I will get back to historical fiction, but today is a historic day. I find myself agreeing with something Michael Gove has said. I almost agreed with two things he said. He has said that lax regulation allowed cladding firms to put people in danger to make a profit. He also said that previous governments bear some of the blame. We are talking, of course, about Grenfell Tower.
When I started work in the construction industry, we were still in an era when government took some responsibility for standards. The Building Research Establishment was a government body which conducted research and tested materials and techniques. In March 1997 it was privatised. It heralded a new system of “self-certification”. I may be a little cynical but even back in 1997 self-certification sounded insane to me. Taken to its illogical conclusion we could save money on parole boards by allowing convicted criminals to self certify that they were safe to be released into the community.
I’m not suggesting that the construction industry is without ethics. You only have to watch DIY SOS to see what wonderful people builders are. But there are commercial pressures. The second thing that Michael Gove said was that a previous government bore some of the blame. My recollection is that self-certification happened on Tony Blair’s watch. Looking back at it the BRE was privatised on 19th March 1997. Tony Blair was elected on 1st May 1997, so the fault lies with the outgoing John Major’s conservative government.