Developers appear set for a confrontation with Michael Gove after the housing secretary has reversed compromises negotiated by his predecessors over the vital legal text underpinning the £2bn cladding pledge.

With the Home Builders Federation (HBF) given a deadline of today to get its final comments back to government on the draft contract, industry sources say Gove appears determined to force through a version of the contract that is close to the original published document, which the HBF at the time told the government was “impossible to sign”.

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