Building Safety Regulator

Richard Tice Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

Order. I suggest a time limit of five minutes. Mr Tice, do you wish to speak?

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

In due time.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

Oh, I see. That is very gracious of you. We will have Mr Mike Reader then.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

I will do my very best, Sir Desmond, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Members for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis) and for Northampton South (Mike Reader) on securing this important debate. The Building Safety Regulator has the potential to hinder dramatically the Government’s laudable regime of building more homes and more affordable homes. We all remember the horror of Grenfell, and having this entity is probably the right way forward, but there are certain key lessons that are rapidly being learned.

Hon. Members have spoken about some of the specific details, but I fear that the consequences of this issue are even greater than we may imagine. I have been listening to businesses from the property industry, which is my core industry—I started digging trenches in 1983, so I have been in the industry a long time. House builders and investors are now telling me that they are done. They are just not going to bother. We have heard experiences of people allocating a year from completion to occupation. Investors are saying, “We’re not going to bother. We’re going elsewhere.” We have to act faster on this.

There are a couple of key things that we need to consider, including the application of a strange thing called common sense, which, too often among regulators, is sadly not very common. When we have traditional building materials that have stood the test of time for hundreds of years, be it brick or concrete, we could apply common sense to say, “Well, if using those materials, there should be a fast fast-track process.” I question also whether the whole concept of gateway 1 is necessary at all. If a project gets to gateway 2, that covers gateway 1. A developer is not going to spend hundreds of thousands or several millions on a planning application and get on site if they know they are not going to pass gateway 2, so why bother with gateway 1 at all? Numerous other examples have been talked about.

Although there have been changes, we need to monitor those changes very quickly. It may well be that what we need is either an outsourcing or—dare I mention the word—competition. A competitive process or regulator could operate alongside the existing process, so that it does not act as too great a block. If it does, we will suffer the worst of all worlds, one in which those who most need new homes in our cities, particularly affordable homes, suffer the most. As a consequence of well-intentioned—but badly implemented and organised—caution and prevention, they will miss out. The numbers are as bad or worse than people fear, particularly in city centres.

The issue also means that people are just not bothering to develop on brownfield sites—I have a number of them in my constituency—because the costs are too great, and because of the fear of the Building Safety Regulator and of ever-more regulation that may make the situation even worse. There is an enthusiastic pressure on the Minister and the Department to listen to these concerns and respond to them with constructive answers and keep everybody updated. As other hon. Members have said, the Minister should communicate that rapidly to industry participants. She needs to give the industry confidence that it is worth bothering to seek planning and start on site on important new housing projects here in the United Kingdom and help us all to create growth, wealth and more homes.