Fire Safety: Lakanal House Fire

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness. I did say that work is actually under way on the review, not that the work had not started. Work is being undertaken on the review that was recommended by the Lakanal coroner, but in the light of recent events we have halted the work so that we can take evidence on what has happened in relation to the Grenfell Tower fire, because it is important that we should do so. I will say two important things. One is to restate the point that we have an advisory committee that will look at the issues and come up with urgent recommendations, and of course the public inquiry will want to consider the possibility of an interim report that could look at taking urgent action as well.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, I understand that as late as in May this year the red tape task force published a recommendation that the EU directive that covers precisely this point was extraneous and should be withdrawn. Do the Government agree with that?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Countess. As I say, I do not want to prejudge what will be decided partly by the advisory committee, which will make recommendations to the Secretary of State, and partly by the public inquiry. It is the case that regulation is necessary and we are revisiting that. The Lakanal inquiry and recommendations focused on simplifying fire regulation. We are revisiting that because it might not now be the appropriate response, but we do not want to prejudge that; it is something that the inquiry will want to look at.