THE TORY party official fire safety advisor Ken Knight rubber-stamped the use of the flammable cladding, responsible for the rapid spread of the Grenfell Tower fire which claimed the lives of so many men, women and children, the Labour Party has alleged.
On Wednesday, a Parliamentary debate on the fall-out from the Grenfell fire tragedy heard that the government was doing nothing to sort dangerously cladded blocks … ‘People are stuck in a building that they describe as a deathtrap,’ Labour MP, Steve Reed said.
Only three blocks in the whole country owned by councils have been re-clad since Grenfell.
Reed informed the House of Commons: ‘The industry estimates that some 800 blocks across the country have flammable cladding: 300 are council-owned and will eventually be made safe, although it is worrying that nine months after Grenfell only three have so far been completely re-clad, and around 500 blocks are privately owned, but the government are doing nothing to help the people living in them.’
He said: ‘After Grenfell, the government said that cladding with a polyethylene core, like that on Citiscape in my constituency, does not comply with the guidance. ‘The Prime Minister repeated that claim, yet I have here a certificate signed by Sir Ken Knight, chair of the government’s independent expert panel on fire safety and a director of the BRE Trust, that says that it does comply.
‘Quite simply, the government are all over the place. They do not have a clue what is going on.
‘Every single loophole and error that led to Lakanal House and Grenfell Tower is still in place.
‘This is no one else’s fault and no one else’s moral responsibility except the government’s. ‘Thousands of frightened people living in blocks with flammable cladding need to hear from the Minister today that it will be taken down without delay.
‘They do not need any more buck-passing. ‘They cannot afford to spend years in the courts while the cladding remains on their buildings. ‘The government’s flawed fire safety regime created this mess; the government must now clear it up. We cannot risk a second Grenfell Tower. The time for the Minister to act is now.’