A MOTION committing the GMB union to fight for criminal charges to be brought against those responsible for the Grenfell Tower Fire was passed unanimously at its Congress in Brighton yesterday.
Motion 192 ‘Grenfell Fire Disaster must give rise to serious changes to restore public trust in regulation to prevent avoidable disasters,’ was moved by Dennis Risvegi who said: ‘The final report of what happened is expected soon. I will focus on an exchange between the judge heading the inquiry and an absolute expert on housing safety.
‘The judge asked him to state simply what was the effective substance that bonded together the two sheets of aluminium in the cladding on the outside of the building.
‘The expert replied that in essence it was solid petroleum. The judge asked him to estimate how much petroleum was contained in the cladding on four sides of the 27-storey tower. The expert said it was equivalent to having a petrol tanker with 5,000 gallons of fuel at the base of the tower to feed the fire.
‘The judge asked whether this unbelievably dangerous material had been allowed by the British state. The expert said that it had, as the ordinance from the Great Fire of London (1666) prohibiting flammable materials on the exteriors of buildings was repealed, as “red tape” by the Tories in the 1980s.
‘Worse, rather than requiring the insulation inside the cladding to be non-flammable, flammable plastic insulation materials were also allowed, he said.
‘It was the fumes from this insulation that killed most of the 72 people. The inquiry found that there had been fires in high rise buildings with flammable cladding and insulation abroad and in the UK in the years before the Grenfell Tower fire.
‘But the authorities seemed impervious to learning the lessons from these terrible fires. One example stands out. There was a fire in 2009 which killed six people in the high-rise Lakanal House in Camberwell, which had flammable cladding and insulation like Grenfell’s.
‘The coroner asked the government for the “stay put” policy to be changed. This advice was based on the experience of Lakanal House and elsewhere that it should no longer apply to fires in high rise buildings with flammable cladding and insulation. These fires had proven to be lethal death traps where the residents had not got out as soon as possible.
‘The government minister who was to respond to this official request by the coronor was advised by the senior civil servant responsible for fire safety. His email rejected the advice saying “we only have a duty to respond to the coroner, not kiss their backside”.
‘If the advice had been heeded all the deaths would have been avoided and all those killed would still be alive, no doubt.
‘Criminal charges should be brought against many of those responsible, and civil claims for damages should run into hundreds of millions. Congress I move.’
Seconding the motion, Ben Campbell-Whyte said: ‘They say time is the enemy of justice. Six years down the line the public inquiry into the Grenfell disaster has yet to be published. No criminal charges have been brought to date.
‘Amongst the refusals to accept blame there is a merry-go-round of buckpassing. There are many issues in the build-up to the tragedy. Poor regulations, inadequate legislation, as well as the influence of commercial interests.
‘What we do not want is for the members of the Grenfell community of Ladbroke Grove, Hill and beyond, is for the outcome of the inquiry to be swept under the carpet, for the system to fail us again.
‘GMB must play its part in holding the accountable to account and to never forget.’
The motion was carried unanimously.
