The government’s failure to tighten building regulations in the wake of earlier fires, revealed at the Grenfell inquiry last week, was shocking but not surprising. The policy of deregulation that began in 2010 under the coalition government was partly idealistic (the return of neo-liberalism) and partly the desire to “remove barriers” to boost housebuilding in the wake of the 2007-08 global financial crash. 

Construction had almost ground to a standstill and recovery was worryingly slow. Dubbed “cutting red tape”, a deregulatory agenda was pursued aggressively. 

Among other things it led directly to the demise of the Code for Sustainable Homes and the overnight abolition of the housing quality indicators (the former Homes and Communities Agency’s funding standards).

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