Building Safety Bill 2019-2021

In the Queen’s Speech in December 2019 the Government announced that it intended to introduce a Building Safety Bill that would “Put in place new and enhanced regulatory regimes for building safety and construction products, and ensure residents have a stronger voice in the system.”

Following the Grenfell Tower fire, the Government asked Dame Judith Hackitt, a former Chair of the UK Health and Safety Executive, to lead a review of building regulations and fire safety which would make recommendations to ensure a robust regulatory regime in the future and make residents feel safe in the buildings they live in. The Library briefing paper Building Regulations and Safety: Review and Reforms provides an overview of proposals and changes to the end of 2019 including the interim and final Hackitt report and the Government’s implementation plan. The Government welcomed the proposals and committed to bringing forward future legislation on a new regulatory system.

On 6 June 2019 the Government launched a consultation on proposals for reform of the building safety system: Building a safer future: proposals for reform of the building safety regulatory system. On 2 April 2020 the Government response to the Building a Safety future consultation was published, along with a wider update on building safety issues (Government update on building safety, 2 April 2020). The consultation response outlined the intended changes, which in turn are now expected to be implemented through primary or secondary legislation, and these are summarised in this paper.

Update: 20 July 2020

On 20 July the Government published the draft Building Safety Bill. It also published a summary of the draft Bill.

This paper will be updated to reflect the draft Bill in the coming weeks.