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Legal powers introduced since the Grenfell Tower fire to force building owners to fix serious fire safety issues are being ignored, Sky News can reveal.

One of the UK’s first Building Remediation Orders, issued by a judge last year, gave the owners of a block of flats in Bristol six months to fix serious fire safety defects including removing dangerous Grenfell-style insulation. The court’s deadline has now passed and nothing has been done, leaving residents fearful in their homes.

As a major report is published tomorrow to name and shame those responsible for the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower that killed 72 people on 14 June 2017, there are still hundreds of thousands of people living in buildings they know to be unsafe.

Seven years on from the disaster, legislation enacted to end Britain’s building safety crisis has failed to be enforced.

At least 3,280 buildings are known to still have unsafe cladding, with only 949 of those having started works, according to the latest government data.

‘Scary to think about’

Steph Culpin
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Steph Culpin

“It’s something you think about every day,” says Steph Culpin, 37, who owns a flat on the second floor of the colourful block needing repair in Bristol.

“There are people in the building that might struggle to get out if there’s a fire…the best we’ve got is that a fire hasn’t happened. And that’s scary to think about.”

Ms Culpin bought her two-bedroom flat in Orchard House, a former office building that was extended and converted into 54 flats in 2018, a year after the Grenfell Tower fire.

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The Grenfell children who survived the blaze
Tower block that went up in flames was having cladding replaced

Orchard House
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Orchard House

It wasn’t until 2019 that she and other residents were informed through new fire surveys required post-Grenfell that there was a litany of alarming safety risks.

Flammable material around Ms Culpin’s windows and installed between the two buildings of her block was labelled “high risk”.

And the shock discovery of combustible insulation manufactured by Celotex, one of the firms who gave evidence at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, meant Orchard House was given the lowest fire safety rating available on a five-point scale.

The Building Safety Act, which was drawn up in the wake of the Grenfell fire and took effect in 2023, placed responsibility on building owners to replace defective materials.

But the owner of Orchard House, Stockwood Land 2 Limited, currently run by Amarjit Singh Litt and previously by members of the Litt family, has refused to engage with any of the problems found.

In November 2023, Ms Culpin and a fellow resident became one of only a handful to take their freeholder to court to try to force action.

Orchard House’s owner didn’t attend the court hearing despite the judge ruling they “knew or ought to have known about these proceedings”.

The tribunal ruled in favour of the residents and ordered the owner to carry out the work by June 2024.

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‘I realised the burning building was my own home’

However, the deadline came and went, the work has not been done and no one from Stockwood Land 2 Limited has responded to the many attempts to contact them.

“When you talk to somebody that isn’t in this situation, it’s actually really difficult to get across the severity of it and how it makes you feel,” Ms Culpin says. “From a mental health point of view, from a financial point of view.

“Because they just go, ‘surely somebody is going to make sure they do that. Are you sure you’ve spoken to the right people?’ and those are [the] sort of questions that you get and you go, ‘yeah, I’ve knocked on every door we have. And they’re all just shut’.”

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Ms Culpin can’t sell the flat because until the work has been done no mortgage lender will approve an application from a buyer.

She is now paying interest on a Help To Buy Loan she cannot pay off.

All government schemes to help fund remedial works have to be agreed upon by the building owners and cannot be instigated by residents.

‘You live with it all the time’

Across the country, there are thousands of examples of buildings where work should have been done but hasn’t because the owners have delayed it or disappeared.

Paul Baston
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Paul Baston

In Birmingham, Paul Baston, 66, lives on the top floor of Liberty Place, a high-rise canal-side development.

Standing on his balcony, the problem is clear. Banned aluminium composite (ACM) cladding covers the outside walls from floor to ceiling.

ACM is the same cladding that was on Grenfell Tower and was immediately forbidden from being used on buildings after the tragedy.

“It is very, very stressful. It’s very worrying. You live with it all the time,” says Mr Baston, who keeps his passport, driving licence, keys and wallet on his bedside table in case he has to evacuate the building in a hurry.

He worries about others in the building with young families or elderly relatives.

“You’ve got to be mindful and be prepared. And this is as prepared as I can be,” he says.

Mr Baston’s building is owned by Lendlease, who told Sky News it plans to carry out replacement work later this year.

Jim Illingworth
Image:
Jim Illingworth

‘Half-safe’

In another part of Birmingham, Jim Illingworth, 65, has new cladding which was replaced by his building’s owners under the government’s Building Safety Scheme.

But not all fire risks have been removed.

Internal surveys routinely carried out by mortgage lenders and insurance companies have revealed a design flaw that means fire could still spread rapidly between flats.

Mr Illingworth, who lives in the one-bedroom flat with his wife, says it leaves the building “half-safe”.

Now categorised as just one rating above Ms Culpin in Bristol, his risk is deemed low enough that remedial works are not required.

“According to the government, it’s nice and safe – according to the insurers and the mortgage people, it’s not safe.

“So we’ve got the government saying one thing and the practicality on the ground saying something totally different.”

It means Mr Illingworth is paying three times as much in building insurance compared to when he moved in.

He says there are estate agents who “won’t touch the buildings” due to banks still being reluctant to offer mortgages on the flats.

Recommendations in the final report from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry will focus on the technical aspects of the fire at the west London building “to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again”.

But people across the UK are raising the same warnings and living with the same combustible materials which made up Grenfell Tower, as well as uncovering new fire risks every day.

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Bank chiefs to Reeves: Ditch ring-fencing to boost UK economy

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Bank chiefs to Reeves: Ditch ring-fencing to boost UK economy

The bosses of four of Britain’s biggest banks are secretly urging the chancellor to ditch the most significant regulatory change imposed after the 2008 financial crisis, warning her its continued imposition is inhibiting UK economic growth.

Sky News has obtained an explosive letter sent this week by the chief executives of HSBC Holdings, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group and Santander UK in which they argue that bank ring-fencing “is not only a drag on banks’ ability to support business and the economy, but is now redundant”.

The CEOs’ letter represents an unprecedented intervention by most of the UK’s major lenders to abolish a reform which cost them billions of pounds to implement and which was designed to make the banking system safer by separating groups’ high street retail operations from their riskier wholesale and investment banking activities.

Their request to Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, to abandon ring-fencing 15 years after it was conceived will be seen as a direct challenge to the government to take drastic action to support the economy during a period when it is forcing economic regulators to scrap red tape.

It will, however, ignite controversy among those who believe that ditching the UK’s most radical post-crisis reform risks exacerbating the consequences of any future banking industry meltdown.

In their letter to the chancellor, the quartet of bank chiefs told Ms Reeves that: “With global economic headwinds, it is crucial that, in support of its Industrial Strategy, the government’s Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy removes unnecessary constraints on the ability of UK banks to support businesses across the economy and sends the clearest possible signal to investors in the UK of your commitment to reform.

“While we welcomed the recent technical adjustments to the ring-fencing regime, we believe it is now imperative to go further.

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“Removing the ring-fencing regime is, we believe, among the most significant steps the government could take to ensure the prudential framework maximises the banking sector’s ability to support UK businesses and promote economic growth.”

Work on the letter is said to have been led by HSBC, whose new chief executive, Georges Elhedery, is among the signatories.

His counterparts at Lloyds, Charlie Nunn; NatWest’s Paul Thwaite; and Mike Regnier, who runs Santander UK, also signed it.

While Mr Thwaite in particular has been public in questioning the continued need for ring-fencing, the letter – sent on Tuesday – is the first time that such a collective argument has been put so forcefully.

The only notable absentee from the signatories is CS Venkatakrishnan, the Barclays chief executive, although he has publicly said in the past that ring-fencing is not a major financial headache for his bank.

Other industry executives have expressed scepticism about that stance given that ring-fencing’s origination was largely viewed as being an attempt to solve the conundrum posed by Barclays’ vast investment banking operations.

The introduction of ring-fencing forced UK-based lenders with a deposit base of at least £25bn to segregate their retail and investment banking arms, supposedly making them easier to manage in the event that one part of the business faced insolvency.

Banks spent billions of pounds designing and setting up their ring-fenced entities, with separate boards of directors appointed to each division.

More recently, the Treasury has moved to increase the deposit threshold from £25bn to £35bn, amid pressure from a number of faster-growing banks.

Sam Woods, the current chief executive of the main banking regulator, the Prudential Regulation Authority, was involved in formulating proposals published by the Sir John Vickers-led Independent Commission on Banking in 2011.

Legislation to establish ring-fencing was passed in the Financial Services Reform (Banking) Act 2013, and the regime came into effect in 2019.

In addition to ring-fencing, banks were forced to substantially increase the amount and quality of capital they held as a risk buffer, while they were also instructed to create so-called ‘living wills’ in the event that they ran into financial trouble.

The chancellor has repeatedly spoken of the need to regulate for growth rather than risk – a phrase the four banks hope will now persuade her to abandon ring-fencing.

Britain is the only major economy to have adopted such an approach to regulating its banking industry – a fact which the four bank chiefs say is now undermining UK competitiveness.

“Ring-fencing imposes significant and often overlooked costs on businesses, including SMEs, by exposing them to banking constraints not experienced by their international competitors, making it harder for them to scale and compete,” the letter said.

“Lending decisions and pricing are distorted as the considerable liquidity trapped inside the ring-fence can only be used for limited purposes.

“Corporate customers whose financial needs become more complex as they grow larger, more sophisticated, or engage in international trade, are adversely affected given the limits on services ring-fenced banks can provide.

“Removing ring-fencing would eliminate these cliff-edge effects and allow firms to obtain the full suite of products and services from a single bank, reducing administrative costs”.

In recent months, doubts have resurfaced about the commitment of Spanish banking giant Santander to its UK operations amid complaints about the costs of regulation and supervision.

The UK’s fifth-largest high street lender held tentative conversations about a sale to either Barclays or NatWest, although they did not progress to a formal stage.

HSBC, meanwhile, is particularly restless about the impact of ring-fencing on its business, given its sprawling international footprint.

“There has been a material decline in UK wholesale banking since ring-fencing was introduced, to the detriment of British businesses and the perception of the UK as an internationally orientated economy with a global financial centre,” the letter said.

“The regime causes capital inefficiencies and traps liquidity, preventing it from being deployed efficiently across Group entities.”

The four bosses called on Ms Reeves to use this summer’s Mansion House dinner – the City’s annual set-piece event – to deliver “a clear statement of intent…to abolish ring-fencing during this Parliament”.

Doing so, they argued, would “demonstrate the government’s determination to do what it takes to promote growth and send the strongest possible signal to investors of your commitment to the City and to strengthen the UK’s position as a leading international financial centre”.

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Post Office to unveil £1.75bn banking deal with big British lenders

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Post Office to unveil £1.75bn banking deal with big British lenders

The Post Office will next week unveil a £1.75bn deal with dozens of banks which will allow their customers to continue using Britain’s biggest retail network.

Sky News has learnt the next Post Office banking framework will be launched next Wednesday, with an agreement that will deliver an additional £500m to the government-owned company.

Banking industry sources said on Friday the deal would be worth roughly £350m annually to the Post Office – an uplift from the existing £250m-a-year deal, which expires at the end of the year.

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The sources added that in return for the additional payments, the Post Office would make a range of commitments to improving the service it provides to banks’ customers who use its branches.

Banks which participate in the arrangements include Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group and Santander UK.

Under the Banking Framework Agreement, the 30 banks and mutuals’ customers can access the Post Office’s 11,500 branches for a range of services, including depositing and withdrawing cash.

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The service is particularly valuable to those who still rely on physical cash after a decade in which well over 6,000 bank branches have been closed across Britain.

In 2023, more than £10bn worth of cash was withdrawn over the counter and £29bn in cash was deposited over the counter, the Post Office said last year.

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A new, longer-term deal with the banks comes at a critical time for the Post Office, which is trying to secure government funding to bolster the pay of thousands of sub-postmasters.

Reliant on an annual government subsidy, the reputation of the network’s previous management team was left in tatters by the Horizon IT scandal and the wrongful conviction of hundreds of sub-postmasters.

A Post Office spokesperson declined to comment ahead of next week’s announcement.

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Trump trade war: How UK figures show his tariff argument doesn’t add up

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Trump trade war: How UK figures show his tariff argument doesn't add up

As Chancellor Rachel Reeves meets her counterpart, US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent to discuss an “economic agreement” between the two countries, the latest trade figures confirm three realities that ought to shape negotiations.

The first is that the US remains a vital customer for UK businesses, the largest single-nation export market for British goods and the third-largest import partner, critical to the UK automotive industry, already landed with a 25% tariff, and pharmaceuticals, which might yet be.

In 2024 the US was the UK’s largest export market for cars, worth £9bn to companies including Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley and Aston Martin, and accounting for more than 27% of UK automotive exports.

Little wonder the domestic industry fears a heavy and immediate impact on sales and jobs should tariffs remain.

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Chancellor’s trade deal red lines explained

American car exports to the UK by contrast are worth just £1bn, which may explain why the chancellor may be willing to lower the current tariff of 10% to 2.5%.

For UK medicines and pharmaceutical producers meanwhile, the US was a more than £6bn market in 2024. Currently exempt from tariffs, while Mr Trump and his advisors think about how to treat an industry he has long-criticised for high prices, it remains vulnerable.

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The second point is that the US is even more important for the services industry. British exports of consultancy, PR, financial and other professional services to America were worth £131bn last year.

That’s more than double the total value of the goods traded in the same direction, but mercifully services are much harder to hammer with the blunt tool of tariffs, though not immune from regulation and other “non-tariff barriers”.

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How US ports are coping with tariffs

The third point is that, had Donald Trump stuck to his initial rationale for tariffs, UK exporters should not be facing a penny of extra cost for doing business with the US.

The president says he slapped blanket tariffs on every nation bar Russia to “rebalance” the US economy and reverse goods trade ‘deficits’ – in which the US imports more than it exports to a given country.

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That heavily contested argument might apply to Mexico, Canada, China and many other manufacturing nations, but it does not meaningfully apply to Britain.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show the US ran a small goods trade deficit with the UK in 2024 of £2.2bn, importing £59.3bn of goods against exports of £57.1bn.

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IMF downgrades UK growth forecast

Add in services trade, in which the UK exports more than double what it imports from the US, and the UK’s surplus – and thus the US ‘deficit’ – swells to nearly £78bn.

That might be a problem were it not for the US’ own accounts of the goods and services trade with Britain, which it says actually show a $15bn (£11.8bn) surplus with the UK.

You might think that they cannot both be right, but the ONS disagrees. The disparity is caused by the way the US Bureau of Economic Analysis accounts for services, as well as a range of statistical assumptions.

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“The presence of trade asymmetries does not indicate that either country is inaccurate in their estimation,” the ONS said.

That might be encouraging had Mr Trump not ignored his own arguments and landed the UK, like everyone else in the world, with a blanket 10% tariff on all goods.

Trade agreements are notoriously complex, protracted affairs, which helps explain why after nine years of trying the UK still has not got one with the US, and the Brexit deal it did with the EU against a self-imposed deadline has been proved highly disadvantageous.

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