Housing secretary Michael Gove has admitted that the government’s building-safety system was “faulty and ambiguous” in the years before 2017’s Grenfell Tower fire in a clear statement of the role the government played in the tragedy, which claimed 72 lives.

Gove’s comments follow more understated acknowledgements from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. They came ahead of today’s launch of new contracts that demand housebuilders fix fire safety defects in their blocks or face a ban on developing future schemes – event those that already have planning permission.

Gove said that the government did not think hard enough or police effectively enough “the whole system of building safety” before the west London tower-block fire in 2017. The fire was fuelled by highly combustible cladding and insulation fitted to the 1970s building’s exterior in a botched refurbishment.

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