Amendment 42: Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Amendment 42, which is also in Mark Griffin’s name, mirrors a stage 2 amendment that was, ultimately, not moved. Mark Griffin clarified that that amendment would counter a binary high-risk or low-risk assessment. However, as I have repeatedly put on record, remediation work will bring buildings to a tolerable risk standard. That is the approach on which the SBA standards are based, and that is the right place for discussion of tolerable risk. It is not appropriate for a bill to refer to “tolerable risk” without any further context or explanation.
In addition, at stage 2, I pointed to the unintended practical effects of such an amendment. It would require the single building assessment to set out whether each risk that was identified during the assessment process was “tolerable”, but that is not how tolerable risk will be assessed in the SBA process. The SBA will identify all risks and will state which of those risks should be addressed—and how—in order to bring the risk that is posed to human life as a whole down to a tolerable level. As such, there will not be a way of assessing whether each risk is “tolerable”. Tolerable risk must be assessed in the round, after taking into account the risks as a whole that are identified in relation to a building and how those risks may be mitigated. Therefore, the way in which amendment 42 is expressed would not allow an SBA to be conducted in the way that is required.