Levelling up secretary Michael Gove has admitted his department “must do more” to help people living in dangerous flats due to fire safety failures.
Some 640,000 people, many children, are still living in unsafe flats which could burn at any moment, according to The Times.
On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, Labour MP Ian Byrne asked Gove how he “plans to resolve this shameful situation” and by when.
Giving evidence to the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, Gove said: “You’re right, it is a terrible situation. You’re right that not enough has been done.
“The efforts that the department has undertaken recently to make sure that developers live up to their obligations will help. That's not enough on its own.
“There are others, including some of those who are freeholders and ultimate owners of some of these properties, who must do more, and we are proposing to take action against them, and of course there are construction manufacturers who must be more as well.
“And my department must do more.”
Five years ago today, 72 people died in the Grenfell Tower fire, which is believed to have been started initially by a faulty fridge-freezer. An ongoing inquiry into the tragedy is examining the numerous failures that led to the disaster and has made 46 recommendations so far.
Following the disaster, safety inspections on other high-rise blocks revealed dangerous cladding and other fire safety faults including defective insulation and flammable balconies. The government has since gradually announced various funding packages for leaseholders to replace unsafe materials.
The most recent announcements include Gove promising in January that no leaseholder living in a building more than 11 metres high will face any costs for fixing dangerous cladding. He also said in April that major housing developers would commit a minimum of £2bn to fix any buildings of this size which they had a role in developing.
But Gove told the committee that the allocation of building- safety funds to leaseholders to replace unsafe cladding as a key area where the department needs to do more.
Thousands of leaseholders faced sky-high bills after the Grenfell Tower fire as building owners passed the cost of remediation works onto them. Earlier this year, Gove promised that the government would give leaseholders statutory protection from the cost of fixing all post-Grenfell building-safety defects.
A £1bn Building Safety Fund was launched in 2020 to pay for the removal of unsafe non-ACM cladding (with the Grenfell-type ACM cladding having already received funding from 2018). But Gove said these funds “have not been allocated as rapidly as they should have been”. He said he has initiated a process to get weekly updates from DLUHC on the speed at which funds are being granted and the remediation work is being completed.
The secretary of state said he would share this information with the committee but would first need to confirm how regularly the department can provide updates.
Asked whether he had a timeline “to lift people out of suffering”, Gove was not able to give a date but said he would update the committee on this in writing.
Gove was also asked to comment on why the government had refused to implement one of the key Grenfell Inquiry recommendations – mandatory personal emergency evacuation plans for disabled tenants. Fifteen of the 37 disabled residents in Grenfell Tower perished in the 2017 fire.
The Home Office last month said acting on the recommendation would not be practical, proportionate or safe and that disabled residents should either stay put during a fire or rely on rescue by firefighters. The department has since been threatened with a legal challenge from two disabled residents of buildings with fire safety risks. Significant concerns have been raised about how stay-put guidance in place at the time of the Grenfell Tower may have contributed to the number of casualties from the disaster.
“One of the things I'm keen to do is to fully understand the fire service's reasoning, to get to the bottom of what is genuinely the safest way of allowing people who are living with disabilities to evacuate,” Gove said.
“There's an ongoing debate and a very charged one about the fitness for purpose of a stay- put policy. And I wouldn't want to at this stage say definitively what I think is the right approach because I'm not the lead department in this area, but it's vitally important that we get it right.”
Gove also revealed the department has appointed a former commander of the Special Boat Service to lead a new team recovering funds from companies that played a role in the building safety crisis.
He confirmed that all funds recovered would be used to “reduce costs for leaseholders and taxpayers”.