The Grenfell Tower Inquiry is a British public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people and destroyed Grenfell Tower, residential building in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, on 14 June 2017. It was ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May on the day following the fire.
May announced on 29 June 2017, that the inquiry would be chaired by retired judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick, with the immediate priority "to establish the facts of what happened at Grenfell Tower in order to take the necessary action to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again". She promised that "No stone will be left unturned by this inquiry." On 15 August 2017, the terms of reference of the Inquiry were announced. The second phase of the inquiry opened on 27 January 2020 at a new venue in Paddington.
Phase Two Preparation Campaigners had argued that the inquiry should include an advisory panel to assist Moore-Bick. In May 2018, it was announced that two panelists would sit alongside Moore-Bick for the second stage of the inquiry.
There was certain disquiet that phase two would not address the bigger issues of race and class discrimination and the austerity-driven housing crisis believed to have underpinned the disaster. Replacing on the panel, an expert on social housing with an engineer, was seen by Grenfell United and the Hillsborough families support group as evidence that their views were about to be sidelined. “They are not listening and they don't want to listen,” said Nabil Choucair. “The inquiry should be designed to look at the aspects we want them to look at.” Choucair lost six relatives in the fire.
Phase 2 is expected to take 18 months. 200,000 unseen documents, from private emails to phone transcripts and commercial agreements, will be released, illustrating decisions taken by the May government, borough councils, and private companies in the months before the fire, and in the immediate aftermath.
A second allegation of conflict of interest surfaced in January 2020. A few weeks earlier, one of the phase 2 panelists had stepped down and Prime Minister Boris Johnson (who had succeeded May in July 2019) appointed Benita Mehra to fill the post. Mehra was the chair of the Women's Engineering Society charity from 2015 to 2018. The Guardian reported that in 2017 the charity had received a £71,000 grant from the Arconic Foundation, an organisation linked to Arconic, the manufacturer of the panels. Mehra helped draft the application for the grant, which was the largest donation the charity had received that year. Following criticism from opposition politicians and survivors, Mehra expressed regret for her oversight, and resigned on 25 January.
Phase 2 will be divided into eight modules: The 2015–16 refurbishment The testing, certification and marketing of the cladding panels and external insulation The management of Grenfell Tower, including how residents' complaints were handled Central and local government responses to the disaster The response of London Fire Brigade Building regulations and enforcement Remaining expert evidence Remaining evidence from bereaved, survivors and residents
Module 1 The second phase of the inquiry opened on 27 January 2020 at a new venue in Paddington, with Arconic's lawyer making a statement.
The second phase opened with statements from lawyers for Studio E, the architects of the refurbishment; Rydon and Harley Facades, the buildings; Celotex, who had made the combustible insulation; and Arconic, who had supplied the ACM panels. There were also statements from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) and the KCTMO.
Lawyers for Rydon introduced emails that showed that Celotex knew that their combustible insulation product was not safe to use with ACM panels as a suitable fire barrier was not available. They produced internal emails from Arconic from 2011 showing that the fire-rating of their Reynobond PE (polyester filled) panels had dropped to class E from class B and so were "unsuitable for use on building façades" in Europe.
The combustible cladding panels made by Arconic, which contained the flammable polyethylene core, were chosen as part of an attempt to cut £454,000 from the budget by KCTMO. The architect, builders and fire engineer who worked on the refurbishment knew the cladding system would fail in the event of a fire more than two years before the blaze, in conditions where the fire flamed through windows. The lawyers for Celotex introduced an email thread where Daniel Anketell-Jones of Rydon, discusses the need for a fire stop in the cavity and this was copied and discussed by the other organisations involved.
After the companies' opening statements were read, Richard Millett criticised them for failing to admit any mistakes: "With the sole exception of RBKC, not a single core participant involved in the primary refurbishment of Grenfell Tower has felt able to make any unqualified admission against its own interests." RBKC had admitted its building control body had made errors, while Celotex admitted its marketing of the insulation had been misleading. The Times suggested that the companies' response had been to "blame each other." Millett added: "Any member of the public reading these statements and taking them all at face value would be forced to conclude that everyone involved in the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower did what they were supposed to do and nobody made any serious causative mistakes."
Suspension On day three and four, witnesses involved in the tower's refurbishment have asked for confirmation that any evidence they give will not be used against them in any criminal proceedings that might take place, before they will give evidence. At the hearing on 6 February, the chairman ruled that the inquiry should be suspended till at least 24 February to allow the attorney general Geoffrey Cox time. He explained to the victims and families that the right not to self-incriminate was enshrined in English law. This is not the same as being given immunity from prosecution. However the suspension dragged on with the Attorney General wishing to ascertain how many witnesses would demanding immunity, and the chairman pointed out this was of the greatest urgency as a health and safety issue affect hundreds of lives.
On 2 March, a further attempt was made to reopen the inquiry. The attorney general had given the assurance, and Moore-Bick explained that the undertaking meant that “no one will be able to justify refusing to answer questions on the grounds that to do so would or might expose him or herself personally to a risk of prosecution”. Community activists protested loudly that “It's one rule for them and one rule for the firefighters,” and “It means the firefighters were hung out to dry. It's a whitewash. It means the inquiry is a whitewash.” Later, Andrzej Kuszell of Studio E, the architects admitted that refurbishing tower blocks was “something that was not within our normal experience”.
Resumed evidence This started with evidence, from Studio E. A lot of this was about who knew what, and whether they were qualified to do what they did. On 3 March 2020 the inquiry heard: The lead architect had no experience of cladding high rise buildings or polyethylene composite materials.(cladding) The Point of contact was not a qualified architect. Sounes, the architect said he had “no knowledge” of rapid fire spread and had not read regulatory guidance about how to design the cavity barriers that were intended to stop fire spread and which failed at Grenfell, believing that it was Building Control's job to check his drawings for compliance. He had not heard of Lakanal, or that aluminum cladding could burn. An email was produced from Kate Cooney of Exova the fire consultants, four years before the project was signed off, suggesting that there were concerns about the safety of the "ff shaft/MoE" [fire-fighting shaft/Means of Escape, ie the escape stairs and landings and any additional provision for firefighters] making an already unsafe building worse, but they could massage the scheme to mitigate the dangers. Sounes believed that, as building control had signed off the system, it was acceptable. Sounes was taken ill and was not cross-examined further.
Week 9 March 2020 Neil Crawford, the lead architect for Studio E, revealed that Studio E had been on the point of terminating Exova in 2012 for failing to adequately scrutinise early proposals, and that a promised report on the safety of the revised cladding never arrived. In Crawford's opinion, Celotex had actively tried to deceive by saying, in an architect's information sheet, that the material was “acceptable for use in buildings above 18m in height” whereas in fact that statement actually referred to a different product. Crawford used the metaphor that 'it was passing off horse meat as beef'.
In the light of the Prime Minister's statement on the afternoon of 16 March 2020, the panel decided on the same day to hold no further hearings for the time being.
Resumption – 6 July 2020 Due to the COVID-19 pandemic social distancing rules now in place, not all the members of the public who wished to attend were allowed to do so, but were able to view the proceedings via a video link.
The inquiry heard claims that during the planning process Simon Lawrence, a key executive of Rydon, failed to respond to concerns that the cladding might be dangerous and that it could lead to a repeat of the Lakanal House tower fire in south London in 2009 which caused the death of six people.
Project emails show that Rydon, Exova, and the architects Studio E discussed the fire safety of the cladding before its installation, including warnings it might fail. Tony Pearson, of Exova, told the architects: “If significant flames are ejected from the windows, this would lead to failure of the cladding system, with the external surface falling away and exposing the cavity.”
The inquiry was told that in November 2014, an official at KCTMO asked Simon Lawrence to clarify the “fire retardance of the new cladding” but that Lawrence did not respond.
The inquiry also heard that Studio E manipulated its fees to avoid the contract being put out to open tender.
8 July The inquiry heard the fire engineer, Terry Ashton of Exova, say that his responsibilities on the project had been limited to the reconstruction of the tower, and not on the plans to reclad it. He said he had received an FTP link to a folder of documents from Studio E that contained the drawings and early plans for the recladding, but that he had not accessed the FTP link. He said that an FTP link was sent to various members of the design team. He was copied to the email but this was the standard scattergun approach on projects of this size and he was not specifically asked to look at the documents. He said that he had also not thoroughly read the building guidelines "BR 135 guidance on fire spread in external walls". He said he had never visited the site but despite this that he had written the Fire Strategy document referred to by the design team at Studio E.
13 July Building regulations approval was explored. RBKC had a reputation for sticking to the letter of the regulations. Obtaining building regulations approval is seen as being a process of negotiation. One proposal is put forward and a compromise reached. RBKC were adamant that the new wall structure must include fire stopping barriers with a two-hour rating. Studio E architects found this unnecessary claiming the job was done by the cavity barriers.
Monday 20 July Chris Holt, Rydon's site manager attested: “I was aware that as the refurbishment was to a residential block of flats, one of the main risk factors would be fire safety. When I started on the project I spoke to Simon Lawrence (Rydon) and asked whether I was required to consider aspects of fire safety in my role. Simon informed me that it was not part of my role and had been dealt with.”