Why are combustible materials still being used in new buildings?

Analysis: schools and hospitals are being clad in dangerous plastics, to the dismay of parents and teachers

Eighteen months after the Grenfell Tower fire the government announced a ban on the use of combustible materials in the external walls of high-rise residential buildings. It was too late for the 72 people killed at the west London council block that was wrapped in plastics.

In the preceding years, a boom in building flats meant that thousands of other blocks were wrapped in similar materials, and the country is now enmeshed in a 15bn high-rise fire safety crisis, leading to rows about who should pay to replace the dangerous materials.