London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Gove must spend ‘billions more’ to end building fire safety crisis

Gove must spend ‘billions more’ to end building fire safety crisis

Campaigners say £4bn package to replace Grenfell-style cladding fails to address other safety problems

Michael Gove must spend billions more on ending the fire safety crisis in homes across England, campaigners will say on Monday, as they warn that his latest move to replace all Grenfell-style cladding overlooks myriad other risks faced by leaseholders.

The secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities will unveil a £4bn package that enables leaseholders to escape the onerous costs involved in replacing combustible cladding, announcing to parliament that residents of blocks between 11m and 18m tall will no longer face crippling bills.

He will tell building companies and manufacturers of combustible materials: “We are coming for you” in a new plan to hold them accountable, with a warning that firms have shown “insufficient contrition” since the disaster that killed 72 people in June 2017.

But leaseholders in buildings with other fire-safety problems – such as wooden balconies – will still face huge bills, and campaigners will urge Gove to help these people to finally draw a line under the crisis.


“This feels like it could be the beginning of the end of our cladding scandal, but we are still a long way away from solving it,” said Giles Grover, a spokesperson for the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign group. “The government is still focusing on cladding, but they know full well it goes beyond that. People are still facing life-changing costs.”

People living in unsafe properties have been landed with bills of up to £200,000. Many blocks have combustible cladding, but also problems with defective fire doors, flammable balconies and missing firebreaks because of non-compliant building works. Under the new Treasury-approved plan, which aims to force developers to pay the £4bn bill but could require funds to be diverted from existing government budgets, only cladding remediation costs will be covered.

Campaigners want a change to the law to protect them from all costs caused by fire safety defects that were not their fault. The latest funding will add to the £5.1bn already announced for fixing combustible cladding on apartment blocks over 18m in height. Yet the cost of remedying all post-Grenfell fire safety problems was last year estimated by MPs at £15bn – and may be even higher.

Gove will say if developers and builders don’t pay, government could legislate to force them to pay up.

In the meantime, the Treasury has made clear that any public funds required will have to be diverted from the Department of Levelling Up’s existing budget, according to a letter leaked to BBC Newsnight.

Source: Government estimates of all buildings, not just those with dangerous cladding,April 2020 (over 18 metres), September 2021 (under 18 metres) . *whichever is reached first


However, construction lobbyists argue that firms that manufactured or supplied combustible cladding should be urged to shoulder the financial burden.

The Home Builders Federation (HBF) said the largest housebuilders had already spent or committed £1bn to fix the buildings for which they were responsible.

Stewart Baseley, the HBF’s executive chairman, said: “Whilst housebuilders are committed to playing their part, there are many other organisations involved in the construction of affected buildings, including housing associations and local authorities.

“As well as developers and government, other parties should be involved in remediation costs, not least material manufacturers who designed, tested and sold materials that developers purchased in good faith that were later proved to not be fit for purpose.”

Ministers could end up paying millions of pounds if developers cannot be identified. For instance, foreign developers often set up UK shell companies that share out work between subcontractors, then dissolve once it is finished. In other cases, developers may have since gone bust, meaning there is no corporate entity to target.

If the Treasury does not give the housing department more money to cover the costs of remediation for buildings with no obvious developer, it could eat into the government’s budget for other projects to increase the supply of new homes, an industry source warned.

Taylor Wimpey said the company had already committed to fixing its buildings. “We trust that we will not be penalised for our early action to do the right thing,” a spokesperson said. “This is an industry-wide issue and therefore needs an industry-wide solution.”

Gove’s expected announcements were cautiously welcomed by leaseholders, who feel a solution may be finally be in sight, after many have suffered serious mental health problems in the intervening years. Homeowners have been trapped in unsellable, in effect worthless homes, which has destroyed plans to move jobs, have children and marry.

Striking a more aggressive tone than his predecessors, Gove is set to say: “Those who manufactured dangerous products and developed dangerous buildings have shown insufficient contrition.”

He is planning to signal a new “proportionate” attitude to risk and, crucially, will scrap post-Grenfell advice from the government that all residential block wall systems need checking for possible removal and replacement, regardless of building height.

He will say sprinklers and fire alarms should be used more often to mitigate risks instead of expensive remediation works. The government will also start auditing assessments of the risks posed by buildings to make sure expensive fixes are only being proposed where lives are at risk.

Gove’s intervention comes ahead of former ministers facing questioning at the Grenfell Tower public inquiry over claims that Conservative-led governments prioritised a “bonfire of red tape” over safety.

Labour’s shadow housing minister, Matthew Pennycook, said: “On the face of it, these proposals appear far less significant than they sound … There is nothing new for the significant numbers of leaseholders facing huge bills to fix non-cladding defects; no guarantee that the cost of remediating buildings under 18 metres won’t be drawn from already allocated public funding; no help for the countless leaseholders currently mired in mortgage chaos.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
The New Life of Novak Djokovic
×