The “Light Touch” and the Regulation of Building Safety

August 2026Regulation Construction

Abstract

In its aftermath, the financial crash of 2008-2009 was often blamed upon the “light touch” approach of the Blair/Brown New Labour government to regulation of the City. This followed the “big bang” in the City of the 1980’s and the untrammelled free market economic policies of the Thatcher Government, that New Labour followed and adopted with electoral success. In its dying embers the Brown Government was heard to say “no more boom and bust” but this warning was too late and upon its utterance we in the UK were already in the midst of the biggest economic slump since the Second World War.

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