Companies criticised in the report of the inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire disaster will be banned from doing business with the British state, UK prime minister Keir Starmer has said.
There is also pressure building on London’s Metropolitan Police from the families of the 72 victims to hasten the prosecution of those responsible for the June 2017 fire, the worst in a residential building in British peacetime.
Addressing the House of Commons upon publication of a report after a seven-year official inquiry, the prime minister said the government “will write to all companies found by the inquiry to be part of these horrific failings as the first step to stopping them being awarded government contracts”.
He acknowledged that further legal proceedings may be issued. But Mr Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, warned that he must not “do or say anything that could compromise any future prosecution, because the greatest injustice of all would be for the victims and all those affected not to get the justice that they deserve”.
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Police say they are investigating 19 separate organisations and 58 individuals in relation to the fire.
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Among the companies criticised by the inquiry, led by retired judge Martin Moore-Bick, are US company Arconic, which made the cladding panels that accelerated the fire; Celotex, owned by French company Saint Gobain, which made most of the insulation that fuelled the flames; and Irish building materials company Kingspan, which made a small portion of the insulation used on Grenfell, and which was excoriated in the report for the way it had “misled” the market about its products.
The cladding manufacturer Arconic came in for most criticism in the report, which found that its product was “by far the largest contributor” to the disaster. Studio E, an architectural firm that oversaw cheap building work on Grenfell Tower, was also criticised for its “incompetence”.
However, Stuart Cundy, the London Met’s deputy assistant commissioner, warned that prosecutions should not be rushed. “We have one chance to get our investigation right,” said the Met.
Mr Cundy said any criminal trials might not happen until 2027.
“The [inquiry] report is direct, comprehensive and reaches clear conclusions. Our police investigation is independent of the public inquiry. It operates under a different legal framework and so we cannot simply use the report’s findings as evidence to bring charges,” said Mr Cundy.
“To secure justice for those who died and all those affected by the fire we must examine the report – line by line – alongside the evidence from the criminal investigation ... This will lead to the strongest possible evidence being presented to the Crown Prosecution Service so it can make charging decisions.”
Some victims’ families, however, expressed frustration with the length of time it was taking to bring criminal proceedings over Grenfell, given the depth, scale and litany of official failures, negligence and acts of dishonesty outlined in the report.
“We think we were robbed of justice,” said Karim Khalloufi, whose brother, Khadija Khalloufi died in the fire.
“The [legal criminal] delay has caused a lot of damage to us. We have a right. We want it. We are a minority, but we are a strong minority and we seek justice. Maybe my mother will die [before justice is done],” he said.
Hisam Choucair lost six members of his family in the fire, including his mother, his sister, her husband and their three children.
“They did not consult us. They opened the inquiry on the day after the fire when many of us were still searching for our loved ones,” he said. “It’s been a joke.”
