British Building Research Station has a division devoted to research in building materials. From my observations, it is doing a fine job. The British Standards Institution lays down manufacturing standards for materials. A number of private research organisations and trade associations sponsored by industry also have an active interest.

On to this situation has been granted the Agrément Board, which not only tests and approves building materials but also issues technical notes on methods of assessing and testing products. I ask my right hon. Friend whether these activities are properly co-ordinated and how the system works. It seems to me that there is every danger of an already confusing situation becoming even more confused.

Finally, I must ask my right hon. Friend whether enough is being done to secure publicity for the Board in the right quarters. So long as we have a voluntary system rather than a compulsory one, it is clearly very important to gain full publicity for it to ensure that the maximum possible use is made of it, otherwise we shall have failed miserably in the object of making the industry more progressive and facilitating innovation.

This requires publicity to encourage manufacturers to apply for certificates, but also to stimulate the small local authorities who have to approve products under the Building Regulations, and designers, who must be made aware of the new products and convinced that it is safe to specify them. Even the building contractor is involved in this, because he must absorb the necessary new techniques of working with non-traditional materials and erecting them properly.

All this amounts to the need to give wide publicity to the work of the Board and to ensure wide distribution of its various publications. I am not convinced, from what little we have seen so far, that all that is necessary to be done in this field is being done and I hope that my right hon. Friend has been considering this point.

To sum up, I am in favour of the Board but I am not convinced that it is yet working as efficiently as it might be. The rate of issue of certificates is very slow in relation to the number of new products coming onto the market, and they are relatively expensive for manufacturers to obtain. The application of Building Regulations to certificated products is far from clear and the relationship of certificates to privately obtained research results in such cases as British Standards also seems to be confusing. Finally, the Board needs more publicity. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be prepared to tell us tonight what plans he has to deal with this problem and the progress we may expect to see in future.

10.49 p.m.

The Minister of Public Building and Works (Mr. Robert Mellish)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Arnold Shaw) for raising the whole question of the Agrément Board, and doing it so very ably. It is, as he said, a subject in which I have personally taken a considerable interest. I have looked at the facts and figures and have discussed the problems with members of the Board and I shall try to give him as full an answer as I can.

First I would remind the House that the idea of agrément is totally new to this country, and is bound to take some time to gain general acceptance. My predecessor recognised the need of some machinery to test and approve new products for the benefit of the construction industry, and set up an official Committee to inquire into the problem and to study existing practice on the Continent.

The Committee came out firmly in favour of an agrément system and the Board was set up along the lines recommended in its Report. This was early in 1966. The Board had to appoint a director, set up its organisation, devise and plan testing procedures and facilities, and then stimulate the interest of industry. It was not therefore, until the spring of last year that it was in business in a substantial way. My hon. Friend said that 300 new products were coming on the market every year. This is true. The indications are that only about 100 of these are suitable subjects for agrément certificates. The remainder are new versions of existing products, with little or no innovation, or which comply with existing British Standards, which the Board does not aim to duplicate, or are already subject to some other testing and approval scheme, such as that for solid fuel appliances.

Thus, the gap to be bridged is not as large as it might at first appear. My hon. Friend mentioned that only eight products have so far received certificates. There are many more in the pipeline. The important figure is the rate at which manufacturers are entering into testing contracts with the Board, and this is now running at about 25 a year, with something like 100 inquiries in various preliminary stages. This means that the Board has still obtained only about one quarter of the potential total market. We have still a long way to go. This is a very creditable achievement in the short time that the Board has been effectively at work.

One point which must be remembered is that there is an inevitable time-lag between the submission of a product for testing and the issue of a certificate. There is no queue of new products waiting for testing and manufacturers are sometimes very slow in replying to the Board's formal offer to undertake testing. Frequently the Board has to devise entirely new test procedures for a new product involving fundamental and time-consuming research. Moreover, the Board is certifying that a product will be satisfactory in use over a long period, which means carrying out tests over a period of time to see how it stands up in practice.

In addition to the eight certificates we have issued, 20 other products are going through this process. While the Board has made an apparently slow start, I am well satisfied with its performance to date, and there should be a steady flow of new certificates from now on. This is entirely dependent on its success in persuading manufacturers to submit products for testing.

The fact that some manufacturers, having obtained one certificate, are already coming back with further products for testing, is very encouraging. As the use of agrément grows, I feel sure that more and more manufacturers will come to appreciate the value of having a certificate. Now that the Board is a member of the European Union of Agrément, its certificates can be accepted abroad, and this should be of great value in the export market. When the system was set up, the Government took a deliberate decision that it should be a voluntary rather than compulsory system, and that manufacturers should meet the full cost of testing and assessment. We want to proceed by persuasion rather than coercion, and I am sure that the industry welcomes this. Compared with the vast sums which manufacturers spend every year on promoting and advertising their products, £750 or thereabouts, for an agrément certificate is a small and worthwhile expense. I see that the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain), who is a member of a very famous firm, with a famous name, is present, and would, I am sure, be the first to agree with me.

Mr. A. P. Costain (Folkestone and Hythe)

Would the right hon. Gentleman agree that if the certificates gave exemptions from Building Regulations, more manufacturers might be keen to take them up?

Mr. Mellish

I shall come in a moment to that point about the Regulations.

My first task, as I see it, is to get industry as a whole to understand what an agrément certificate is.

Mr. Speaker

Order. It will help the reporters if the right hon. Gentleman will speak up.

Mr. Mellish

I am glad to do that. The trouble is that when there are so few here in the House one tends to speak quietly, but, of course, I am only too glad to speak up and make their lives that much easier.

I was saying to the hon. Gentleman that I shall be dealing in a moment with the Building Regulations, and I had been dealing with a point which had been raised, and saying that compared with the vast sums which manufacturers spend every year on advertising and promoting their products £750 is a small and worth-while expense. Being able to say that one has an agrément certificate will soon be a valuable—I hope, even an essential—sales point, and if firms regard the cost of the certificate as part of their marketing costs they will soon find that they are getting value for money.

My hon. Friend mentioned the grant-in-aid to the Board and suggested that it might be increased to cover the costs falling on manufacturers. The grant-in-aid was not intended to subsidise the work of testing. In the present economic situation I could certainly not justify increasing it in order to subsidise manufacturers, and this would be contrary to our policy. I would hope that, as the Board gains in experience, and the volume of testing increases, costs would progressively come down, but this is a matter for the Board's decision in the light of its own balance sheet. Costs are always bound to reflect the extent of testing necessary, which, in many cases, can be quite considerable.

The fact that the Board draws its income from manufacturers need not give rise to any fear that it will be biased in their favour. This is certainly not happening at the moment, and the Board has in fact referred a number of products back to manufacturers with the suggestion that further development work will be necessary before they are suitable for certification. In reaching its conclusions it draws on specialist scientific and expert knowledge whenever necessary and wherever it may be. Several Government Departments have assessors on the Board, and in the last resort the Board is answerable to me for its objectivity and fairness, and I have no reason to fear any bias occurring.

I turn to the point raised by the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) about the Building Regulations. This is, of course, mainly a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, but I can tell the hon. Member, and my hon. Friend, that my hon. Friend's suggestion of bringing agrément certificates within the scope of the "deemed to satisfy" clauses, although an attractive one, would require amending legislation which is beyond the scope of this debate, and you, Mr. Speaker, would rule me out of order if I were to pursue that.

However, my right hon. Friends and I have tackled this problem in another way. The Board consults the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Scottish Development Department about the application of the Building Regulations to any product which it may be testing, and it includes a statement in its certificate explaining its relationship to the relevant Regulations. The Ministries draw the attention of all local authorities to certificates as they are issued, and they indicate whether the Regulations are, in their opinion, satisfied, and, if not, whether they would consider it appropriate to grant a waiver. I am confident that manufacturers and designers will find that agrément certificates are increasingly understood and accepted by local authorities.

I want to say a few words about the problem of publicity. I have just explained how we draw the attention of local authorities to certificates, but it is, clearly, just as important to reach the manufacturer, the designer and the contractor. The whole system depends on the willingness of the manufacturer to submit his products for testing, and on convincing him that certificates are worth having. The experience of those firms which already have certificates will be valuable here, and it is significant that firms are already asking for very large numbers of copies of certificates—in one case, as many as 40,000—to distribute to their customers. Meanwhile the Board is arranging receptions up and down the country for designers and manufacturers to explain their work; it is having exhibitions at building centres, giving lectures, and so on. The third reception went off very successfully a fortnight ago, and stimulated a good deal of interest in the Board's work and a number of inquiries. I have agreed with the Board that it should intensify its publicity activities.

In the case of local authorities, designers, and the contractors, the most promising approach is the associate membership scheme which the Board set up some time ago. For a small subscription, associate members can receive copies of the Board's publications—certificates, news letters, annual report and so on—and already some 4,000 copies of each publication are being circulated in this way. The membership list is growing, and the Board will seek to encourage this. There is a special subscription rate for students who are the designers of the future. If they learn all about agrément now they will be in a position to influence the industry for good in the future.

My hon. Friend pointed to the number of organisations already interested in this matter, and to the danger of confusion arising. Both the Board and my Ministry are well aware of this, and we have taken a number of measures to avoid unnecessary overlapping or duplication of work.

First, an agrément certificate is valid for only three years, and can normally be renewed only once—and then only if the circumstances justify it. This has been done deliberately, since by the time the certificate expires the product should be sufficiently established for there to be a British Standard covering it, and the Board has no wish to duplicate the work of the British Standards Institution.

Second, the Board will not normally accept for testing a product which is covered by some existing approval scheme. Third, most of the Board's testing work is undertaken for them by the staff of the Building Research Station, but they are free to place the work with other research institutions or laboratories if this seems appropriate. Thus, the Board can see that the work is done at the place where the greatest expertise in the particular subject is to be found, and that there is no duplication of effort. Finally, the technical notes issued by the Board on methods of assessing and testing products should help to promote greater uniformity throughout the testing.

It is my intention to make the Board the national authority for the testing of new building products and techniques—those not covered by British Standards—and the main centre of technical expertise on this type of testing. Thus, its existence can help to co-ordinate and simplify responsibility.

I hope that I have succeeded in showing some of the difficulties which the Agrément Board faced in launching this entirely novel operation, and how those difficulties have been and are being tackled. I trust that my hon. Friend will agree, in the light of all this, that the Board has made remarkably good progress with a difficult task, the end result of which will be of great value to the industry.

I shall certainly continue to watch the Board's progress with great interest, and to help it in any way I can. I can assure the House that I shall not be finally satisfied until the rate of certification comes somewhere near the rate at which appropriate new products are coming on to the market. We can all help in this by giving all possible publicity to the Board's work and to its value. We ought to consider whether anything further can be done in the public sector to stimulate or encourage the use of agrément certificates, and I propose to look into this.

I would make this last appeal. I hope that the technical Press of the building industry, which is very able and compet- ent, will give this debate tonight some publicity. This is what the Board is asking for.

This industry is one on which I have made many comments, but basically it is an industry which is progressive, and which is anxious to do an even bigger and better job. This system of agrément certificates will, I believe, help them to do this. It is ignorance of the fact that the Agrément Board is in existence which has more than anything else to some extent retarded progress. I hope after this debate, if the technical Press will back me on this, that the industry will know of this Board and will support it.

Mr. Costain

Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Ministry of Housing and Local Government has sent rather a cold douche of a circular to local authorities on agrément, and can he not put ginger into that Department?

Mr. Mellish

I am in a mellow mood, and if I were to say what I think about local authorities it would spoil the debate. Circulars have to be sent to local authorities to make them understand clearly the importance of what particular Ministers need them to understand. I am not responsible for the circulars which have been sent. I will look into it. Local authorities, who are one of the biggest customers of the building industry, must recognise what agrément certificates really mean.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at five minutes past Eleven o'clock.