Building Safety Regulator: Lords Industry and Regulators Committee report

Approximate read time: 10 minutes

On 8 June 2026 the House of Lords is scheduled to debate the Industry and Regulators Committee’s report on ‘The Building Safety Regulator: Building a better regulator’ (2nd report, HL Paper 225, session 2024–26) in Grand Committee.

1. Background: Building Safety Regulator

1.1 What is the Building Safety Regulator?

The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) is an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.^[1] It was originally part of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) but became a standalone organisation in January 2026.^[2]

1.2 Why was the Building Safety Regulator established?

The BSR was established as part of the then Conservative government’s commitment to improve the regulation of building safety standards following the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017 in which 72 people died.^[3] Further information on the work of the then government in this area can be found in the House of Lords Library’s briefing on the ‘Building Safety Bill’ (28 January 2022, pages 1 to 4). The House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee has also published a timeline setting out key events in the establishment of the BSR.^[4]

1.3 What is the role of the Building Safety Regulator?

The BSR has statutory powers under the Building Safety Act 2022. It is responsible for:^[5]

• overseeing the safety and compliance of higher-risk buildings
• maintaining a register of higher-risk residential buildings so residents know who is responsible for their safety
• assessing building control applications for higher-risk buildings in England
• supervising all other building control bodies, including local authorities and the private sector, to ensure building regulations are applied rigorously
• setting professional standards and maintaining a register for building control approvers and inspectors
• improving the skills and capabilities of professionals and trades in the built environment industry in England and Wales
• reviewing the safety of people in, or about, higher-risk buildings and the standard of all buildings in England

2. Work of the committee

2.1 Inquiry into building safety regulation

In June 2025, the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee launched a call for evidence to inform an inquiry focused on building safety regulation and the work of the BSR.^[6] The chair of the committee, Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Labour), said that the committee wanted to “hear from all stakeholders to find out if the BSR has the skills and resources required to ensure the safety of all buildings and its residents in the process of approving applications for high-rise buildings”.

The committee received both oral and written evidence from a variety of individuals and organisations, some of which was anonymised. Copies of this evidence can be found on the committee’s website.^[7]

2.2 Committee findings and recommendations

The House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee published its report ‘The Building Safety Regulator: Building a better regulator’ in December 2025. It found that there was “an urgent need for the BSR to improve on how it operates its new framework”.^[8] The committee said that it had heard “consistent and repeated” complaints that the BSR could take more than nine months to make decisions on whether construction projects should go ahead, “significantly longer than the statutory target of twelve weeks”. It found that this had delayed or disincentivised refurbishments, safety upgrades and the remediation of dangerous cladding in high-rise buildings, “leaving residents in unsafe buildings for longer and increasing costs for leaseholders”. The committee argued that delays had also had “a worrying impact” on the delivery of new housing in high-rise buildings. It said that this was slowing progress towards the government’s target of building 1.5mn new homes in this parliament.

The committee said there were several reasons behind the delays.^[9] These included issues with staffing and skills, a lack of clarity about the information applicants needed to provide to the BSR, poor communication between the BSR and applicants, a lack of high standards in some parts of the construction industry and inefficient BSR processes.

In its report summary, the committee also highlighted government plans for greater regulation of construction products, which it said it supported as currently only some products are covered by relevant standards and can therefore be regulated.^[10] In addition, the committee noted that the government was planning to remove the BSR from the HSE and set it up as a new separate organisation (which went ahead in January 2026). The committee said it supported this but raised concerns that organisational changes could “distract from the immediate imperative of improving the BSR’s operational performance”.

As a result of its findings, the committee made a number of recommendations.^[11] These included calls for:^[12]

• the BSR to give greater guidance to its multidisciplinary teams on how compliance with the building regulations should be evidenced and assessed to ensure greater consistency
• the government to remove smaller works from the BSR’s building control approval processes, or introduce a streamlined approval process for them
• the BSR to allocate the same multidisciplinary teams to similar buildings or projects built by the same organisation, which could improve efficiency and consistency
• the government to provide long-term funding for the training of new building and fire inspectors

3. Government response

The government responded to the committee’s report on 11 February 2026.^[13] The government said that it was committed to taking forward every recommendation from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, including strengthening the regulatory landscape as it moves towards a single construction regulator. It said that, as recognised by the committee’s report, the BSR has made “significant progress” in recent months, following changes to leadership and operational processes that were announced in June 2025. It said it was seeing clear improvements, particularly in the handling of new-build applications. However, the government also acknowledged that there is further work to be done with industry, particularly speeding up vital cladding remediation.

On the committee’s recommendations, the government said that it accepted their intent and had provided clarification in its response of how it would take them forward.^[14] For example, on the call for greater guidance on how compliance with the building regulations should be evidenced and assessed it said that the BSR was implementing changes to improve the consistency of decision making.^[15] As part of this, the government said that the BSR was considering where further guidance would be beneficial. However, it also argued that it was important to note that registered building inspectors should already be familiar with the functional requirements.

In addition, shortly after the committee published its report in December 2025, Samantha Dixon, parliamentary under secretary of state for building safety, fire and democracy, wrote to Baroness Taylor regarding a consultation document.^[16] Ms Dixon highlighted that the government had launched a consultation on the first recommendation of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s phase 2 report, that the government create a single regulator for the construction industry.^[17] The consultation closed in March 2026 and the government is currently analysing the feedback received.

4. Read more

• National Archives, ‘Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 1 report’, October 2019; and ‘Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 2 report’, September 2024
• Dame Judith Hackett, ‘Building and safer future: Independent review of building regulations and fire safety: Interim report’, December 2017, Cm 9551; and ‘Building a safer future: Independent review of building regulations and fire safety—final report’, May 2018, Cm 9607
• House of Commons Library, ‘Building regulations and safety’, 8 July 2024

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