The latest grand plan for the building safety crisis contains some major holes

It is a mark of how badly the crisis has been managed to this point that we still have no idea exactly how many medium-rise blocks are affected, or how much it will cost to repair them. In the face of this uncertainty, the Treasury has long feared an unpayable blank cheque and has drawn a line at 18 metres for any funding.

Breaching that resistance at last feels like a major step. And yet, there are two big caveats. The first is that Mr Gove does not yet have the £4bn. His cunning plan is to assemble a roundtable of the UK’s largest house builders and instruct them to hand over the cash.

They will do so, he hopes, in response to the threat that he will legislate if they don’t comply. This may sound tough but his predecessors have been saying similar since 2018 to little effect. With the Treasury reluctant to allow him to impose new taxes, he appears to be holding them to ransom with a pistol loaded with blanks.

A secondary threat to withdraw government funding from those who don’t comply is compelling, but it would more meaningful were Help to Buy (the major funding stream for these builders) not set to be wrapped up in April 2023 anyway.

If builders don’t front up – or only partially front up – where, then, is the money coming from? The Treasury has given Mr Gove permission to look at his department’s other budgets to cover any shortfall. This makes the money currently assigned to the Affordable Homes Programme look very vulnerable.

It goes without saying that this would be a desperately retrogressive step. There are many people who should pay for the cladding crisis, but it should not be those waiting for a new social home. Asked directly to rule out using this cash, Mr Gove did not.

“The Treasury has given Mr Gove permission to look at his department’s other budgets to cover any shortfall. This makes the money currently assigned to the Affordable Homes Programme look very vulnerable”

However it is cobbled together, it will clearly therefore take some time to work out where this £4bn is coming from. Add to that the length of time it will take to set up the programme, open it for bids, scrutinise them, get the money out and do the work and we really are at the start of a very long road.

Blocks above 18 metres that applied for building safety funding last year are still stuck in the very first phase, amid a Kafkaesque circle of data requests, emails and paperwork. Some of those eligible for funding since 2018 still aren’t fixed. Those in medium rises should brace for a long haul.

Given the public safety concerns, the effect this is having on people’s lives, and the four-and-a-half years that has already elapsed, this feels unacceptable.

There are also significant restrictions on the funding. Buildings below 11 metres will not benefit. The money will be limited to cladding removal works only. As leaseholders in taller buildings have bitterly discovered, this limit can still leave them with unpayable bills, just for something else.

And yet, there was an unexpected surprise in Mr Gove’s comments that may prove a major step forward.

Questioned by MPs, he promised – repeatedly and unambiguously – that the government would amend the Building Safety Bill to protect leaseholders from paying any costs, including non-cladding works.

This will be music to the ears of many affected residents, but it raises a very substantial question. If leaseholders are not going to pay and the funding Mr Gove drums up from elsewhere does not cover it, who does pay?

This leaves a substantial hole and it is hard not to expect slippery wording over the precise nature of the protection that leaseholders receive. Those who have seen similar promises come to nothing over the past four years will be forgiven for any cynicism.

Ultimately Mr Gove appears to hope that these holes will be filled in because much of the remediation work being requested is unnecessary and a consequence of the industry’s “cautious approach… that goes beyond what we consider necessary”.

This is undoubtedly true in some circumstances. But it is also an oversimplification and one the government seems to have talked itself into adopting as a mantra.

We are not talking about perfectly built blocks. They are badly built. They do have combustible materials. They do have missing fire breaks.

The question is whether to accept these faults, mitigate them with sprinklers and fire alarms, or fix them. In this context, deciding what represents excessive caution and what represents necessary life safety works is an extraordinarily difficult task and it is not surprising that many professionals have erred towards caution.

Mr Gove hopes new guidance will help assessors make a “proportionate” assessment, but this feels like wishful thinking. As we have reported, a draft version of this guidance has already resulted in conclusions that look remarkably like the current system.

And with all blocks set to receive assessments under this guidance thanks to the Fire Safety Act, the number deemed in need of remediation could grow, not shrink, when it is rolled out.

“There is also the obvious point that indemnity for assessors on a matter of life safety could be a dangerous step if it tips risk-aversion into recklessness. This is not a sector short of bad actors”

The government hopes to address this through providing indemnity to assessors to encourage them to be less risk-averse and to audit their assessments to ensure they are not being overly cautious. But this misses the point. What really matters is what the markets think – particularly the lenders.

Will they be willing to look the other way when polystyrene insulation and missing fire breaks are found just because the government has told them not to worry about it? If not, the block will still need fixing.

There is also the obvious point that indemnity for assessors on a matter of life safety could be a dangerous step if it tips risk-aversion into recklessness. This is not a sector short of bad actors.

Speaking of which, it was at least heartening to see Mr Gove turn the spotlight to product manufacturers and reference the revelations at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry about how these materials were tested, marketed and sold.

That many of the companies involved in this industry-wide failure have seen not only no consequences, but order books packed with remediation contracts, has been a bitter irony. A measure of consequence is well overdue.

On which point, Mr Gove and his colleagues still need to fully acknowledge the role the government has played in causing this crisis. The reason we have no restrictions on combustibles below 18 metres is that successive governments sneered at such restrictions as red tape and spent years boasting about how they were removing such petty restraints on business.

We have not yet moved away from this thinking or heard the government – despite its various cautious apologies – acknowledge the role it has played in giving us the vast, unsolvable problem we now face.

Until this bigger picture is grasped, we will not see the large-scale solution it therefore requires.

Don’t write off another new grand plan from another new secretary of state this time next year.

Peter Apps, deputy editor, Inside Housing