The report was scathing about those who made and sold panels and insulation products, which it accused of ‘systemic dishonesty’.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced that all companies condemned in the Grenfell Tower inquiry will no longer be considered for public contracts, after the inquiry’s final report was published yesterday.
The inquiry published its conclusions seven years after the fire, in which 72 people died. It found that ‘decades of failure’ by central government to stop the spread of combustible cladding combined with the “systematic dishonesty” of multimillion-dollar companies whose products spread the fire, had contributed to what happened.
In a statement to the Commons, Starmer apologised for the disaster.
He also said: “This government will write to all companies found by the inquiry to have been part of these horrific failings as the first step to stopping them being awarded government contracts.”
The cladding firm Arconic and insulation firms Kingspan and Celotex faced heavy criticism in inquiry chairman Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s report.
Their actions were described as “very significant” as to why the building came to be clad in combustible materials.
The report was scathing about those who made and sold panels and insulation products, which it accused of ‘systemic dishonesty’.
It states: “One very significant reason why Grenfell Tower came to be clad in combustible materials was systematic dishonesty on the part of those who made and sold the rainscreen cladding panels and insulation products. They engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market.”
The report singled out Arconic Architectural Products, which it said “deliberately concealed from the market” the true extent of the danger of using its Reynobond 55 PE rainscreen panels which were installed on the external wall of the tower. It was also critical of Celotex, which manufactured the combustible RS5000 foam insulation. It said the company “embarked on a dishonest scheme to mislead its customers and the wider market”.
On Grenfell, Starmer said: “The simple truth is that the deaths that occurred were all avoidable and that those who lived in the tower were badly failed over a number of years and in a number of different ways by, as the report lays out in full, just about every institution responsible for ensuring their safety.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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