Construction Products Reform White Paper and General Safety Requirement Consultation – Untangling the Web of Blame
31st Mar 2026
The Government is currently consulting on wide-ranging reforms to the regulation of construction products as part of its ongoing implementation of the recommendations from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. The proposed reforms would impact not only those who manufacture, sell and import construction products but also, in some cases, those who implement construction products into the design of buildings. The Construction Products Reform White Paper (“the White Paper”) will be of interest to all those who operate within the construction industry. For many, the White Paper will usher in welcome change by raising the standard of safety for all construction products.
The White Paper was published on 25 February 2026 and runs alongside a government consultation on the General Safety Requirement for Construction Products (“the GSR”), both of which are inviting responses for a period of 12 weeks.
The White Paper builds on responses to the Construction Products Reform Green Paper published in 2025 and the findings of the Morrell-Day review into construction products carried out in 2023, to propose a significant overhaul of the construction products regulatory regime. In particular, the White Paper notes that the current regulatory regime is fragmented, with regulations which underpin the safety of products as individual items failing to ensure the safety of the buildings in which they are installed. Further, not all products are covered within the existing regime and evidence has suggested that there is currently a lack of accountability and a “pervasive culture of indifference to safety” across the supply chain.
Proposals put forward in the White Paper include enhanced requirements surrounding labelling, product information and transparency, a licensing regime for UK Conformity Assessment Bodies who carry out testing and certification, and stronger enforcement powers which will ultimately sit with a single construction regulator.
This note will focus on the following key proposals in the White Paper and their likely impact:
- All construction products will now be regulated either i) by reference to designated standards or ii) pursuant to a new general safety requirement, and
- Additional measures will apply where products are critical to safe construction.
Regulation of all construction safety products – the GSR
The key takeaway from the White Paper is that all construction products going forward will either be covered by a designated standard – where it will remain mandatory for manufacturers to declare the performance of the product in line with the designated standard and demonstrate compliance – or they will be covered by a new general safety requirement (the GSR).
The aim of the proposed GSR, as set out in the Consultation on the General Safety Requirement for Construction Products, is to impose a proportionate, risk-based approach which supports safety without placing an undue burden on businesses. The obligations under the proposed GSR relate to “economic operators” which covers manufacturers, importers, distributors, fulfilment service providers and online marketplaces.
For products falling under the scope of the GSR, manufacturers will be required to identify and assess any safety risk connected to the intended use and the normal or reasonably foreseeable conditions of use of the products, and to take proportionate action to eliminate or control such risks before placing them on the market. Further, the proposed obligations require manufacturers to provide:
- detailed product information (including, for example, warnings and scenarios of where a product shouldn’t be used),
- clear labelling to improve traceability, and
- a requirement to retain records (such as risk assessments, original product documentation and reports of safety incidents) for a period of 10 years from the last supply of the product.
Importers, fulfilment service providers and product distributors will in turn be subject to stringent requirements to (among other things) check that manufacturers have completed a risk assessment, check that the product information has been produced and is suitable, and provide product information to other economic operators involved in the supply of the product.
Enhanced Requirements
The White Paper also proposes that enhanced requirements will be put in place in relation to products where there is the greatest risk of harm. Under the proposals, it would be for the national regulator for construction products to determine products which will always be critical to safe construction (e.g. fire doors). However, even if a product is not designated as critical to safe construction, the proposed reforms would place obligations on the principal designer and/or principal contractor to assess whether the product or system would mean that their failure is safety critical. The White Paper envisages that the national regulator will issue guidance to support principal designers and principal contractors, but responsibility is once again shared along the supply chain, with manufacturers expected to support designers through improving access to product testing information and the use of third-party certification schemes.
Analysis
The consultation on the GSR and the White Paper both identified that only around 37% of the UK market is currently regulated under the existing Construction Products Regulations 2011 (as amended). The proposed GSR would therefore undoubtedly help to close the regulatory gap and impose uniform standards in relation to safety on all construction products (including those marketed to consumers and currently regulated under the General Product Safety Regulations 2005).
However, the White Paper has also noted that 94% of UK construction product manufacturers were small or micro-firms with fewer than 50 employees. It will therefore be interesting to see how participants respond to the proposals and whether these small firms will be able to meet the additional costs of the GSR’s more stringent safety requirements.
The reforms proposed by the GSR will be of particular significance in light of section 148(a) of the Building Safety Act 2022, which allows for claims against a person who “fails to comply with a construction product requirement in relation to a construction product”, where that failure is the cause or one of the causes that renders a building or dwelling unfit for habitation. The GSR could open the door to civil claims against a number of economic operators going forward.
Finally, the proposed enhanced measures for products that are critical to safe construction will impose significant statutory duties on principal designers and principal contractors. While manufacturers would be expected to support designers and principal contractors, the proposed obligations for principal designers would still require an assessment of how the product is to be used and a positive obligation to identify and mitigate risks in “safety critical scenarios”. Principal contractors in turn would be under a duty to demonstrate how they have assessed potential risks and what appropriate action they have taken to mitigate them.
The proposals set out in the White Paper and in relation to the proposed GSR make clear that all operators within the construction supply chain will be responsible for checking the safety of the construction products that they manufacture, supply or incorporate into buildings. The White Paper and the proposed GSR present an ambitious set of reforms intent on making construction safety everyone’s responsibility and avoiding a repeat of the “web of blame” that emerged from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.
Article written by Sahana Jayakumar.
