Yesterday (14/10/19), The Queen’s speech raised a number of post-Grenfell Tower issues including building safety standards legislation. She declared “My Ministers will... bring forward laws to implement new building safety standards.”

Within the official document released alongside this speech, it stresses that the purpose of this legislation will be to “put in place new and modernised regulatory regimes for building safety and construction products, ensuring residents have a stronger voice in the system.” It states the main benefits of this would be “learning the lessons from the Grenfell Tower fire and bringing about a fundamental change in the ​regulatory​ framework ​for high rise residential buildings, ​and the industry culture​ to ensure accountability and responsibility” and “making ​sure that residents are safe in their homes.”

The document continues to note the main elements of the legislation would “take forward the recommendations from Dame Judith Hackitt’s independent review of building safety”. It points out the legislation will provide clearer accountability for those responsible for the safety of high-rise buildings (HRRBs) throughout the entire life-cycle of the building (design, construction and occupation), “with clear competence requirements to ensure high standards are upheld.”

Continuing this, it adds the legislation will strengthen “enforcement and sanctions to deter non-compliance with the new regime in order to hold the right people to account when mistakes are made and ensure they are not repeated.”

Stephen Adams, Chief Executive – BAFE, reacted by saying “the BAFE Fire Safety Register fully supports the Government’s intention to bring these laws into effect and expect UKAS Accredited Third Party Certification to be documented as a robust method of confirming a service provider’s competence, most notably with fire risk assessment providers. However, BAFE would like to encourage all appropriate bodies to continue the deliberation that these laws should not exclusively focus on HRRBs – but likewise this should not further delay any introduction of legislation.”

Nick Coombe MBE, Building Safety Programme Lead - National Fire Chiefs Council, stressed this at last week’s UK Construction Week exhibition saying “People in the construction industry need to know they are going to get caught, and if they get caught that the punishment is severe, and they won’t do it again… [change is not going to happen] unless there is strong legislation and strong enforcement… the industry is failing, so our legislation, our new regulator, needs to have oversight of the whole industry, not just tower blocks.”

THE QUEEN’S SPEECH AND ASSOCIATED BACKGROUND BRIEFING, ON THE OCCASION OF THE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT ON MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2019 – Full document can be read here:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/839035/Queen_s_Speech_background_briefing.pdf