Rebel Conservative MPs have called on the government to stop charging VAT on fire safety repairs to rescue leaseholders from a potential £2.5bn tax bill. Tory backbenchers on Friday tabled amendments to the building safety bill in an attempt to protect hundreds of thousands of households from soaring costs of fixing combustible cladding and other defects discovered after the 14 June 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people. MPs have estimated that apartment owners face a combined £15bn repair bill. Leaseholders receiving bills for repairs of up to £100,000 have voiced fury at seeing that 20% of that is tax. This week Michael Gove, the secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, said the long-awaited bill would pass through parliament before Christmas. A cross-party alliance is expected to press for the zero-rating on VAT, including recouping tax paid on works already carried out, as well as measures to protect leaseholders under a “polluter pays” principle. Stephen McPartland, the Conservative MP for Stevenage, said the VAT change would correct an unfair anomaly, in that the developers of the defective blocks did not have to pay VAT because new-builds are exempt, but leaseholders have to pay 20% extra to make those defects safe, because repairs are taxed. “It’s another example of the leaseholders paying for other people’s mistakes,” said McPartland, who has enlisted 23 other Conservative MPs to support his amendments. “So far the government has offered a £5bn fund [for leaseholders in buildings taller than 18 metres with defective cladding] but it gets £1bn of that back immediately.” Other Tory backers include Royston Smith, Damian Green, Bob Blackman and Tracey Crouch. They also want VAT to be removed from the costs of fire safety patrols – known as waking watch – which are operating in about 1,000 blocks in London and more elsewhere. The average cost per household in London is almost £500 a month. Liam Spender, an affected leaseholder and cladding scandal campaigner, said: “The government should not be making a profit. Leaseholders are being forced to pick up these bills because of poor regulation and shoddy construction. For the same reason, the government should also be looking at some mechanism to refund insurance premium tax it is currently collecting on hugely inflated buildings insurance premiums. Some of these insurers seem to be ripe for a windfall tax on their profits from this.” In what some leaseholders welcomed as a change in government tone on solving the building safety crisis, Gove said on Monday: “There is an urgent need to deal with the persistence of ACM cladding on tall buildings, but there is an equally urgent need to ensure justice is done.” He told the select committee on levelling up, housing and communities: “The government has a responsibility to make buildings safe but we also have a responsibility to relieve some of the obligations faced by leaseholders at the moment who are innocent parties in this and in many circumstances are being asked to pay disproportionate sums when there are individuals in business, some of them still in business, who are guilty men and women.” A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: “It is unacceptable and unfair that leaseholders are facing excessive bills” and that building owners must not pass on costs of making buildings safe. “The government is providing £5bn to remove unsafe cladding in the highest risk buildings and we have so far processed over 600 building applications, with estimated remediation costs of £2.5bn,” they said. “The new secretary of state is looking afresh at this issue to make sure everything is being done to protect and support those affected, and further details will be set out in due course.”