Grenfell Inquiry Government Response - Construction Projects

The Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017 has led to significant reform in building safety law across the UK, particularly in England and Wales under the Building Safety Act and associated regulations.

Following the reports of the Grenfell Inquiry, the UK Government published its response on 26 February 2025. The response set out wide-ranging plans – see our blog on 10 takeaways here.

This article focuses on one of the areas that will affect construction projects on both sides of the border: product safety.

In its Phase 2 Report published in September 2024, the Grenfell Inquiry recommended that the UK Government make a single regulator responsible for various aspects of the construction industry, including the regulation, testing and certification of construction products. The Report also recommended that the single regulator should take responsibility for “assessing the conformity of construction products with the requirements of legislation, statutory guidance and industry standards and issuing certificates as appropriate”. The Report expects that such certificates should become “pre-eminent in the market”.

The UK Government accepted these recommendations “in principle”. Whilst supportive of creating a single regulator in general, its position is that it would be inappropriate for the single regulator to test and certify products or to issue certificates of compliance “as this would create a new conflict of interest within the regulator”.

Instead, the UK Government has issued a Construction Products Reform Green Paper, whose purpose is to address the Inquiry’s recommendation as to construction products “more effectively” as part of “system-wide reform”. The Green Paper provides the basis for a consultation on reform of regulation of construction products. The consultation is due to close on 21 May.

The Green Paper points to several measures already taken by the UK Government to address problems with construction products. For example, it cites (1) the ban on combustible materials in the external cladding of high-rise residential buildings in 2018 (which was later expanded to include hotels and hostels); (2) the establishment of the National Regulator of Construction Products in 2021, which operates under the Office for Product Safety and Standards; (3) the founding of the Building Safety Regulator in 2021; and (4) the enactment of the Building Safety Act 2022.

In addition to these changes, the Green Paper makes key proposals for reform:

• To close “the gaps in regulatory coverage”. It estimates that two-thirds of construction products are not covered by existing regulations. The UK Government intends to introduce “a proportionate, risk-based general safety requirement” applicable to all currently unregulated construction products. This will mandate “that all manufacturers are responsible for assessing the safety risks associated with their products before they are marketed”.
• To strengthen the mechanisms for enforcing the regulatory regime. The proposal is to enhance the powers and resources of the National Regulator of Construction Products and the Building Safety Regulator, to include sanctions against manufacturers and others who breach safety obligations, proactive market inspections and surveillance activities.
• To establish a library for construction products, linked to the single regulator, that will serve “as a central repository for vital information related to construction products”, such as test results, certificates of compliance and relevant academic research.
• To introduce mandatory minimum requirements for all third-party certification schemes. This would also involve increased oversight of conformity assessment bodies.

Drawing these points together, the Green Paper reiterates the UK Government’s key goals: to “eliminate unsafe products and unsafe use from the market”; to “build confidence in the construction industry”; and to retain consistency between the UK and EU regulatory schemes.

As noted, the purpose of the Green Paper is to invite interested parties to give their views on what steps the UK Government could take to improve the regulation of construction products. Annex A sets out 58 questions in this regard. After the consultation, the UK Government will set out its initial response and “next steps for long term reform”.

Whilst the Grenfell Inquiry understandably focused on the position in England, any reform of construction products regulation will also affect Scotland. As the Green Paper points out, “The regulation for the placing or making available on the market of construction products is a reserved matter, for which decision-making has not been delegated by Parliament to the devolved institutions such as the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments…”. Thus if the UK Government decides to bring about reform through legislation, it is currently likely to apply across England, Wales and Scotland. In its own response to the recommendations of the Phase 2 Report, published on 25 March, the Scottish Government highlights that the failings which caused the problems with cladding products at Grenfell affected the reliability and use of all construction product certificates across the UK; and that it is in the interest of the construction sector in Scotland that there is a robust system of regulation, testing and certification of construction products that can be relied upon. It also notes that this is a reserved matter, but that “there is devolved interest in the development of proposals where fire performance standards for products or systems are material to policy or operational delivery of change”. The response also states that the Scottish Government will “actively seek engagement and work with UK Government counterparts, UK Government Building Safety Regulator and standing committees at the British Standards Institution on fire safety and construction product matters”.

This will bolster one of the few areas of the Building Safety Act 2022 which applies in Scotland: liability and cost contributions in relation to construction products. Sections 147 and148 of the Building Safety Act essentially provide that where a person fails to comply with “a construction product requirement” (i.e. the existing construction products legislation) in a way which makes a building “unfit for habitation”, the person who failed to comply may be liable to pay damages to a person with an interest in the building. (Those marketing or supplying a construction product who make a misleading statement in relation to it, or a person manufacturing a construction product that is inherently defective, will also be caught.) These sections will also apply to further construction products regulations, which the Building Safety Act expressly allows the UK Government to make (although to date there have only been draft regulations, which were later withdrawn). The time-limit for such claims is 15 years from the completion of the work. Section 149 of the Building Safety Act, which also applies in Scotland, allows similar claims in relation to “cladding products” with a 15-year time limit, as well as a 30-year retrospective time limit.

What does this all mean for the construction industry, particularly in Scotland? It means that change is on the way. It will be interesting to see how the UK Government tries to create what the Green Paper describes as “a genuinely world-leading regulatory regime that provides confidence in safety and certainty about accountability”.

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