Thousands of people living in buildings with dangerous cladding should be a given a target date for when their homes will be made safe, says Whitehall’s spending watchdog.
Between 9,000 and 12,000 buildings are expected to need their cladding dealt with, at a cost of around £16bn.
However, more than 7,200 of those buildings are yet to be identified and some may never be, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).
It warned work to make all those buildings safe may not be achieved in the next decade, leaving residents “living with the fear of fire and costly bills”.
The NAO report, published today, said the impacts of dangerous cladding “have extended far beyond the immediate victims of the Grenfell fire, with many people suffering significant financial and emotional distress”.
Although the Building Safety Act 2022 means most leaseholders don’t have to pay for remediation costs, many have seen hikes in service charges because of increased insurance premiums, struggled to get mortgages and are unable to move home, according to the report.
Some are also paying for “waking watches” to patrol buildings while waiting for cladding to be removed, with an average cost of £104 a month per home.
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Sept: Key takeaways from the Grenfell Inquiry
In the seven years since the Grenfell Tower fire claimed the lives of 72 people, campaigners have repeatedly criticised the slow process of remediation work.
Of the 4,821 buildings already identified as needing work, only half had either started or completed remediation works.
“Pace has been a persistent concern and remediation within the portfolio is progressing more slowly than [the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG)] expected,” said the NAO report.
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The department estimates cladding remediation will be completed by 2035, but the NAO warned this will be “challenging to achieve”.
It also warned taxpayer costs need to be kept down to meet the £5.1bn cap set by the government, and building developers would need to pay.
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Their contributions aren’t expected to be collected until next autumn under a new levy.
“Putting the onus on developers to pay and introducing a more proportionate approach to remediation should help to protect taxpayers’ money. Yet it has also created grounds for dispute, causing delays,” said Gareth Davies, head of the NAO.
“To stick to its £5.1bn cap in the long run, MHCLG needs to ensure that it can recoup funds through successful implementation of the proposed Building Safety Levy.”
Rishi Sunak has said he is “incredibly angry” to learn of allegations that Tory candidates placed bets on the election date, calling it a “really serious matter”.
The prime minister told the BBC Question Time leader’s special that “it’s right they’re being investigated by relevant law enforcement” and he is “crystal clear that if anyone has broken the rules they should face [the] full force of the law”.
Asked why those under suspicion haven’t been suspended, Mr Sunak said an investigation had to take place first – but anyone guilty would be “booted out” of the party.
Election latest: Audience shouts ‘shame’ in latest TV showdown
Two Tory party candidates are being investigated by the Gambling Commission over alleged wagers placed on the date of the 4 July contest.
Laura Saunders, the candidate for Bristol North West, has worked for the party since 2015 and is married to its director of campaigns, Tony Lee.
Ms Saunders earlier said she “will be co-operating with the Gambling Commission” probe, while her husband “took a leave of absence” from his role on Wednesday night, a Conservative Party spokesman told Sky News.
The revelation came a week after the prime minister’s close parliamentary aide Craig Williams, the Tory candidate in Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr, admitted to putting a “flutter” on the election, saying this has resulted in “some routine inquiries” which he was co-operating with “fully”.
Mr Sunak’s close protection officer has also been arrested and suspended over alleged bets about the timing of the election.
A gambling industry source told Sky News that “more names” are being looked at, though police “are not involved” in those cases.
Image: Pic: PA
The prime minister was asked by an audience member, to a round of applause, if the allegations are “the absolute epitome of the lack of ethics that we have had to tolerate from the Conservative party for years and years”.
He replied: “I was incredibly angry to learn of these allegations. It is a really serious matter.”
“I want to be crystal clear that if anyone has broken the rules, they should face the full force of the law.”
Quizzed over why the candidates have not been suspended while the investigations take place, Mr Sunak said the “integrity of that process should be respected”.
He added: “What I can tell you is if anyone is found to have broken the rules, not only should they face the full consequences of the law, I will make sure that they are booted out of the Conservative Party.”
Calls to suspend Tory candidates
Labour Party campaign sources told Sky News they noticed the odds on a July election narrow the day before Mr Sunak announced it on 22 May.
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Gove: Alleged betting ‘unacceptable’
Earlier, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called for Ms Saunders to be suspended and said it is “very telling” Mr Sunak has not already done so.
“If it was one of my candidates, they’d be gone and their feet would not have touched the floor,” Sir Keir added.
Mr Sunak faced many questions about trust during the BBC grilling, with the first audience member asking if he would “confess to [a] small amount of embarrassment” after having five Tory prime ministers in the last seven years and the UK becoming something of an “international laughingstock”.
The Tory leader said that “very clearly mistakes had been made” and asked the public to judge him on the last 18 months in office.
He faced shouts of “shame” when he launched an attack on the “foreign court” – the European Court of Human Rights – and also insisted he was glad he called the election when he did despite his standing in the polls plummeting further since then.
Having named the date of the election amid a 20-point deficit, the prime minister has failed to make up ground in a campaign dominated by political gaffes – notably his early exit from a D-day event.
Image: Starmer faced questions over his policy U-turns. Pic: PA
The gambling scandal was the latest blow, after multiple projections of a historic Labour landslide and a number of big figures – from a former Tory donor to a former Tory minister – announcing they would back Sir Keir for the first time ever when polling day comes around.
Responding to Mr Sunak’s BBC performance, Lib Dem Education Spokesperson Munira Wilson said the prime minister “has gone from ducking D-Day to blundering on betting”.
“If he was truly angry about this scandal these Conservative candidates would have been suspended,” she said.
Pat McFadden, Labour’s National Campaign Coordinator, said Mr Sunak’s “performance tonight was an abject failure”.
The Tories hit back: “It was clear from the debate tonight that Keir Starmer will say just what he thinks you want to hear.”
Read more: Has Sunak blundered by opting for long, six-week election campaign? Tory voters say gambling scandal won’t make a difference
Starmer grilled on U-turns
Mr Sunak faced questions after Sir Keir took to the stage for a grilling that mainly centred around his previous support for Jeremy Corbyn and multiple policy U-turns.
The Labour leader ducked a volley of questions over whether he truly believed his predecessor would make a “great” prime minister, but said he would have been better than Boris Johnson – who went on to win in 2019.
On his U-turns, such as rowing back on a promise to abolish university tuition fees and nationalise energy, Sir Keir said he was a “common sense politician” and those pledges were no longer financially viable after the damage the Tories had done to the economy.
Davey confronted over-coalition years
The event also heard from Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, who faced difficult questions about his record in the coalition years and as postal affairs minister during the Horizon scandal.
Challenged by a student over his party abandoning their pledge to scrap tuition fees in the coalition era, he said: “I understand why your generation lost faith in us. It was a difficult government to be in.”
On his time as postal affairs minister, and whether he was proud of that role, he said he made “two big mistakes”, including failing to initially meet campaigner Alan Bates and not seeing through assurances given to him by the Post Office that there was nothing wrong with the faulty IT system that led to hundreds of wrongful convictions.
Meanwhile, SNP leader John Swinney, when asked whether he was going to carry on with calling for independence “until you get the answer you want”, stressed his belief that Scotland would be better as an independent country.
“I want Scotland to be like Denmark, or Ireland, or Sweden as an independent country. And when you look at those countries, they are more prosperous, they are more equal, they are fairer than Scotland and the United Kingdom,” he said.
Rishi Sunak has made the calculation that 4 July is, if not the best date for an election for the Conservatives, then – as far as he can see – the least worst.
Firstly, he thinks there is a story to tell on the economy – albeit one that is not without peril.
Britain is out of recession, while inflation today is statistically within “normal” levels.
Politics Live: Sunak ditches jacket for first election rally – as he asks ‘who do you trust?’
Secondly, it’s likely a plane will possibly take off for the Rwanda within the election campaign. While this will be branded a success, it avoids the judgement on the true purpose of the policy – to stop the boats.
Thirdly, I understand it was no longer possible to have a budget or further fiscal statement after the big promise to increase military spending to 2.5% by 2030.
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In full: PM announces election
One Tory source told me that the moment they saw that, they knew there wouldn’t be further tax cuts and an election would be sooner rather than later.
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But more than that, there was a real – perhaps existential – question about how long Sunak could continue to hold it together.
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There are revolts in parliament looming – on abortion, on smoking and on shorter prison sentencing. This potentially avoids some of those.
He was also facing questions whether he would have to do a reshuffle after Chris Heaton Harris, Northern Ireland Secretary, announced his departure at the next election. Precedent that should have prompted a reshuffle – perhaps this has avoided that.
There are also claims – that might never be proved one way or another – that more and more Tories wanted him gone and he could have been tiptoeing closer to a vote of no confidence. Only Sir Graham Brady may know the truth of this.
All of that is now in the past. Sunak has gambled, knowing success under any definition is hard.
Emergency care will be prioritised by the NHS next week when strike action by junior doctors will see the biggest disruption of services to date, with thousands of routine appointments postponed.
The industrial action is set to begin on Monday at all trusts in England for 72 hours.
It is the longest continuous period of walkouts to hit the health service in recent months, following strikes by nurses, paramedics and physiotherapists.
However, with around 61,000 junior doctors making up half of the medical workforce and no national derogations having been agreed, the NHS is warning the latest action is expected to see some of the most severe disruption to date, impacting on efforts to cut the record-high waiting list.
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As a result, emergency, critical and maternity care will be prioritised, as well as patients who have waited the longest for elective care and cancer surgery where possible.
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, the medical director of the NHS, said: “The NHS has been working incredibly hard to mitigate the impact of this strike.
“While we are doing what we can to avoid having to reschedule appointments, there’s no doubt that disruption will be much more severe than before and patients who have been waiting for some time will face postponements across many treatment areas.
“Where there are postponements, we’ll be trying to re-book as quickly as possible. However, it is vital to attend planned appointments unless told otherwise.
“We have no option but to prioritise emergency and critical care as a matter of patient safety, and we’re asking the public to help us and use 111 online as well as local services like general practice and pharmacies as first points of call, but people should of course always use 999 in a life-threatening emergency.”
The NHS stressed that the measures were needed to make sure safe care continues to be available for those in life-threatening situations.
It said routine appointments and procedures will only be cancelled where unavoidable and patients will be offered an alternative date as soon as possible.
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The warning comes after senior leaders reportedly told the Health Service Journal that ministers have not sufficiently sounded the alarm about the risk to patient harm posed by the strikes.
More than 98% of junior doctors from the British Medical Association (BMA) voted to take industrial action in the dispute over pay and conditions.
Talks between the BMA and Health Secretary Steve Barclay at the start of March did not improve matters, with the union saying the cabinet minister “refused to come forth with any improved offer”.
The BMA says that while workload and waiting lists are at record highs, pay for junior doctors has been cut “by more than a quarter since 2008”.
But the government says pay has increased by a cumulative 8.2% since 2019/20 and further wage increases aren’t affordable at a time of record-high inflation.
Health leaders ‘preparing for absolute worst’
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NHS Crisis: ‘Past breaking point’
The NHS Confederation, which represents trusts across the country, urged both sides to “show willingness to compromise and bring these strikes to an end without delay”.
It said health leaders are “preparing for the absolute worst” with some taking down 50% of their planned theatre activity and others are opting for 100%.
Elsewhere one large hospital is having to rearrange more than 2,000 outpatient appointments and over 200 non-urgent surgeries next week.
Read more: Around 23,000 excess deaths in 2022 were ‘linked to A&E waits’ NHS England set to miss two key targets of COVID recovery plan
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “We are disappointed the government and BMA have failed to put a stop to the forthcoming junior doctors strikes, especially after the positive steps that have been made with the other trade unions.”
He added: “… no national exceptions have been agreed to these walkouts, and many trusts will find themselves in a difficult position trying to navigate payment of the BMA’s recommended rate card for consultants when covering the work of junior doctors.
“This means it is likely that disruption to patient services will be like nothing the NHS has seen since industrial action started last December. Thousands of procedures and appointments are likely to be cancelled.”
The ban on a range of plastic cups, cutlery, and food containers will take effect in England this October.
Shops and restaurants will not be able to sell many single-use plastics, including polystyrene containers, leaving businesses to source alternative biodegradable products, like paper cups or wooden cutlery.
The ban will not include the plastic found in pre-packaged supermarket meals, and follows similar moves in Scotland and Wales.
According to estimates, 2.7 billion items of single-use cutlery, most of which are plastic, are used in England each year, but only 10% are recycled.
In July last year, a project launched by Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic, found that households across the UK, throw away almost 100 billion pieces of plastic every year.
Plastic pollution takes hundreds of years to break down and millions of tonnes are poured into the ocean every year, with fatal consequences for marine animals.
The government launched a public consultation, which found an overwhelming majority of people were in favour of prohibiting plastic items, but the changes could hit the hospitality sector particularly hard, when costs are already spiralling with inflation.
Warning of ‘considerable difference’ in prices
Edit Shahin is the manager at Cafe Bueno in Romford, East London.
“Absolutely every piece of stock, every item of food has risen in price in the last year, so this [ban] might seem like something small, but it’s not,” he said.
“We do sell a lot of takeaway containers, plastic spoons and plastic cups, so it will make a considerable difference [in price].”
Cafe Bueno already stocks some aluminium foil trays for takeaway meals, and Mr Shahin says they are more expensive than polystyrene containers and wants the government to reduce the price of plastic alternatives for businesses.
“It’s understandable, they [the government] are trying their best to help the environment,” he said.
“But there’s thousands of businesses in the UK, takeaway shops mainly, who all use plastic cups, plastic takeaway containers, so it will affect the whole of the UK, not just us. It’s just pretty much damaging small businesses.”
Mr Shahin also worries that it will be hard to find suitable non-plastic materials for some drinks they serve, like smoothies, which could leak through a paper cup.
‘We have listened to the public’
Environment Secretary Therese Coffey says the ban builds on previous policy changes.
She said: “We have banned microbeads, restricted the use of straws, stirrers, and cotton buds and our carrier bag charge has successfully cut sales by over 97% in the main supermarkets.
“We all know the absolutely devastating impacts that plastic can have on our environment and wildlife.
“We have listened to the public, and these new single-use plastics bans will continue our vital work to protect the environment for future generations.”
But conservation charities want the government to go further.
“We really need to see the plastic pollution tap turned off,” says Amy Slack, head of campaigns and policy at Surfers Against Sewage.
“What we’re seeing now is essentially policies that are bailing out the bath water, and we need to see those policies implemented in a strategic coordinated approach across all of the nations within the UK.”
Britons will get an extra day off next year thanks to the King’s coronation.
Just was the case for the Queen‘s coronation back in 1953, a bank holiday will give people across the country an opportunity to come together to celebrate.
It will fall in all four nations of the UK on Monday 8 May, following the coronation on Saturday 6 May.
The coronation will be held at Westminster Abbey, conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.
Tipped to be shorter and more modest than previous ceremonies, with some suggesting it will last an hour, it will see King Charles crowned alongside his wife, Camilla, the Queen Consort.
The palace has said the ceremony would “reflect the monarch’s role today and looks towards the future” while staying “rooted in long-standing traditions and pageantry”.
By comparison, the Queen’s coronation on 2 June 1953 took three hours with a congregation of 8,000 dignitaries.
Rishi Sunak, already the King’s second PM since taking the throne in September, said: “The coronation of a new monarch is a unique moment for our country.
“In recognition of this historic occasion, I am pleased to announce an additional bank holiday for the whole United Kingdom next year.
“I look forward to seeing people come together to celebrate and pay tribute to King Charles III by taking part in local and national events across the country in his honour.”
