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Government grants itself power to replace HSE as Building Safety Regulator
The government has granted itself a new power to replace the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) as the regulator for high-rise residential buildings with a new body, should the Grenfell Tower Inquiry recommend sweeping reform.
The new Building Safety Regulator (BSR), which is currently on a recruitment drive, will oversee the new regulatory regime for high-rise residential buildings.
Established in last year’s Building Safety Act, the BSR currently sits within the HSE.
But a new amendment to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, passed last week, gives the government power to replace the HSE in this role.
An explanatory statement reads: “This new clause provides a power for the secretary of state to replace the Health and Safety Executive as the Building Safety Regulator and a power to make further provision in connection with such regulations.
“The regulations must be made before the end of 24 months from the day the final report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry is presented to parliament, or such later time as may be specified in regulations made before the end of that period.”
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The amendment caught many building safety professionals by surprise and follows the sudden departure earlier this year of Peter Barker, who had been leading BSR as chief inspector of buildings.
It is understood the government believes the Grenfell Tower Inquiry may recommend longer-term reform to building safety regulation, which could affect building-related regulatory functions currently spread across multiple regulators and arms-length bodies.
Ministers, therefore, consider it necessary to create an option to move the Building Safety Regulator to an existing or new body in the future, and will do so if the inquiry recommends such a move.
The government is understood to currently have “every confidence” in the HSE to deliver the new regime and expects it to be fully operational by April next year.
All building owners are required by law to register their properties with the regulator by October, after which it will be an offence not to have done so.
In May, the regulator said 750 applications had been started since the register was launched in April. There are 12,000 high-rise residential buildings in England.
The HSE has been contacted for comment.
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