Pickles denies safety rules hit by drive to get rid of red tape
A FORMER Cabinet Minister has insisted that building safety rules were exempt from deregulation in the years before the Grenfell Tower fire.
Lord Eric Pickles, a former Bradford Council leader, was secretary of state at the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) between May 12 2010 and May 11 2015.
He was also chairman of the Conservative Party from 2009 to 2010.
The former MP for Brentwood and Ongar told the inquiry into the Grenfell disaster that the main focuses in his first couple of years in office were devolving power to local government, dealing with the housing shortage, and community issues.
During his evidence, he discussed the “one in, one out” rule for business regulation, brought in by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition in 2011. Under this policy, every time the Government introduced a new regulation it had to remove or modify an existing regulation that cost the same amount as the new one to businesses. This was later increased to “one in, two out” in 2013, and then “one in, three out” in 2016.
Lead counsel to the inquiry Richard Millett said “something like 70 per cent” of building regulations were about life safety. Previously, the inquiry heard from the former DCLG deputy director of building regulations, Bob Ledsome, who said building rules were not exempt from the “one in, one out” and “one in, two out” rules.
Lord Pickles said there were agreements between DCLG Junior Minister Andrew Stunell and then-Minister for Government Policy Sir Oliver Letwin that exempted safety rules from deregulation.
He was asked if Mr Ledsome was “wrong” to say the exemption did not exist.
“I hesitate – this is a gentleman I am not familiar with,” Lord Pickles said.
“But in the context of the agreements between the Minister for Government Policy and Andrew Stunell, there was a clear understanding that (with) matters relating to safety – there would be no concentration on (them).
“So I think that they are excluded from that envelope.”
He added: “But it would not mean that other aspects of the building regulations would not be exempt.”
So I think that they are excluded from that envelope.
Lord Eric Pickles, a former Bradford Council leader, on a drive to cut regulation.