CAMPAIGNERS told Labour to “get a grip” of the building safety crisis today after ministers failed to announce a timeline for fixing death trap structures.

It comes after the final inquiry report into the Grenfell fire blamed the blaze on “decades of failure” by the government and construction industry bosses to address the risks of combustible materials in high-rise buildings. 

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner told BBC breakfast yesterday that she is “astonished” at how many buildings with unsafe cladding are waiting for remediation work.

She said that it was “not acceptable” that more than 2,000 buildings still need unsafe cladding removed, but failed to commit to a timeline for the process. 

Ms Rayner warned there were “very complex” ownership structures for some buildings, with some being owned offshore, and said the government is looking into how these owners can be held to account.

She added that there is £5 billion of government funding available to support the programme to remove the cladding.

A “remediation acceleration plan” is expected to be announced in autumn to speed up the process.

The government had estimated in July that around 11,000 buildings more than 11 metres tall require remediation works, but it is only monitoring 4,630. 

Campaigners from End Our Cladding Scandal campaign urged Labour to “get a grip of the building safety crisis and help all leaseholders and residents finally move on with their lives.”

It said: “There must be a root and branch review of all funding schemes quickly and the perversely complicated approach devised by the Conservatives has to be simplified so that self-interested parties – such as freeholders, housing associations, developers and managing agents – are taken out of the process to the fullest extent possible.”

Campaigners urged Sir Keir Starmer to “make industry pay instead of leaseholders, all of whom are equally innocent irrespective of their circumstances.”

The Prime Minister pledged ministers would respond to the report in full within six months.

The report exposed the “systematic dishonesty” of firms who made and sold the cladding and insulation used on the tower, finding that they had manipulated fire safety tests on combustible materials.

It said that the drive for deregulation by governments since 2010 meant concerns over safety were “ignored, delayed or disregarded.”