The Grenfell Tower Inquiry Podcast

How a fire in Scotland in 1999 foretold the fire at Grenfell Tower.

In 1999, a dropped cigarette started a tower block fire in a small town on the west coast of Scotland. The building, which had been recently clad in flammable materials, is said to have caught fire like matchwood. This was one of the first signs that combustible materials were being permitted in the building sector in the UK. These risks were even raised with the New Labour government – so why didn’t they act?

How did the UK’s regulations allow for such materials to be used on high rise buildings? And how did government deregulation in the 1980s shape attitudes to health and safety?

Presenter: Kate Lamble

As the world wakes up to news of a fire in West London, questions start about who’s to blame.

At 8.30am on the morning of the 14th of June 2017 Karim Mussilhy is searching for his uncle. It’s over seven hours since the fire started, smoke is still pouring out of the top of Grenfell Tower and a toxic smell is hanging in the air. While residents stare up at the building in shock and Karim scours the streets for his uncle Hesham Rahman, civil servants and ministers also wake up to news of the fire and rush into Whitehall for an emergency meeting. At this moment is the first flicker of recognition that the state may have failed the residents of Grenfell tower – that they hadn’t done what they should have done.

Presenter: Kate Lamble

A new 10-part series about the Grenfell Tower fire and why it happened.

As the public inquiry into the fire at Grenfell Tower publishes it’s final report, we’re releasing ten-part series looking into why the fire happened, and how it could have been prevented.

For the past six years, a public inquiry has been hearing evidence about what lies behind the worst residential fire in UK peacetime in one of the richest areas of the country. Kate Lamble has reported on it since the beginning. And in this series, she tries to understand what created the conditions for a fire which was both foreseeable and preventable.

The answer takes us to the heart of how Britain works, from the government and regulation, to business. This is a story of corporate deceit, government deregulation and a construction industry engaged in a race to the bottom. It’s a story of missed opportunities, unheeded warnings and the failure of a state to protect its citizens.

After more than four years, more than three hundred thousand documents, four hundred days of testimony and around £150 million, the Inquiry heard its final evidence.

Lawyers for the core participants put forward the arguments they think the chair of the Inquiry, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, should consider as he produces his final report.

Lead Counsel Richard Millett said all the deaths at Grenfell Tower were avoidable and strongly criticised companies and organisations involved in the refurbishment for failing to take responsibility.

And Paulos Tekle, a Tower resident, whose five-year-old son lost his life on the night of the fire, tells us what he expects from the final report.

Presenter: Kate Lamble

Producers: Sharon Hemans and Luke Radcliff

Researcher: Marcia Veiga

Sound Engineer: Gareth Jones

Editor: Hugh Levinson

"I can’t undo the past, but I wanted to be a part of making things better”

Toxicologist Professor David Purser told the Inquiry that the rapid spread of smoke was the principal cause of death, and that burning cladding panels and insulation were the main source of this poisonous smoke. The Inquiry also heard closing statements for Module 4, covering the immediate aftermath of the fire. From next week it will turn into an inquest, so for this reason the podcast will not be covering those hearings. The podcast will return when the Inquiry produces its final report for the government.

This week the inquiry heard closing statements for Module 6, outlining how combustible materials came to be tested, certified and regulated and ended up being installed on the outside walls of Grenfell Tower. Lawyers representing the Bereaved, Survivors and Residents said the Inquiry had exposed fault-lines in the “edifice of government” and another said the “seeds of the Grenfell Tower fire were sown 20 years earlier”. There was criticism of manufacturers, regulators, building control bodies and of the government, with barristers accusing a “cabal of ministers” of being “enslaved to the deregulatory agenda”.

This week, as we passed the fifth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire, two expert witnesses levelled a series of fierce criticisms at the building safety regime. José Torero, head of the civil engineering department at a London university, described the competence levels among fire safety professionals as “extremely poor” and called for the Stay Put strategy to be abandoned. And Luke Bisby, professor of fire and structures at Edinburgh University, told the Inquiry, that he was “incredulous” at the misuse of fire tests by a cladding firm, and said there was a “significant problem” with the level of competence of fire safety professionals.

This week, the Inquiry moved on from examining the aftermath of the fire and began hearing evidence from a series of experts in fire engineering. Luke Bisby, professor of fire and structures at Edinburgh University, described the results of a test on the cladding panels and insulation installed on the tower as the “most shocking experiment” he had ever seen. Barbara Lane, a fire safety expert, told the Inquiry that the culture inside the Building Control sector was of “worrying standards”. And Ivan Stoianov, an expert in water distribution systems, said that the quantity of water available for firefighters at Grenfell was “more than adequate.”

This week, the Inquiry heard about the confusion, lack of grip and poor communication within Whitehall, as ministers and civil servants dealt with the aftermath of the fire. Nick Hurd was given the initial responsibility for leading the government’s response, despite being only two days into his ministerial position at the time of the Grenfell fire. He described the government’s actions as “wholly inadequate”. A senior civil servant described the local authority's response to residential complaints about housing as a “sign of defensiveness” and the Mayor of London’s chief of staff said that Grenfell residents were “failed by us as a society”.