HC Deb 08 February 1972 vol 830 cc1299-306

11.40 p.m.

Mr. James Allason (Hemel Hempstead)

rose——

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

On a point of order. I seek your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker, with regard to the proceedings in the Standing Committee E, which is discussing the Housing Finance Bill. Some members of that Committee have been discussing today what is probably the most important Clause of that Bill; namely, Clause 49. After only seven hours' debate——

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris)

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman. I am sure he will not take it amiss. I have no jurisdiction here over what happens in Standing Committees. To save the hon. Gentleman's time and that of the House, I must tell him that I am afraid that I cannot help him.

Mr. Skinner

On a further point of order—[HON. MEMBERS: "Wasting time."] I am not wasting time. This is very important. May I ask your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on this point? Because I felt obliged to spend some time listening to the debate in the House on the coal strike, naturally I was unable to take part in the debate in Committee, notwithstanding that the position has not been clarified with regard to a debate on the Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill. Can you assure hon. Members that the disgraceful behaviour of the Government Whip serving on the Standing Committee will not be repeated?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is out of order in raising this matter. I have given my Ruling. He must leave it there.

Mr. Arthur Latham (Paddington, North)

On another point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I, too, am concerned, and, like my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), I have come down to the Chamber to seek the advice of the Chair. While no one disputes your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that this is not a matter for the Chair, can you at least assist hon. Members on two points?

Is not it a fact that Committees of the House are servants of the House? Is not it also a fact that where the Government require a guillotine Motion a full debate in the House is required? Can you tell me—[HON. MEMBERS: "Wasting time."] I do not accept the suggestion that I am wasting time. In fact, I am seeking to gain time in order that the Committee may discuss the matter which it was instructed by this House to consider. It is a matter of vital importance. If, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you have no power from the Chair, is there some way in which we may seek a statement from the Leader of the House? If not, can you advise us what other redress members of the Committee have—or have the Government side of the Committee dictatorial powers to which we must submit?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

There is no way in which the Chair, as such, can help in this matter. I am always prepared to discuss these matters with hon. Members at any other time. The hon. Gentleman's best course is to raise any grievances that he has with the Chairman of the Standing Committee, who will give him the most expert advice that he can possible get.

Mr. Allason

On 4th November, 1968, a family of three died from carbon monoxide poisoning in their flat at Hemel Hempstead. The flat was heated by a gas-fired warm air heater, and the flat had been carefully draught-proofed. This type of heater warms air in a furnace and the air is then circulated into rooms by ducts whilst the burnt gases disappear up the flue. It requires a considerable supply of fresh air from outside. If this is not available, carbon monoxide is blown through the ducts and into the rooms. This is what happened to the Hemel Hempstead family.

It was realised that inadequate means had been allowed for the supply of external air, and the gas board took steps to provide an air supply to all the dwellings on the estate using this form of heating. In the 13 flats of the type in which the tragedy occurred a duct was installed to carry air from outside the building direct to the heating unit, but in the other 576 dwellings the modification consisted of a grille in the external wall to that part of the home where the air intake in the heating unit was located. This meant that the sitting room, the dining room or the hall was provided with a built-in-draught.

This draught is accentuated by the modern practice of weatherproofing doors and windows to keep cold air out. It is unpleasant to have a draught of cold air through a hall, but it is thoroughly uncomfortable in a living room. Many people in these circumstances block up ventilators which create draughts.

Indeed, in 1971 a survey of this estate showed that out of 350 residents who replied to a questionnaire 136 had at some time obstructed their ventilators. This survey was part of a thorough investigation and report, prepared by the Grove Hill and Cupid Green Neighbourhood Association between 1969 and 1971, which brings out very clearly the discomforts caused by the ventilators and the need for the alternative of a ducted air supply from outside direct to the heating unit. I sent a copy of that report to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who is to reply to the debate. I wrote to my hon. Friend and he replied on 26th July last year: The provision of, proper ventilation both to remove the products of combustion and to provide adequate air for combustion is the province of Building Regulations. New regulations concerning combustion air are shortly to be made by the Secretary of State for the Environment. These will, I understand, lay down a general requirement to the effect that the provision should be such as to introduce combustion air in sufficient quantity to ensure the efficient operation of the appliance and the proper discharge of the products through a flue. The various ways of meeting this requirement will be a matter for those responsible for new building work. As with other Building Regulations the provisions will not affect existing dwellings, only new work, whether on old or new premises. Section 67 of the Gas Act, 1948, does indeed enable my Secretary of State to make regulations to promote the safe use of gas. Work on such regulations is now well advanced. Deliberately, they are designed not to cover the ground already dealt with by Building Regulations but the intention is to go wider than Building Regulations in one respect. As I said above, new Building Regulations apply only to new work. In our Section 67 Regulations, however, we plan a provision to the effect that no person shall use a gas appliance unless certain safety considerations are met, including the provision of adequate combustion air. As in the forthcoming Building Regulation the reference to combustion air will be of a general character. I also wrote to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, who informed me that the proposed Building Regulations to which my hon. Friend referred would permit ventilators in external walls, even though some occupiers might block them, but the local authority will need to be satisfied that the functional requirement of an adequate air supply will be met. It is not practicable to expect the local authority to patrol constantly to ensure that no ventilator has been blocked up.

In a book entitled "Modern Air Conditioning, Heating and Ventilating" by Dr. Willis H. Cavier, published in 1969, it is said: The system and its equipment should be safe with respect to life and limb under every conceivable condition of operation, misadjustment and tinkering, and capable of meeting the requirements of insurance underwriters. I do not accept that a ventilator which may well be blocked can qualify as safe in respect of life and limb.

On 21st January this year in another part of the country a family of four lost consciousness because of carbon monoxide from the same type of appliance. At first they thought they were getting influenza and telephoned their doctor, who advised them to keep warm. The children collapsed in fits. The father did not have sufficient strength to use the telephone, but, luckily, the mother was able to dial 999 before losing consciousness. Police and firemen rescued them, all unconscious. That shows that lives are at stake.

I accept that the ducting of an external air supply is expensive, but that must be measured against human lives. At the very least, ducting should be compulsory where the alternative is an external ventilator in a living room.

11.52 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Nicholas Ridley)

My hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) is right to bring this matter before the House. What he has said requires careful consideration. I shall make a few general remarks before coming to the specific points which he raised, because I want to set in context the danger to which he has drawn attention.

My first very general point is that there is no evidence that natural gas is not a safe fuel. Indeed, in many respects it could be claimed to be safer than town gas, as Professor Morton's report has shown. The number of gas accidents in Britain is not increasing. In some ways the figures show that the number could be said to be decreasing. But it is vital that there should be proper installation, safe appliances, and, best of all, proper ventilation, partly to prevent the exhaustion of the oxygen in the room but also, more important, to make sure that the products of combustion can be taken away. Even with adequate flueing, they can be recirculated, causing a concentration of combustion products in the air unless ventilation is adequate. Combustion then becomes incomplete and the toxic carbon monoxide gas is produced, to which my hon. Friend referred.

These accidents are known as burnt gas cases. That was the type of case which occurred at Hemel Hempstead in 1968. Over the last six years there has been an average of over 60 fatalities. of which only an annual average of four were due to warm air central heating installations of the type with which my hon. Friend's constituents have had this unfortunate experience.

The accident at Grove Hill was caused exactly as my hon. Friend described, by a shortage of ventilation air. In that case even the keyhole and the letter box, as well as all the spaces underneath the doors and every conceivable source of draught, had been stuffed up, thus preventing air from entering the house by any means.

The point my hon. Friend raises concerns the defences against this sort of accident happening. As he rightly says, it is really a matter for the Building Regulations. I shall send my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment a note of the point my hon. Friend has made. It might be said that it is in the main one for my right hon. Friend as he makes the Building Regulations. The new regulations, which were amended last year, require that no new gas heating appliances of any sort shall be installed unless a sufficient supply of air is available to allow the fire to burn properly and unless there is an adequate flue to remove the products of combustion. These apply to new buildings only.

There are two points with which I should now deal. First, what about existing buildings? Secondly, my hon. Friend suggests that the specification should require that new work be ducted rather than that there should be a performance specification dependent on how much air is allowed into the room. It would be impossibly expensive and difficult to apply Building Regulations retrospectively, and it would not cover the problem of making sure that the work was done in the 700,000-odd houses with warm air central heating installations. The problem will always be one of maintenance, and the problem of the blocking of vents, grills, air bricks and of eliminating draughts will be with us for many years.

I should like to use the opportunity of this debate to draw to the attention of all those who may hear of it the dangers of cutting off the supply of air to gas installations. The blocking-up of vents can be very dangerous. In a sense nothing will protect people from extremely foolish courses, but my hon. Friend is right to show concern that the Building Regulations for the future should ensure that there is no possibility of that happening.

It is preferable that there should be a performance specification and that a new building should be required to have provision for admitting a sufficient quantity of air rather than that the means by which the air is to be admitted should be spelt out in precise detail. There are already some types of flue that are perfectly safe but do not include ducting. I refer to the balanced flue, where the appliance is put on the inside of an outside wall and automatically draws its intake from the atmosphere. It is impossible to plug it up without climbing up the outside of the building on a ladder. If we specified that ducting fild to be used, we should have to make an exception straight way for balanced flues. There are many houses and many types of construction where it is proper and reasonable to allow ventilation through the outside wall.

What I think we can rely on is that building inspectors have the power to insist on installation of ventilation which was immune from casual blocking up to save draughts. If they choose so to use their powers, they could, but it would be wrong to specify the exact manner in which ventilation was to be provided because this would restrict the ingenuity of architects to design cheaper buildings and thereby automatically would add to the cost of building, in many instances unnecessarily so.

I think it would be possible to defend the present position where it is not compulsory to install ducting, and it would be restricting of development if we were to make it compulsory. Nevertheless, I accept the importance of my hon. Friend's point and I shall ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to add his comments to mine.

In addition, we are about to make regulations—I hope before the summer—based on draft regulations which have already been circulated and on which comments have been received. These will be made under the Gas Act to add to the protection of house owners from gas accidents caused by shortage of air for appliances. This will place an obligation on owners or users of gas appliances not to use them dangerously and that would include the fact of a user having bad or inadequate ventilation to his installation.

In the course of the conversion programme users will be visited, and there are also many occasions when meter readers, repairers and various people of the gas industry call on most houses throughout the year. If, after these regulations have been passed by the House, one of those visiting gas engineers noted that there was inadequate ventilation, he could warn the householder that he was at risk and was breaking the law by having bad or zero ventilation to his flat.

This will give statutory backing to a commonsense matter in which, in the end, we must leave the consumer to look after himself. It would be possible to block up any duct, flue or means by which air is admitted to the gas installation and we cannot in the regulations prevent people who are mad enough from deliberately seeking to do such things.

We have provided a Building Regulation which will prevent inadequate in- stallations in future and regulations under the gas legislation will give statutory backing to the many people who from time to time call on houses where gas is installed and warn the occupiers that they are not carrying out ventilation properly.

Mr. Allason

My hon. Friend spoke of people being mad enough to block up a flue. They would not normally have cause to do that, but they do have cause if a gale is whistling through their living room.

Mr. Ridley

I explained to my hon. Friend that if a ventilator was proposed in a new dwelling in such a place as to be likely to be blocked up in the circumstances he mentions it is to be hoped that the building inspector would not pass it. It is difficult to go back over the thousands of houses which already have gas installations and apply the new standards. It would be impossible to change the structures of houses retrospectively. In future it will not be necessary to say that ventilation shall be through ducts because the building inspectors have power to ensure that ventilation is provided properly in such a way that it is unlikely to be blocked up. We must rely on the building inspectors because the enforcement of the building byelaws whatever they may be, will be a matter for the inspectors.

The Building Regulations which my right hon. Friend has brought in are adequate to give inspectors power to ensure that there is proper ventilation and that it is not provided in such a way that it will be blocked up on the first windy night.

I join with my hon. Friend in regretting the accident in his constituency. The action which has since been taken through the Building and Gas Regulations has gone a long way to prevent the risk of this recurring. We can never eliminate all the risks, and we shall be sensitive to any means by which gas safety can be improved. I will certainly raise with my right hon. Friend the points which my hon. Friend has put because I would hate to say that we are not prepared to look again at any matter concerning gas safety.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at six minutes past Twelve o'clock.