The Government published its response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s Phase 2 and final report on 26 February 2025.
It follows the Grenfell Inquiry’s 2019 Phase 1 report of its investigation into how the tragic Grenfell Tower fire started, how it spread, and the actions of the responding emergency services.
The Phase 2 report, published on 4 September 2024, made fifty-eight recommendations (thirty-seven directed at the Government; twenty-one at other organisations).
The Inquiry focused on the fundamental construction and design issues with the building, including the suitability of the materials used, the sufficiency of the existing regulations, the response to the Phase 1 report, and other evidence arising from inquests into the disaster.
The Government, and other organisations, have accepted forty-nine recommendations in full. The remaining nine, directed solely at the Government have been accepted by them, subject to the public consultation.
The Government’s outright acceptance of the Inquiry’s recommendations is a strong indication that the Government considers the system remains inadequate and requires significant improvement. The message is clear: a better regulatory framework must be developed to build safer homes, founded on a strong relationship between the Government, the public, the housing sector, and the emergency services.
One takeaway from the Phase 2 report is the importance of including residents at the heart of the decision-making process on building and fire safety standards affecting their communities and homes. The aim is to restore confidence among the public that they are living in safe housing.
The Government published its Remediation Acceleration Plan (RAP) on 2 December 2024 having identified that the remediation of buildings at risk had been too protracted. The RAP addresses issues such as reluctant landlords, lack of expert enforcement officers and cumbersome enforcement framework, varying degrees of labour and financial capabilities among social housing providers, developer and freeholder disputes, shortage of skilled professionals, unaffordable insurance costs and poor resident experience. The RAP aims to fix properties faster, identify unsafe cladding, and support residents both financially and practically. The Government wants all buildings over eighteen metres in a Government-funded scheme to have been remediated and all buildings over eleven metres to have been remediated or have a date for completion by the end of 2029. Otherwise, the landlords of those buildings will face severe financial penalties.
The Government also published the Construction Products Reform Green Paper consultation on proposals for institutional and regulatory reform of the construction products regime on 26 February 2025. It made recommendations for strengthening product testing and certification and enhancing regulators' resources and powers of enforcement to ensure the integrity and safety of buildings and remove hazardous materials from the market.
The creation of the Regulator of Social Housing’s new Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard, expansion of the Social Housing Resident Panel to enable residents to influence Government policy, extension of the Four Million Homes resident training programme, and promotion of the ‘Make Things Right’ communications campaign are examples of efforts to allow residents’ voices to be heard and ensure they are treated with fairness and respect.
An ongoing review of the definition of a ‘higher-risk building’ by the Government and the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) is due to be announced this summer. This could lead to an increase in remediation work and cost.
The BSR is continuously reviewing Approved Document B, which contains all the fire safety requirements for dwellings first enacted by the Building Regulations 2010. A consultation on further changes is due by autumn.
All fire-related responsibility will move from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and join with the building safety and emergency response duties under the Secretary of State to better coordinate prevention measures.
Draft secondary legislation on residential personal emergency evacuation plans will be presented to Parliament in 2025. These will include mandatory plans for all high-rise and medium-rise buildings. Statutory guidance has been given for Evacuation Alert Systems to be installed in all new residential buildings over eighteen metres, enabling the fire and rescue services to send a remote evacuation signal, which forms part of an accelerated fire and rescue reform modernisation programme.
A single regulator will oversee the construction industry.
Reforms to the construction products regime, and consultation on the improvement to powers of investigation of serious building safety incidents, aim to bolster the Conformity Assessments Bodies, who assess building materials to ensure they satisfy the required standards.
The Government also plans to introduce new access to information obligations for private registered housing providers and extend the reach of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to include tenant management organisations.
Ensuring a skilled and professional workforce underpins these reforms, the Social Housing Regulator will set standards for competency and conduct. Panels will be established to assess conflicts and commercial interests in building control. A detailed plan is due to be announced in the Autumn. A UK Accreditation Service will independently verify the competence of fire risk assessors. There will be a consultation on the role of the College of Fire and Rescue to maximise its efficacy. Principal designers and contractors will also be subject to permit requirements.
The Government is committed to examining the processes and practices of the MHCLG, as recommended by the Inquiry. This includes greater public scrutiny, and a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities.
Agreement of the recommendations is a positive step, but implementation is key. Nonetheless, our overall view is that this embrace of the Phase 2 report is very important to the UK housing sector’s future. The reforms are broad-ranging and propose major steps aimed at safeguarding residents and restoring trust in the industry. It remains to be seen if the reforms go far enough, but what is clear is that building safety is an area that requires constant review to ultimately ensure that a disaster such as the fire at Grenfell Tower is never repeated.
