Gove admission cuts no ice

The levelling up, housing and communities secretary, Michael Gove, has admitted that government building regulation guidance “was so faulty and ambiguous that it allowed unscrupulous people to exploit a broken system” and contributed to the Grenfell Tower fire.

Grenfell United, the campaign group of survivors and bereaved families, said he had “admitted to what we’ve known all along”.

It added: “Government failed. This is nothing new.”

Fire Protection Association director Jonathan O’Neill said he remained “to be convinced that the government has any real idea what went wrong and more importantly, how they should fix it”.