Building Safety Regulator (Establishment of New Body and Transfer of Functions etc.) Regulations 2026

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

I am sorry, but I am going to take slightly longer on this SI, because this is a really important issue. We have a housing crisis and a safety crisis in the UK, and we need to get both of them right.

The purpose of this SI is clear enough. Basically, it follows on from work that we did in the previous Government on establishing the BSR, which was established under the Building Safety Act 2022. That was brought forward by the Conservatives and it was the right thing to do. None of us wants to see again the horror of Grenfell, where 72 people lost their lives. The inquiry rightly set out that systematic changes were needed after the decades-long failure that allowed such a tragedy to occur. It is vital that any regulatory system created in the wake of Grenfell is rigorous, trusted and functional.

In principle, strengthening the clarity of responsibility is welcome and in line with the legislation brought forward by the previous Conservative Government. However, in practice, the regime that the SI seeks to underpin is already under severe strain. It is not working as intended. Developers, local authorities and construction professionals are encountering severe and sustained delays. According to the Construction Plant-hire Association, more than 150 high-rise residential schemes are stalled at the gateway 2 approval stage, with delays stretching not to two weeks but up to 40 weeks. London alone accounts for more than 60% of the affected schemes and these delays cascade down through the supply chain, leaving cranes, machinery and personnel—hired at enormous cost—idle while developers wait for decisions that should have been completed months earlier. Just as importantly, the risk of taking on new projects means that people are not doing them. This is about not only the idle projects out there but the projects that have not started.

The Government have promised 1.5 million homes in this Parliament, yet the evidence is overwhelming that they will fall dramatically short, with barely a third of the homes that should be completed actually to be completed and delivered. Experts across the board, from the OBR to Savills, the Home Builders Federation and Professor Paul Cheshire, agree that there is little to no chance of the Government hitting their target.

We now have the lowest number of additional homes in nearly a decade. The HBF states that housebuilding is flatlining at around 200,000 homes a year—far below the 300,000 required to get even close to the Government’s requirement. In London, the picture is dire: housing starts under the current mayor have collapsed, and the number of private homes under construction is projected to fall to just 15,000 by 2027.