Building Safety (Responsible Actors Scheme and Prohibitions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Considered in Grand Committee

Moved by

That the Grand Committee do consider the Building Safety (Responsible Actors Scheme and Prohibitions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026.

My Lords, I beg to move that the Committee considers these draft regulations. Before I speak to them, I thank both Local Authority Building Control and the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments for raising the important issues that led to these regulations coming before us today.

The amendments are technical in nature. The purpose is to maintain legal clarity and make sure that the responsible actors scheme and its associated prohibitions operate as intended. They do not alter in any way the legal requirements on developers to undertake remediation under the responsible actors scheme.

These amendments are made using powers in Sections 126 to 129 of the Building Safety Act 2022 and amend the Building Safety (Responsible Actors Scheme and Prohibitions) Regulations 2023. By way of context, the responsible actors scheme exists to make sure that eligible developers take responsibility for remediating, or paying to remediate, life-critical fire safety defects in residential buildings over 11 metres that they developed or refurbished in the 30 years prior to April 2022. It is an important scheme under which more than 2,500 buildings are being remediated at an estimated cost to developers of around £4.1 billion.

The scheme is underpinned by planning and building control prohibitions. Where an eligible developer decides not to join the scheme or seriously fails to comply with its conditions, those prohibitions can prevent that developer and entities they control from operating freely in the housing market. This incentivises developers to sign up to the scheme and undertake remediation. The amendments in this instrument are concerned with how those prohibitions and exceptions to how they are applied would operate in practice if a developer was prohibited, following a failure to join the scheme or live up to the developers’ obligations. It is important that if this eventuality occurs, protections for residents, leaseholders and property purchasers work as intended. These amendments make sure that this will be the case.

First, the instrument clarifies the scope of the building control prohibition. The Building Safety Act 2022 provides that the building control prohibition should prevent prohibited developers from making applications for building control approval. However, as currently drafted, the implementing regulations do not clearly capture applications for building control approval within the prohibition. This creates a risk of ambiguity and inconsistent application. The amendments correct that omission to align the regulations with the intent of the primary legislation and update terminology to reflect current building control processes. The result is greater clarity and certainty for the building control bodies administering the system.

Secondly, the instrument makes sure that the emergency repairs exception works as intended. The regulations already allow urgent safety-critical repairs to proceed even where a developer is subject to the prohibitions—which is, of course, in the interests of residents. However, for certain buildings, there would have been no clear route to obtain a completion certificate once that emergency work is carried out. This instrument closes that gap. It allows emergency safety works to be properly signed off and evidenced, making sure that buildings can be safely maintained without weakening the prohibition.

Thirdly, the instrument corrects defects in the technical requirements in the occupied buildings exception. This exception makes sure that residents are not penalised by allowing buildings to be properly maintained where the freeholder or responsible entity is subject to the prohibitions. The amendments clarify the procedural routes available to building control professionals.

Fourthly, the instrument provides the purchaser protection exception. This exception applies where a property transaction is already well advanced at the point when the prohibition takes effect. It allows the Secretary of State to grant an exception so that a building control certificate can still be issued in the ordinary course of a purchase. As currently drafted, the ability to apply for the exception rests solely with the prohibited developer. That could leave purchasers overly reliant on the actions of the developer. The amendments allow purchasers to apply directly to the Secretary of State for the exception. This strengthens protections for home buyers and reduces the risk of unnecessary delay or detriment to innocent third parties.

Fifthly, the instrument resolves two drafting defects previously identified by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. The amendments remove double negatives that could be read as narrowing the scope of the scheme in a way that was never intended. The amendments remove any risk of misinterpretation.

Finally, the instrument removes a redundant notification provision in relation to the planning provision, which carried no enforcement consequences and is not necessary for the operation of the planning prohibition.

In summary, these amendments are technical in nature. They do not change the responsibilities of developers to undertake over £4 billion worth of remediation under the responsible actors scheme. They make sure that the prohibitions and exceptions, should they ever be applied, are clear, legally sound and workable in practice, while protecting residents and home buyers. For those reasons, I commend the regulations to the Committee.

I thank the Minister for bringing this statutory instrument before the Committee. As the Minister said, this instrument makes a number of minor technical amendments to the Building Safety (Responsible Actors Scheme and Prohibitions) Regulations 2023, which were introduced by the previous Conservative Government. These amendments are minor and seek to ensure that the exceptions to the building control prohibition are effective and clear to the building control professionals, and that they respond to the drafting issues raised by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. We support these changes, but I have a couple of questions.

First, I understand that the Government will continue to monitor and publish data on the RAS regulations to determine their effectiveness, as well as the effectiveness of these technical changes. I would be grateful if the Minister can provide the Committee with an update on the progress made so far by developers in meeting their obligations under the RAS regulations.

Secondly, the responsible actors scheme is part of a wider range of actions to address building safety, a key part of which is the building safety regulator. In October, only 15 of 193 high-rise applications had been approved. Can the Minister update the Committee on the number of applications and approvals, and the average turnaround times for each of the stages? I appreciate that the Minister may not have that information with her and would be very happy if she would write. With that, we support this statutory instrument.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for his support for the instrument and I will pick up his two questions. First, on the publishing of data for developer-led remediation, the ministry carefully monitors developer remediation performance, including through scrutinising detailed quarterly data returns. Data from these quarterly returns is published on GOV.UK and includes information about each developer’s progress. In relation to the BSR, I may have to come back to the noble Lord on the specific numbers that he asked for, but, in general, improving the speed in which remediation applications are approved is an absolute priority for the BSR, which has recently announced a remediation improvement plan.

Before I go on to the rest of the answer, the change in management of the BSR has driven very considerable improvements in its performance and I am very pleased to see that. The improvement plan includes improving internal processes, ramping up capacity to deal with remediation cases and working very closely with the industry to support applicants to improve the quality of their applications. That was one of the issues that was raised when we debated this previously. We expect applicants, particularly large developers, to work with the BSR to improve the quality of their applications, so that remediation can progress without delay. I hope that, with those improvements and the improvements that are taking place within the BSR, we are already starting to see considerable improvement, and I hope that that will continue. I will respond in writing to the noble Lord on the numbers issue.

In closing, this instrument makes technical amendments that clarify, as I said, drafting inconsistencies and defects previously reported by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, and makes sure that the responsible actors scheme and its prohibitions will function smoothly in practice, should they be applied. It maintains the integrity of the existing system while making sure that residents and other affected parties are protected.

Motion agreed.

Committee adjourned at 7.22 pm.