I will never forget the morning of the 14th June, 2017. I woke up at 5:30am, a few hours after the fire had begun. When I grabbed my phone, it was blowing up with notifications. My wife Nicola’s phone was buzzing even more often.
I woke her up and we watched the horrific tragedy unfold on our small screens. Both of us were in tears as we saw Grenfell Tower was in flames. We thought first of our friend, Khadija Saye, who at just 24 had become a talented artist and an assistant at Nicola’s art studio. She lived on the twentieth floor.
Khadija and 71 others died as a result of the fire, which never should have happened. For years, the residents had warned that their building was unsafe, but they were ignored by the authorities whose duty it was to keep them safe.
As I said in tears again in a Channel 4 news interview a few days later, the fire was a tale of two cities, the same as Dickens was writing about in the century before last. 85 per cent of the 67 permanent residents who were killed were from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. Almost half were disabled people and children.
Progress has been made by Labour in City Hall, which has required tougher safety standards on new buildings and in planning regulations. In the wake of phase one of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, the London Fire Brigade has implemented 26 of the 29 recommendations.
But not nearly enough has been done at the national level to ensure this kind of tragedy never happens again. 1,826 days since the fire, 58 buildings over 18 metres tall with the same type of cladding as Grenfell still have not had it removed. 1,149 buildings in London alone still require emergency measures such as waking watches due to fire safety issues. Three of the families that survived the fire are still stuck in temporary accommodation. And five years later, the families should not still be waiting for charges to be made and justice to be served.
Far more action needs to be taken after the unforgivable tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire. It should not need to be said that the government urgently needs to get on with making the homes we expect people to live in safe, but we must also go further.
Labour has long called for a Hillsborough Law which would include duty of candour on police officers will make sure inquiries have the transparency they need to get the best possible outcome for bereaved families. Sadiq Khan has rightly written to the Prime Minister to call for him to establish a national public body that has a duty to monitor recommendations arising from post-death inquiries to help ensure they are put into practice.
Decent social housing that allows people to go to bed each night in safety, with dignity and without fearing fire should not be something this country has to aspire towards. It should be the bare minimum. The fire should have been a turning point. There is no excuse for delay. We owe it to Khadija, the other 71 who died and their families to ensure this never happens again.
