Prime Minister Andy Burnham (pictured) has called on retailers to stop selling disposable barbecues as record heat and drought conditions push wildfire risk to levels insurers are already actively pricing into rural and semi-rural property books.
Burnham urged "all retailers big and small" to follow voluntary guidance suspending sales during extreme heat, and said the government would consider a formal seasonal ban in the longer term. The comments followed an emergency Cobra meeting on the government's response to record temperatures, attended by ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Home Office, the Department for Health, and the Environment Agency. It was the first such session Burnham has chaired since becoming prime minister on July 20, 2026.
A number of large retailers and supermarkets, including Asda and Lidl, have already withdrawn disposable barbecues from sale under a framework agreed in 2023 between fire chiefs and the British Retail Consortium, which asks retailers to suspend sales once an extreme heat event is declared imminent or in response to evidence-based requests from local councils. Burnham said single-use grills had been behind a number of recent blazes and that people should not be using them "at this moment in time."
Nearly three-quarters of England and all of Wales are officially in drought, and the Met Office has issued a rare amber extreme heat warning, with temperatures expected to reach the mid-to-high 30s across the Midlands and south-east, and a possible high of 38°C. Fire and rescue services in England and Wales had attended 1,017 wildfires in 2026 by the time of the Cobra meeting, equalling last year's full-year record-breaking total, according to National Fire Chiefs Council data shared with the Press Association. July alone was the busiest wildfire month on record, with 393 incidents attended across England and Wales, per NFCC National Resilience data.
The political response follows weeks of warnings from within the insurance market. Insurance Business UK reported in July that a third UK heatwave of 2026 renewed subsidence and wildfire risk warnings from insurers, with Prestige Underwriting flagging growing concern in the non-standard property market and Ecclesiastical Insurance noting that some regions had recorded their driest start to a year since 1976. Underwriting appetite in affected postcodes, both urban and rural, was already reported to be under pressure heading into the autumn renewal season.
That pressure sharpened further after the New Forest wildfire, which exposed gaps in standard UK property cover. Deloitte forecast in December 2025 that UK home insurers would swing to a net underwriting loss in 2026, with the combined ratio projected to reach 102.1% as storm, flood, and subsidence claims accumulate - a projection made before the current drought and wildfire season intensified. A market paying out more than it earns in premium is more likely to tighten terms and scrutinise wildfire-exposed risks at renewal, not less.
Brokers with clients holding rural property, agricultural land or motor fleets operating near heathland or national park areas should be checking whether wildfire is named or excluded in property wordings, whether fire cover responds regardless of ignition source, and whether business interruption extensions cover disruption caused by events off the client's own premises.
Beyond national policy, a Labour MP wrote to large retailers last week urging them to stop selling disposable barbecues for the rest of the summer, with Liberal Democrat MPs also backing restrictions. The National Farmers' Union has called on local councils to use public space protection orders to restrict use in high-risk areas - a power councils including Brighton & Hove and Fylde in Lancashire have already exercised. Breaching such an order currently carries a fixed penalty notice of up to £100, with the Crime and Policing Act 2026 raising that upper limit to £500, on top of a separate maximum court fine of up to £1,000 on prosecution.
Insurers have spent the summer adjusting underwriting appetite and flagging cover gaps in real time as wildfire and subsidence exposure has built across drought-affected regions, while government action remains at the voluntary-guidance stage with a formal ban still only under consideration. For brokers, that gap matters practically: waiting for legislation to catch up is not a substitute for reviewing natural peril exclusions and business interruption wordings with clients now, particularly heading into a renewal season insurers are already treating as materially riskier than the one before it.
