Fifth report: Pre-legislative scrutiny of the Building Safety Bill

The government rejects the view that a separate building safety charge is unnecessary, providing detailed reasons why it is appropriate, including ensuring transparency, statutory rights, and greater certainty for leaseholders compared to existing service charge provisions.

The government rejects the recommendation to recover ongoing building safety costs through existing service charge provisions, stating that such provisions vary and cannot guarantee clarity or recovery. Instead, it maintains that a separate Building Safety Charge will provide greater transparency and certainty.

The government rejects specifying factors for future scope expansion as a 'have regard' requirement in the Bill and declines to set a timetable for review, stating the Regulator will monitor continuously. However, it has widened the regime's scope to include care homes and hospitals.

The government explicitly rejects the committee's implied recommendation to remove dutyholder choice and replace it with independent appointment for all out-of-scope work.

The government explicitly rejects the recommendation to remove dutyholder choice entirely from the building control system and replace it with independent appointment.

The government acknowledges the perception of conflict regarding the regulator’s dual role but considers the benefits of a single regulator outweigh this concern, thus not addressing the implicit need for change.

The government acknowledges the perception of conflict in combining regulatory and decision-making roles but maintains that the benefits of a single regulator outweigh this, thus rejecting the call for further justification or a statutory requirement for operational independence.

The government agrees that ensuring competence and monitoring of local authority building control teams is important, but rejects the recommendation to include explicit provision in the Bill for the regulator to monitor and assure their competency comparably to registered building control approvers.

The government agrees on the importance of ensuring the competence of local authority building control teams but rejects the recommendation to place an explicit duty on the regulator in the Bill to monitor and assure this competence comparably to building control approvers.

The government considered the suggestion but explicitly decided not to clarify on the face of the Bill whether the power in clause 87 includes authorising the use of force.

The government disagrees with the committee's conclusion, stating that the regulatory system for products already recognizes that a single construction product may have multiple applications.

The government disagrees with the premise, stating that the current regulatory system for products already recognizes multiple applications for a single product and implicitly rejects the need for new provisions.

The government explicitly states it has no current plans to review existing European harmonised standards. Its immediate priority is a smooth transition to a new UK regulatory system, and it mentions a future Construction Products Standards Committee will advise on UK regulatory standards.