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"Justice will only truly be served when there are criminal prosecutions and those responsible pay the price."
"Justice will only truly be served when there are criminal prosecutions and those responsible pay the price."
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In a debate on the final Grenfell Tower inquiry report, several MPs called for criminal charges to be brought against those responsible for the 2017 fire that resulted in 72 deaths.
Following the release of the final inquiry report on 4 September, Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner stated that “there should be consequences” for the failings that led to the blaze.
Speaking in the debate yesterday afternoon, Joe Powell, MP for Kensington and Bayswater, said that it is seven and a half years since 72 people died in his constituency, adding “that is seven and a half years of no justice and seven and a half years of no meaningful change”.
Powell added: “I hope I speak for the whole House when I say to them that justice will only truly be served when there are criminal prosecutions and those responsible pay the price.”
He also said that justice is about “more than contracts, and criminal charges, and it goes beyond Grenfell,” citing the up to a million people still stuck in unsafe buildings across the country.
Powell stated that as the fire at Spectrum House in Dagenham in August showed, a tragedy like Grenfell could happen again today.
Sheffield South East MP, Clive Betts, highlighted that product manufacturers have not faced consequences for their role in the fire.
He said they are “one part of the industry that has got completely away with it so far”.
Betts said manufacturers have not been asked to pay for remediating buildings, but “as the Grenfell inquiry showed, they are responsible for a lot of the problems”.
The final inquiry report said that product manufacturers’ “systematic dishonesty” was “one very significant reason why Grenfell came to be clad in combustible materials”.
He suggested creating a scheme for making product manufacturers pay their fair share of costs, to which Rayner said she is continuing to look at what measures she can take and has “taken nothing off the table”.
In September, Keir Starmer told MPs that the government will write to firms involved in Grenfell, blocking them from being awarded government contracts.
Rayner said the government will publish guidance early next year to prevent “the most appalling companies” from receiving public money.
Betts asked if the government would provide guidance to councils and public bodies such as the NHS to ensure they do not award contracts to these companies.
Since 2021, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has imposed an indefinite ban on Kingspan, Celotex, Arconic, and Rydon, the companies involved in the Grenfell Tower fire, from receiving future council contracts.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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