Only 10 of the households made homeless by the Grenfell Tower fire have been permanently rehoused four months after the blaze, the communities minister has told MPs.

Sajid Javid revealed that officials are trying to rehouse 203 households following the fire in June that claimed about 80 lives. That is more than the 151 homes that were lost in the tower and in neighbouring Grenfell Walk, because many households have chosen to split and be rehoused separately, he said.

Just over half of the households – 111 – have accepted offers of either temporary or permanent accommodation. Of those, 44 have moved in to temporary homes and 10 into permanent homes. That leaves 92 households yet to accept accommodation of any kind.

“Clearly, a large number still remain in hotels and emergency accommodation and on top of that there are also others in hotels following the tragedy who haven’t lost their homes but they may have been damaged or the families traumatised,” Javid said.

He said the delay was partly down to families asking for redecoration or specific furniture in their new homes, as was their right, adding that the council was aiming to ensure no one is living in hotels at Christmas, unless they want to be.

There are still some families, particularly the bereaved families, who are not ready to make a decision Sajid Javid, communities secretary

Javid said the priority in trying to get people rehoused as quickly as possible was to “listen very carefully to what each family wants, what they say their needs are and to move at their pace”.

He said: “If they change their minds or are unclear ... we are giving them more time. No one is being pushed in any way into reaching a decision. There are still some families, particularly the bereaved families, who are not ready to make a decision and do not want to engage in the process.”

Javid said there have been several occasions where families cannot decide whether they want to be near their old home or even outside the borough. Some individuals have said they prefer to stay in hotel rooms at the moment while other families have refused several properties.

He reported that the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has bought 167 new permanent homes and has 130 temporary properties available. Bereaved families are being given first refusal, followed by disabled people, those with children and then the rest, in a system agreed in consultation with the survivors group Grenfell United.

Meanwhile, survivors who feared deportation because of their uncertain immigration status are to be allowed permanent residency in the UK, the Home Office has announced.



Some residents were unwilling to come forward to help investigations because under normal circumstances their immigration status could have led them to be removed from the country.

In the wake of the fire, ministers said such residents could be granted 12 months’ limited leave to remain in the UK, but that has now been extended to permanent status following pressure from survivors’ campaign groups and the shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott. It is believed to affect no more than 20 people.

“Since the Grenfell Tower immigration policy was announced, we have been planning for the future of those residents affected by these unprecedented events and listening to their feedback, as well as the views of Sir Martin Moore-Bick [chairman of the public inquiry],” said Brandon Lewis, immigration minister. “The government believes it is right to provide this specific group of survivors greater certainty over their long-term future in the UK, subject to their continued eligibility and the necessary security and criminality checks being met.”

The policy will apply to residents of the tower at the time of the blaze and people living in adjacent buildings who lost their homes permanently. They must come forward before 30 November to have their limited leave extended and to qualify for permanent residence after a total period of five years.

Earlier the chancellor, Philip Hammond, confirmed that councils that need to spend millions of pounds on making similar tower blocks safe from fire will not automatically receive government funding, and that it will only be handed out as a “last resort”.

Last weekend the Guardian reported that several councils are in dispute with ministers over who would pay to retrofit sprinklers to dozens of tower blocks and to replace cladding similar to that which burned so ferociously on Grenfell Tower.

Hammond told the Commons Treasury select committee: “Any safety-critical work that is required needs to be carried out. We will not allow a situation to arise where a housing authority or a social landlord, due to lack of financial resource, cannot carry out safety-critical work. That does not mean the government will automatically step in and provide funding for that safety-critical work.”

He said the government would look at “moving ringfences” to allow councils to spend protected funding and claimed the government had asked councils that warned they did not have the money to set out the details. He said that as a “last resort”, when a council “genuinely does not have any available resource”, the government would make sure the money was provided.

Moore-Bick’s public inquiry into the disaster appears unlikely to start taking evidence until the new year.