Survivors of the Grenfell Tower disaster expect the public inquiry’s final report next week to finally halt a “carousel of blame-pointing” and damn the conduct of government, construction firms and multinational material manufacturers.
Hundreds of people who lost loved ones or escaped the burning council block in west London on 14 June 2017 after a cut-price refurbishment will gather on Tuesday to hear the inquiry chair, Martin Moore-Bick, privately share his delayed conclusions and recommendations.
He will address them at the same west London hotel where, more than six years ago, the inquiry heard harrowing and emotional family tributes to the 72 people who died.
There is muted confidence among many in the community that the report, expected to run to 1,700 pages and released to the wider public a day later, will finally set out the truth about serious failings and potentially criminal acts and omissions that led to 72 deaths, but which have been widely denied by many of the professionals, officials, companies and politicians who gave evidence.
Ed Daffarn, who escaped from his 16th floor flat amid thick smoke and is a leading member of the Grenfell United families group, said he expected the report to show “everyone” – from national and local government to the builder, architects and fire-testing houses – “failed catastrophically in their jobs, in their duty to keep us safe, to do their jobs properly, putting profit before people”.
“No one in the public inquiry ever gave us the truth,” he said. “They engaged in a carousel of blame-pointing … For me it’s absolutely vital that I discover the truth of what happened and I’m reasonably confident that we’re going to get that when the report comes out.”
Politicians facing possible criticism range from David Cameron, who presided over a pre-Grenfell cutting of red tape, to the former housing secretary Eric Pickles, who outraged survivors during cross-examination by mixing up the number of deceased with those from the Hillsborough disaster and tetchily urging the inquiry’s lead counsel not to waste his time. Pickles also declined to tighten fire regulations after being recommended to do so by a coroner after a 2009 council block fire that killed six people.
The Labour government has said it will carefully consider the recommendations, while the bereaved and survivors want a commitment to deliver all of them.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “We will never forget the 72 lives lost at Grenfell and remain absolutely committed to securing justice for the bereaved, survivors and the wider community. In the government’s manifesto, we set out our commitment to improving building safety, including accelerating cladding remediation, ensuring anyone responsible for the building safety crisis pays, and better protecting leaseholders.”
Tiago Alves, who escaped from his family’s 13th-floor flat, said he hoped the report would explode the myth “that people who live on estates are second-class citizens … I hope [the inquiry report] opens the book to … reconsidering everything that relates to this perception.”
The inquiry heard that the builders employed by the council landlord described householders who raised concerns about the refurbishment as “rebels”, that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea considered the block a “poor cousin” of sleeker neighbourhood buildings and drafted a plan to pull it down because it “blights” the area.
Alves said attention would quickly turn to criminal prosecutions, which “is going to be our only focus”. He added this was “important so it becomes a deterrent … we are making sure that people understand that they can’t just do things without punishment”.
Moore-Bick’s final report will be released to the wider public at 11am on Wednesday. Among the companies braced for adverse conclusions is the US firm Arconic whose French subsidiary sold the highly combustible cladding panels despite evidence showing the company knew two years before the disaster they were, according to one internal email: “DANGEROUS on facades”. The plastic foam insulation manufacturers Celotex, owned by the multinational Saint Gobain, and Kingspan, based in Ireland, are also very likely to meet fierce criticism in the report.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which owned the block, is expected to reiterate its admission of failings and will respond in detail to the inquiry in November. Several corporates have already contributed to a £150m compensation settlement involving about 900 people coordinated by the former supreme court president Lord Neuberger.
The inquiry has already warned about 250 people involved in the management, maintenance and refurbishment of the 24-storey block, which was wrapped in combustible cladding, that they faced criticism. Scotland Yard has also said 58 people and 19 organisations are suspected of crimes.
A team of 180 police officers investigating possible charges of manslaughter, fraud and misconduct in public office will also spend months poring over Moore-Bick’s report before any criminal prosecutions are launched, with any trials not expected to open until at least 2027.
