Construction Product Reform

Around 37% of construction products sold in the UK are regulated. The Construction Products Reform White Paper proposes bringing in the rest.

The figure is the government’s own. Research by the Adroit Consortium put the proportion of the UK market regulated under the Construction Products Regulations at around 37%, with a range of 29% to 61% depending on methodology. Everything outside that is, in regulatory terms, invisible: where a product falls outside the regime, the White Paper states, “the national regulator for construction products is unable to act”.

The problem the White Paper describes

Three findings do most of the work, and all three are the government’s own words.

The regime was never built for safety. The UK’s construction products regulations, derived from EU membership, “were designed to support trade not safety”. Many of the designated standards the regime relies on do not address safety at all.

Product marks are widely misread. Marks are “often misinterpreted as safety endorsements when they are not”. The UKCA and CE marks confirm that a manufacturer takes responsibility for declared performance. They are not a statement that the product is safe for its intended use. If a specification process treats a mark as evidence of safety, government has now said in a white paper that this is a mistake.

Coverage gaps let unsafe products reach the market. The White Paper is explicit that this fragmented coverage is what allowed unsafe products to continue reaching the market after Grenfell.

What is proposed

Every product comes into scope, by one of two routes

Products covered by designated standards continue to comply with those standards. Everything else would fall under a new, proportionate, risk-based general safety requirement, under which manufacturers would assess the safety risks connected to a product’s intended use and its normal or reasonably foreseeable conditions of use, and take proportionate action to eliminate or control those risks.

Importers and distributors, including merchants, would carry obligations too.

Product information becomes a regulated output

Products would carry clear, accessible labelling and product information setting out critical safety information, and that information would have to be accurate and understandable to the user. Digital product records and digital identifiers are proposed to support traceability from manufacture to installation, explicitly linked to the golden thread.

Certification gets licensed, not nationalised

This is worth understanding properly, because the Inquiry asked for something government has declined to do.

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry recommended that the construction regulator itself should assess product conformity and issue certificates. Government accepted that in principle only, on the basis that a regulator issuing the certificates it also polices would create a conflict of interest within the regulator.

Instead, third-party certification stays commercial and gets licensed. UK Conformity Assessment Bodies would need a licence from the national regulator, would be subject to a statutory code, and would be required to act transparently and independently of commercial interests. The practical consequence: a certificate held today would not become a government certificate. The body that issued it would become a licensed body with legal duties, and the regulator would be able to act against it.

Disclosure of test information

Manufacturers would have to disclose when they have undertaken tests, and share anything affecting the validity of a certificate with the body that issued it. The national regulator would gain powers to require disclosure of test information.

The regulator itself is changing

Following the Inquiry’s first recommendation, government is creating a Single Construction Regulator, and this is further along than much of the sector realises.

• The Single Construction Regulator prospectus consultation ran from 17 December 2025 to 20 March 2026
• The Building Safety Regulator became a standalone body on 27 January 2026 under SI 2026/20, described by government as a landmark step towards the single construction regulator
• Government published its response on 9 July 2026, setting out the regulator’s design, expected functions and how it intends to deliver it

So the direction is settled and the vehicle is chosen. What remains is the legislation. See the Building Safety Act for the regulator’s current position.

What this would ask of you

If you manufacture products. The general safety requirement is not a documentation exercise. It asks you to demonstrate that you identified how your product could fail in normal and foreseeable use, and that you put proportionate controls in place. That is a design risk assessment, a process risk assessment, and a control plan that someone follows on the line. Most manufacturers can produce test reports. Far fewer can produce the reasoning that connects an identified risk to a specific control, to the record showing that control was applied to the batch that went out.

If you are a principal designer or principal contractor. The White Paper is explicit that safe selection and installation carry duties for clients, principal designers, principal contractors and installers, not only manufacturers, because safety depends not just on individual products but on how they interact as part of a system. If a specification rests on a product mark, and government says marks are routinely misread as safety endorsements, then that specification rests on something government has described as unreliable.

If you are a merchant or distributor. You would carry obligations to support product safety, while being largely dependent on the quality of what manufacturers hand you.

Three observations

This section is our reading of the proposals rather than a government statement, and is marked as such.

You cannot fix upstream information downstream. Merchants cannot meet obligations unless manufacturers supply accurate, validated, current product information in the first place. A merchant receiving poor information has no practical means of correcting it. Product information is a supply chain problem, and it is solved at the point of creation or not at all.

Software can carry the evidence, not generate it. Structured data capture, templates and digital records help, and the White Paper wants them to become the norm. But assessing how a product can fail, and deciding what controls that requires, has to be done inside the manufacturer’s organisation by people who understand the product.

Internal rigour is not the same as public clarity. A manufacturer can hold excellent internal validation and still fall short on what reaches the person specifying and installing. Those are two different disciplines.

Where CCPI fits

The Code for Construction Product Information is a voluntary industry code covering the clarity, accuracy and currency of product information, so that principal designers and principal contractors can rely on what they are given.

Read alongside the White Paper, the position is straightforward: CCPI was the industry’s voluntary answer to a problem government is now proposing to regulate. The requirement that product information be clear, accessible and understandable to the user covers much the same ground.

Manufacturers who have taken CCPI seriously are some way down the road, not at the end of it. The Code addresses how information is presented. The general safety requirement addresses how the underlying safety position was reached. Again, our reading, not a government statement.

What happens next, and when

Both consultations closed in May 2026. Government is analysing responses. No response has been published and no implementation timetable has been announced.

The White Paper asked respondents about appropriate lead times and transition periods, and about sequencing reform into tranches. So the direction is clear, the mechanism is chosen, and the dates are not.

That gap is the useful window. Building an evidence position takes longer than a transition period usually allows, and the work is the same whichever tranche a product lands in.

Common questions

Is any of this law yet?

No. The White Paper is a consultation document. It closed on 20 May 2026, government is analysing responses, and no response, draft legislation or implementation timetable has been published. Nothing on this page creates a duty today.

Does a UKCA or CE mark mean a product is safe?

No, and this is the misunderstanding the White Paper most wants to correct. The marks confirm that a manufacturer takes responsibility for declared performance against a standard. They are not a safety endorsement, and many designated standards do not address safety at all.

Will the regulator start issuing product certificates?

No. The Inquiry recommended it and government accepted the recommendation in principle only, citing the conflict of interest in a regulator issuing certificates it also polices. Certification stays commercial, with conformity assessment bodies licensed and subject to a statutory code.

Does CCPI certification mean we are ready?

It puts you ahead, not finished. CCPI addresses how product information is presented to the person specifying and installing. The proposed general safety requirement addresses how the underlying safety position was established. They are complementary rather than the same work.