CONSTRUCTION PRODUCTS – What the Construction Products Reform White Paper means for the industry

The white paper sets out a package of system wide reforms to address the regulatory gaps and critical issues in the construction products sector, which has been largely unreformed since the Grenfell tragedy. The white paper outlines clear policies and next steps for long term reform.

These include:

• Progressing additional measures to strengthen the regulatory regime, including the introduction of a general safety requirement and reforms to maintain consistency with the reformed EU regime for products regulated against standards, where this meets our objectives.
• A step change in product information, testing standards, certification oversight, and digitisation to ensure specifiers, installers and users can base product decisions on reliable information.
• Stronger powers, clearer responsibilities and a more coherent regulatory framework to support the work of the national regulator for construction products, as the single construction regulator is set up.

General safety requirement consultation

The white paper also outlined proposals for the introduction of a general safety requirement, which would bring currently unregulated products within the scope of the construction products regulatory regime.

The proposed requirement would place a proportionate, risk-based duty on manufacturers and others within the supply chain to ensure that only safe products are placed on the UK market.

The consultation period has now closed, with responses submitted to MHCLG in May 2026.

The industry now awaits further detail on how the Government intends to implement the reforms and what this will mean in practice for manufacturers, developers, contractors and dutyholders across the built environment.