Is the government about to bankrupt thousands of homeowners?

Within the next year or two, I could go bankrupt. My mistake: to join a government-backed affordable housing scheme and purchase a one-bedroom flat in east London. For the past four years, it has been my pride and joy — not to mention my savings, my pension and my financial future. I was grateful for the government’s help in getting a foothold in the city. But now another government policy is hurtling towards me, against which I have no defence. Nor do potentially tens of thousands of first-time buyers and the owners of affordable housing in my position. It might be the next big scandal to hit the government.

It’s about cladding. Three years ago, the tragedy at Grenfell showed what can happen when you get this wrong: insulation added for environmental reasons turned out to be highly flammable. The residents were living in a death trap, and when a fridge caught fire, the tower block became an inferno.