Housing secretary and deputy prime minister Angela Rayner told the House of Commons yesterday that she was taking action on all 58 recommendations of Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire.
The final report of the inquiry, published in September 2024, recommended introducing a licensing scheme operated by a new formed construction regulator for principal contractors wishing to undertake the construction or refurbishment of higher-risk buildings (i.e. tower blocks).
Rayner said that the government accepts the licensing scheme recommendation and “will work with the sector to consider how a licensing scheme for principal contractors on higher-risk buildings can work and the timescales for its introduction”.
However, the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) is aware of the pitfalls, including how to assess whether a contractor’s workforce is appropriately skilled, has the right knowledge, experience and behaviours, or are using the right materials.
The inquiry’s view was this should be the responsibility of the principal contractor as the entity responsible for employing people, purchasing materials and using materials onsite. That is why the Building Safety Act 2022 introduced new dutyholder requirements, which came into force in October 2023. These clarify that the principal contractor’s role is to ensure that building work is completed in accordance with the approved design and building regulations.
The Ministry of Housing says that this regime was intended to go some way to achieving the same outcome as the inquiry has proposed, with its licensing proposal – and its impact needs to be assessed before creating a whole new licensing bureaucracy.
The Institution of Civil Engineers and the Institution of Structural Engineers have together been awarded a licence by the Engineering Council to manage a competency register of their members qualified to work on higher-risk buildings. But chartered civil and structural engineers are likely to make up a small minority of the site team working on the construciton or refurbishment of a tower block.
In its response the Grenfell inquiry report, MHCLG says: “The new provisions state that everyone involved in a building project must ensure building safety and compliance with regulations. The dutyholders covered by the new regime include clients, principal designers, designers, principal contractors and contractors. There are significant sanctions attached to this regime and breaching building regulations can result in an unlimited fine and/or up to two years in prison.”
The subtext is: we rather think we’ve gone far enough with this already.
However, it does not want to be seen to be blocking a licensing scheme, which has some support within the construction industry for those who think that introducing a new barrier to entry will lessen competition and enable them to put up their prices.
Hence it says: “We will therefore review the impact of the new dutyholder regime in relation to higher-risk buildings from October 2025 and publish our findings by autumn 2026. This will include working with the sector to determine how we can go further, including introducing a licensing scheme in law where a licence may be granted on the basis of criteria aligned with the dutyholder requirements and can be withdrawn for failure to achieve compliance with the regulations.”
Another dilemma facing the government is where to draw the line for a licensing scheme. The Building Safety Act already provides a somewhat arbitrary definition of ‘higher-risk buildings’ – or HRBs – as buildings with at least two residential units that are at least 18 metres in height or have at least seven storeys. Currently it is only a licence to build these structures that is on the agenda. But as soon as the discussion develops, there will be legitimate questions about why stop there: why do you need to have a licence to build an 18-metre high block of flats but not if it is 17.5 metres? Why apartment blocks and not bridges or nuclear power stations?
And, says the Federation of Master Builders, what about Mrs Noggins’ conservatory at Number 42.
The Federation of Master Builders (FMB), which represents small building firms, has had a long-running campaign to raise barriers to entry to the building trade by introducing a licensing scheme for the sort of work that its members carry out. It spots an opportunity here.
FMB chief executive Brian Berry said: “The Grenfell Tower inquiry report has a crucial role to play in ensuring lessons are learnt about building safety. The government’s decision to act on all 58 recommendations set out in the report is welcome news, particularly the decision to create a new single construction regulator to make sure those responsible for building safety are fully accountable. This is something the FMB fully supports. However, a vital step to deliver long-term change must be the introduction of a licensing scheme to ensure domestic building companies have proven minimum competence. Currently anyone can call themselves a builder and this can’t be right, particularly for those working in the domestic building sector.”
Berry continued: “The development of a minimum competency scheme for builders of major construction projects was a key recommendation of the inquiry. This needs to be extended to all construction workers. If we think the situation is challenging for Tier 1 firms, the picture for small building companies and sole-traders is even less clear, given they don’t have inhouse resources for training and HR. The government now has the opportunity to work with the construction sector to introduce a full licensing scheme for building companies, which will help drive up standards and make construction safer for both builders and consumers.”
There are thought to be in the region of 100,000 building contractors trading in the UK. Putting them all through a licensing scheme, and then monitoring them to ensure no breaches, might be something the Ministry of Housing might wish to avoid. It certainly is not in a position to fund such a massive undertaking; it would have to be industry funded. And it would require the new Construction Regulator to have a massive appetite for empire building.
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