Grenfell fire: Michael Gove says government guidance was a factoron January 29, 2023 at 2:58 pm

Collective government failures regarding building regulations “over many years” were partly to blame for the Grenfell Tower fire, Housing Secretary Michael Gove has said.

He said a new contract published on Monday would tell developers who built unsafe buildings “to make them safe”.

The minister said “far too many” unsafe buildings still need remedial work.

The inquiry into the 2017 fire – in which 72 people died – has closed and is expected to report later this year.

Evidence at the inquiry showed official guidance was widely seen to allow flammable cladding on tower blocks.

The inquiry was told of “weak” building controls and failures of government as well as “cynical” and “possibly dishonest practices” within the building industry.

The government had previously spoken of technical advice that had been criticised for not making clear that combustible cladding panels should not be used on tall buildings.

Mr Gove told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “Nobody needs to tell me how desperately important it was to deal with all the issues that were provoked by the fire at Grenfell Tower.

“It was a horrendous tragedy. A tragedy for everyone involved, the people who lost their lives and people in that community but it also had ramifications that have gone on for years not been properly addressed.”

The housing secretary said it was not the fault of any individual, minister, department or administration.

Instead he said there had been a collective failure “over many years” – what he described as “a failure to effectively have a system of building regulations which could keep people safe”.

He added: “It’s now my responsibility to deal with it and one part of that is, tomorrow, I’ll be publishing a contract that will say to the developers concerned, people who put up buildings which were unsafe, ‘Look you now have, as you said you will, an opportunity to put that right and to make them safe.'”

Mr Gove said “significant process” had been made to make safe “the most dangerous buildings”, those over 18m.

Previously, in an interview with the Sunday Times, Mr Gove said he believed the system of regulation was “faulty and ambiguous” and not policed properly by the government.

He said there was also an “active willingness” on the part of developers to endanger lives for profit.

Mr Gove is expected to announce a six-week deadline for developers to sign a government contract to fix their unsafe towers, or be banned from the market.

“Those who haven’t [signed] will face consequences. They will not be able to build new homes,” said Mr Gove.

The newspaper reported a “responsible actor scheme” would be established in the spring, to block such companies from getting planning or building control approval.

It is one of a series of measures intended to force developers to improve the state of the buildings they manage or face being blocked from accessing funding or building new homes.

At a final hearing in November lead counsel Richard Millett KC accused companies of a “merry-go-round of buck-passing” in order to protect their own interests.

The inquiry heard evidence that some of the companies involved in a 2015 refurbishment of the tower knew, or should have known, that the cladding being installed was flammable and not safe for use on tall buildings.

Mr Millett told the panel it should conclude “with confidence” that all 72 deaths resulting from the fire were “avoidable”.

Mr Gove drew a distinction between “sins of omission and sins of commission”, suggesting that, while the government was guilty of the former, some developers were guilty of the latter.

“There is an active willingness to put people in danger in order to make a profit, which to my mind is a significantly greater sin,” he said.