All Change? Building Safety under the Labour Government

The new Government’s focus on building safety will result in incremental changes, not ground-breaking shifts in policy or practice

Following the Grenfell disaster in 2017, there have been multifaceted, industry-wide changes in the law and regulations relating to building safety. The landmark Building Safety Act 2022 (and the tsunami of regulations made under it) has introduced numerous changes, including:

• a reformed building control process for higher-risk buildings;
• the creation of a Building Safety Regulator;
• increased accountability and responsibility for newly established dutyholders;
• amendments to the Building Regulations for all buildings;
• new routes to recovery of costs relating to building safety defects; and
• a Building Safety levy payable by developers to protect the public from remediation costs.

In its manifesto, Labour committed to a continued attention on building safety by taking “decisive action to improve building safety, including through regulation” and to “review how to better protect leaseholders from costs and take steps to accelerate the pace of remediation across the country”. Continuing with the previous Government’s ‘polluter pays’ approach, Labour has also promised to “put a renewed focus on ensuring those responsible for the building safety crisis pay to put it right”.

What do we know for certain?

As with many (in fact, all) other aspects of the manifesto, the commitments in this area are light on detail – but that is not to say they are of no consequence. As noted elsewhere in this series of articles, Labour appears to have taken an “under promise, over deliver” approach. Now in Government, it is likely that Labour will move heaven and earth to be in a position where they can show successful implementation of everything specifically set out in its manifesto. Given the financial constraints they have imposed on themselves, they are likely to prioritise delivery, certainly in the early years of their new Government, on commitments that can be achieved without significant cost to the state. So, we should take them at their word that there will be a continued focus on building safety and that such focus will look to developers to pick up the costs.

Our view is that we should not expect any significant reversal of existing policy. Ultimately, there is little difference between the previous Government and the new Government on the headline Building Safety issues. Neither of the parties were in favour of unsafe buildings, both acknowledged that there was a systemic problem, everyone agreed that Grenfell cannot be allowed to be repeated and no one wanted the state or leaseholders to be the people who principally pay for fixing existing defects.

Labour’s criticisms of the previous Government have largely related to the pace of policy implementation, rather than to the content of that policy. For example: the delay in the materialisation of the uncontroversial Social Housing (Regulation) Bill (which received Royal Assent in 2023) to raise standards in social housing; the glacial pace of mitigation and remediation works; and the lack of urgency to engage with insurance providers to address soaring premia.

It is clear that the new Government intends to “get Britian building again” with a hard target of 1.5 million new homes over the next parliament. Whilst early prioritisation of building new houses is evident, so is the commitment to ensuring that the new homes built are of “high-quality” and are “well designed”. These were key objectives of the building safety changes under the previous Government, and the new Government wants to keep this focus going.

The promise in the manifesto is to improve building safety through “regulation”. Note that the reference here is not to legislation. So, we can assume that the Building Safety Act is here to stay, but that the Government intends to add to the increasing catalogue of regulation sitting beneath it. It is currently unclear what further regulation the Government plans to introduce, but we note that the Secretary of State already has significant power under the Building Safety Act to enact regulations to expand or amend statutory duties.

What other changes might we expect?

It seems likely that meaningful building safety changes will relate to enhanced protections for affected leaseholders against the costs of remediating historical defects and associated secondary costs, rather than a significant restructuring of the building safety regime itself. Matthew Pennycook, as then shadow minister, in a House of Commons session in April 2024 said that, for many leaseholders, the service charge transparency provisions in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (which received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024) did not go far enough to protect against unreasonable charges. A concern that at the time Lee Rowley, the then Minister of State for Housing, Planning and Building Safety, sought to dismiss. As noted above, what the manifesto does highlight is that the Government will review how to better protect leaseholders from costs, including putting an end to unfair maintenance costs.

At a fire safety conference in October 2022, Sarah Jones (the then Shadow Minister for Police and Fire Service) said that the Tory government’s failure to implement the Grenfell Tower Inquiry recommendation of Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPs) for disabled residents was “immoral” and “an insult” to the victims of fire. According to evidence from the Inquiry, a total of 41% of Grenfell victims were disabled. While the Conservatives in Government had set out proposals for Emergency Evacuation Information Sharing (EEIS), many disability groups felt this did not go far enough to implement the Inquiry’s recommendations. The G15 members embraced the EEIS proportionate approach, but we may see another push by our new Government for PEEPs in the interests of resident safety and to fully implement all the Grenfell Inquiry’s recommendations in this area.

The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee published its report in May 2024 following an inquiry into the finances and sustainability of the social housing sector. In particular, it noted the demand for new homes and remediating stock with building safety defects. The outcome is a cross-party take on the future direction of the sector, relevant to the Government irrespective of which party was victorious. It was acknowledged in the report that many social housing providers face significant costs from the new building safety standards. Evidence submitted to the Inquiry found at least one housing association that was no longer financially viable as a result of fire and building safety costs, and others encountering costs significantly higher than anticipated. At the same time, social housing was noted as receiving significantly less funding than when compared to the private sector: the Building Safety Fund provided £2.1 billion of funding to the private sector compared to only £214 million for social housing.

The manifesto states that Labour will “take steps to accelerate the pace of remediation” and “ensure that those responsible for the building safety crisis pay to put it right”. Given that cost is a significant barrier to the rectification of buildings with building safety defects; and that the watered-down language of the previous Government’s Developer Remediation Contract only applies to “life-critical” fire-safety remediation work (rather than broader “building safety risk” defined in the Building Safety Act), it is unclear what steps will be taken. There is currently no indication of additional state funding for remediation, or whether the Government will now step in and proactively exercise its power under the Building Safety Act to seek solutions, such as remediation contribution orders on behalf of buildings which have been impacted the most.

This article, written by Sasha Pirbhai, is one of our ‘All Change’ series analysing the likely impact of Labour’s manifesto commitments, now they’re in power.  Visit our All Change article hub to read all available article.