LONDON — British politicians of all parties have been heavily attacked for failing to prevent the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in West London which killed 72 people.
A damning final report into the deadliest fire in Britain since the Second World War found that government officials were “complacent, defensive and dismissive” about fire safety for decades. They prioritized cutting building regulations in a much-touted “bonfire of red tape” — with deadly consequences.
Fire broke out in the 1970s-era tower block in Kensington, London, on June 14, 2017. The blaze rapidly spread to the building’s exterior, soon reaching the top of the tower with the entire building engulfed in flames. Overall, 72 people died, including a child who was stillborn in hospital after his parents fled the blaze. More than 70 people were injured.
The official inquiry into the disaster was launched some seven years ago, and has already highlighted the role of highly-flammable, combustible cladding fitted to the building in a renovation — despite long-running concerns among residents who tried to raise them with the council landlord.
Its final report takes aim at “decades of failure” under Conservative and Labour governments dating back to the 1990s. “There were many opportunities for the government to identify the risks … and to take action in relation to them,” the report said, citing a 1991 fire involving cladding in Liverpool.
Successive governments “ignored, delayed or disregarded” concerns about safety practices, it added. Britain’s housing ministry was “poorly run” with “inadequate oversight.”
Much of the blame is allocated to “systemic dishonesty” from cladding firms themselves. Highly flammable panels were fitted to the building’s exterior despite having failed fire safety tests before their installation. A police investigation into the disaster is ongoing.
Britain’s then-Conservative government was “well aware” of the risks posed by combustible cladding a year before the fire, the report found, but “failed to act on what it knew.”
A “seriously defective” system to regulate the construction and management of high rise buildings was in place, the report says, with the local council and block owner — Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea — criticized for a “persistent indifference to fire safety, particularly the safety of vulnerable people.”
The report runs to nearly 1,700 pages and has 58 recommendations about preventing the disaster from happening again. Chair Martin Moore-Bick said all the deaths were “avoidable.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer will make a statement in the House of Commons about the disaster Wednesday afternoon. The inquiry does not recommend prosecutions but the information it has uncovered can assist the police with its inquiries.
Nineteen companies or organizations and 58 individuals are currently under investigation over the fire. The Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service have said no charges are likely to be brought until late 2026 due to the increasing “scale and complexity” of their investigation.
