The cost of replacing dangerous cladding must be covered by those responsible

Imagine if one or more motor car manufacturers made and sold a large quantity of vehicles with inherent safety faults. Imagine if these faults were caused by poor build quality and the use of materials which were known not to be safe.

When these matters came to light (either through serious incidents, testing by independent organisations, or when faulty vehicles were brought into independent vehicle workshops), what steps might the owners expect the motor manufacturers to take to rectify these faults?

In the majority of cases, the manufacturers would readily accept the burden of responsibility and put the faults right at their own cost. The abiding point is that the vehicle owners have their vehicles made safe with only the cost of inconvenience to bear.

So why is this not the case where significant safety failures are found with people's homes? There are today a substantial number of homeowners in this exact position, and yet the builders or developers have been allowed to sidestep their responsibilities.

No one would expect all motor manufacturers, or all taxpayers, to pick up the cost of having their dangerous vehicle made safe. This would rightly be seen as inequitable. So please can someone tell me why builders and developers, along with their contractors, sub-contractors and suppliers, are being allowed to share the cost of their failures with all developers of future high-rise buildings, the building owners and taxpayers?

Why has the government not taken the logical, equitable approach to this matter and laid the cost of replacing dangerous cladding at the door of those responsible? Is it, perhaps, that they themselves feel a shared responsibility?

David Curran

Feltham, Middlesex

I feel very sorry for the lease holders in those blocks of flats with dangerous cladding – cladding that was known to be unsuitable for use by the developers that installed it.

But what has this to do with the taxpayer – £5.1bn of our money when the latest £3.5bn is added to the already given £1.6bn?

People should be behind bars for installing faulty cladding resulting in the many deaths caused by their penny-pinching. It's up to them to sort out this mess. Not the taxpayers.

 Pete Cresswell

County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland 

Fixing the cladding issue is really not rocket science. Here’s how.

An urgent task force should identify all the relevant buildings and assess the necessary remedial work. Each landlord should be compelled by law to undertake that work, failing which the government will commission it at the landlord’s expense, and to refund all extra costs incurred by tenants.

The landlord will have recourse to public finance at a low rate of interest secured on its freehold of the relevant building. There will be a period for repayment after which the security can be enforced.

Philip Goldenberg

Woking

Tom Peck (Voices, 10 February) quoted Robert Jenrick’s words in the Commons that “English property law has always worked on the principle of ‘caveat emptor’ [or] ‘buyer beware’.”

Unfortunately, the same principle applies when we elect our governments.

Phil Whitney

Cromford, Derbyshire

To be (on holiday) or not to be, that is the question.

The solution is to have a Schrodinger holiday when you are simultaneously on holiday and not on holiday. This will be very much in keeping with government policies and avoids any U-turns, as well as the possibility of anybody ever being wrong.

Of course, it does demand being removed from reality.

Robert Murray

Nottingham

Boris Johnson recently claimed that no government could have helped British people through this pandemic more than his.

Interesting, then, that if you held a one minute silence for every Covid death in Vietnam (population: 97 million) you would be silent for 35 minutes. In Thailand (population: 69 million) you would be silent for one hour and 39 minutes. In the UK (population: 67 million) you would be silent for 77 days and six hours.

Julie Partridge

London SE15 

May I speak in support of the government’s plan to reform the NHS. I think it’s admirable that the government is thinking about the future even though it’s in the middle of a current crisis. 

But – and there has to be a but – the way it’s been announced is yet another example of just how bad this government is at announcing anything and how bad it is at the day-to-day running of the country.

When members of the cabinet, who are supposed to operate on the basis of collective and agreed responsibility, can’t even agree on whether or not we should book a holiday, can there be any wonder if people question their ability to successfully reform the health service? 

It speaks to a fundamental problem in government that starts with the prime minister. He wants to govern with broad brush strokes (which is a fine method if you’re the chief executive of a large organisation) but it only works if his subordinates speak with one voice and themselves demonstrate competence and unity.

When it’s all too easy to find examples of incompetence or ignorance, it is unsurprising that reform of the NHS is instantly judged as beyond the current government’s capabilities.

Steve Mumby

London SW6