Recommendation 66

HM Government Acknowledged

The Government agrees with the Committee that third-party certification alone is unlikely to provide the improvements in transparency and accountability that we also think are needed. The Government has announced an independent review into testing. The review will identify gaps and risks in the testing and certification system, and the Government will then consider how to respond to the findings. Placing a regulatory requirement on manufacturers to publish test failures and re-run tests may not aid transparency nor improve the understanding of product performance. Manufacturers test products for many reasons, including for product development. A test failure may legitimately inform the manufacturer’s product design and have legitimate commercial value; a published test result must clearly relate to a product that is being placed on the market if it is going to be informative. The draft Building Safety Bill provides for making it mandatory for more ‘safety critical’ products to be tested before they can be placed on the market, and for factory control processes to be put in place after the product has been placed on the market to ensure it continues to be manufactured to the claimed standard. Where appropriate, we will require sample testing of safety critical products by a third party. We are also creating new enforcement powers so Trading Standards or the new National Regulator for Construction Products can act where it is found that a product does not meet its claimed standard. They will be able to enforce corrections, withdrawals or recalls from the market, and those in the supply chain based in the UK can be prosecuted. These interventions are designed to improve the reliability of the performance information provided by manufacturers in the mandatory declaration of performance. The Government is also exploring with industry a future voluntary framework to strengthen the quality of third-party certification.