THE Grenfell tragedy could have been stopped 26 years before the inferno with “warning signs” ignored for decades, a report has found.
The long-awaited inquiry into the tragic blaze that claimed the lives of 72 people, has found that successive governments ignored warnings about the building’s flammable cladding.
This final report, which follows further hearings on the tower’s 2016 refurbishment, will present conclusions on how the west London block of flats came to be in a condition which allowed the flames to spread so quickly.
Families of those killed have insisted it must be a “landmark report” which prompts widescale change after what was described as a “spider’s web of blame” was spun during inquiry hearings.
The inquiry – led by retired judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick – said the government had “failed to discharge” its responsibilities to ensure public safety for more than 25 years after a major fire in 1991 at Knowsley Heights, Merseyside.
He said that those who influence the construction industry, fire and rescue services, the management of fire safety in buildings and resilience planning must understand how mistakes “can be avoided in the future“.
“Warning signs” about materials being used in buildings were emerging as early as 1991, but nothing was done to take this seriously.
Sir Martin said: “The failings can be traced back over many years, and our efforts to get to the bottom of what went wrong and why accounts for the length of our report and the time it has taken us to produce it.
“We find that there was a failure on the part of the government and others to give proper consideration at an early stage to the dangers of using combustible materials in the walls of high-rise buildings.”
He said told the inquiry that the deaths of all 72 people who were killed in the fire at the building were avoidable.
Delivering his final statement seven years after the fire, chairman Sir Martin Moore-Bick said the tower residents were “badly failed over a number of years” by those responsible for ensuring their safety.
Sir Martin told how there was also “systemic dishonesty” on the part of manufacturers, involving deliberate manipulation of the testing process.
He also cited how in 1999, a parliamentary select committee warned it should not take a serious fire in which lives were lost for the government to act on fire safety in high-rise buildings.
After coming to power in 2010, the then-coalition government and its Conservative successor, elected in 2015, pursued a deregulation drive.
This included a “one in, two out” policy for new regulation that the inquiry said put civil servants under pressure to reduce red tape.
That pressure was particularly strong at the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), the ministry responsible for building regulations, which at the time was headed by Lord Eric Pickles – described by the inquiry as an “ardent supporter” of the policy.
Sir Martin’s report suggested this culture meant there was little appetite for reviewing or amending building regulations on cladding, even after the inquest into the deaths of six people at Lakanal House in Camberwell, south London, in July 2009 called for change.
The inquiry found: “In the years that followed the Lakanal House fire the government’s deregulatory agenda, enthusiastically supported by some junior ministers and the secretary of state, dominated the department’s thinking to such an extent that even matters affecting the safety of life were ignored, delayed or disregarded.”
While Lord Pickles told the inquiry it would have been “ludicrous” for civil servants to believe building safety regulations were covered by the policy, and other ministers denied the “one in, two out” policy had had an impact on building regulations, the final report rejected this.
The report said: “It is disappointing that when officials became aware of matters which posed serious risks to life, effective steps were not taken to draw those risks to the attention of ministers.
“The failure to foster a culture in which concerns could be raised and frank advice given represents a serious failure of leadership on the part of ministers and senior officials.”
The inquiry also found the government “failed to pay due regard” to a large-scale fire safety test in 2001 and failed to treat the coroner’s recommendations following the Lakanal House blaze with “any sense of urgency”.
It criticised the decision to shut down the Building Research Establishment’s inquiry into Lakanal House barely a month after the fire as “premature and hard to understand”, but consistent with DCLG’s “lack of interest in learning lessons from the incident”.
Concerns raised by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Fire Safety were dismissed, with DCLG’s attitude to fire safety matters described by the report as “complacent and at times defensive”.
Opposition to regulation also appeared to have been behind then-local government minister Sir Brandon Lewis‘s reluctance to set up a national fire safety regulator in 2013.
The inquiry found he was “not attracted to the idea of introducing additional regulation” but “more interested in making existing schemes more efficient and devolving power away from central government”.
It added that “the basis of his optimism was not clear” and said his views were “of the most general kind and not directed to the particular merits of introducing a national fire safety regulator”.
The Fire Brigades Union has said the Grenfell fire “was a crime caused by deregulation and institutional failings at the highest level”.
The final hearing of the second phase of the inquiry took place in November 2022, with families having previously spoken of their long wait and continued fight for justice.
The report’s findings could ramp up pressure on police and prosecutors to make speedier progress on getting people before the courts – something many bereaved and survivors have said must happen for justice to be served.
In May, the Metropolitan Police said their investigators need until the end of 2025 to finalise their inquiry, and prosecutors will then need a year to decide whether charges can be brought.
Bereaved and survivors have described that wait, which could stretch to a decade after the catastrophic fire, as “unbearable”.
According to the update from police and prosecutors earlier this year, the mammoth police investigation into the fire has already generated 27,000 lines of inquiry and more than 12,000 witness statements.
A total of 58 individuals and 19 companies and organisations are under investigation for potential criminal offences, and more than 300 hours of interviews have taken place.
Potential offences under consideration include corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter, perverting the course of justice, misconduct in public office, health and safety offences, fraud and offences under the fire safety and building regulations.
