The Building Safety Bill, presented to parliament on 30 June and with the second parliamentary reading to follow this month, represents a systemic overall of England’s building regulatory framework, following Dame Judith Hackitt’s 2018 independent review of the building industry Building a Safer Future.

While press attention has focused on building remediation and time extensions for defective building claims, there’s much more in the bill that the building industry needs to get its head around, fast. The government has an ambitious implementation timetable: royal assent is expected within nine to 12 months, with rollout of the bulk of the regime 12-18 months later. Some obligations will take effect sooner: for example, the new “gateway 1” process for higher-risk buildings comes into force at the start of August.

The basic structure of the regime remains unchanged from the 2020 draft legislation. The bill creates a new national building safety regulator, sitting in the Health and Safety Executive, responsible for building safety for all buildings in England and for promoting competency in the built environment. The regulator will also implement the new regulatory regime for higher-risk buildings, supervise a new building safety inspectorate, investigate non-compliant works and prosecute wrongdoers. The regulator already exists in shadow form, with Peter Baker appointed as the chief inspector of buildings, but there is much work to be done before the regime is fully operational.

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