Grenfell Tower Memorial (Expenditure) Bill

Lord Forbes of Newcastle Excerpts

2nd reading & Report stage & 3rd reading & Committee negatived
Tuesday 14th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forbes of Newcastle (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I declare an interest and draw noble Lords’ attention to my role as a non-executive director at MHCLG, the lead department for this Bill. The Bill, as presented very ably by my noble friend the Minister, is short, tightly drawn and constitutionally straightforward. It is a money Bill and, as such, as many speakers have already said, our role today is limited. However, its significance is anything but limited. This Bill asks Parliament to do something solemn, to authorise public expenditure so that this country can create, maintain and steward a permanent memorial to the 72 people who lost their lives on the night of 14 June 2017.

My noble friend the Minister has explained eloquently what this Bill seeks to do. What it does not do is equally important. It does not determine the design, governance or planning decisions associated with memorial. Those remain rightly with the bereaved, the survivors and the local community, through the Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission. This is a deliberate choice on the behalf of the Government. Ministers in the Commons were clear that the narrowness of the Bill is intended to preserve community leadership, which is a profound shift in our British tradition of memorialisation. For most of the last century, national memorials from the Cenotaph to the Commonwealth war grave cemeteries were designed, commissioned and governed by state or national bodies. Grenfell is different; it is community led, because the community has borne the greatest loss and because the state must demonstrate again that it must not impose decisions on people whose voices were ignored for far too long.

We also must be honest about why this memorial is needed. The Grenfell Tower fire was not a natural disaster or an unforeseeable accident. The public inquiry has documented in painful detail what the Government themselves have described as failure after failure, year after year—failures of regulation, of oversight, of enforcement and of listening. Many Members in the Commons debate said plainly that Grenfell was an avoidable tragedy rooted in systemic regulatory failure. The memorial, therefore, is not only a place of remembrance but a form of institutional accountability. It is a public acknowledgement that the state failed in its most important basic duty: to keep people safe in their own homes.

At the time of the fire, I was the leader of Newcastle City Council, and the four weeks that followed were the worst of my time holding that office, because I was not able to give a categorical assurance to residents in my city that every tall building around them was safe. Those buildings in public ownership, where we had clear records of design, building control sign-off, construction materials and usage, were manageable, even when remediation work was needed. But several tall residential buildings were a mystery. We did not know who owned them. We did not know how they had been constructed. We did not know what materials had been used—and there was no mechanism to find this out quickly. That was the direct consequence of a deregulatory zeal that removed safeguards without understanding what those safeguards were there to prevent. It was a failure with profound consequences for public confidence and public safety.

The Grenfell Tower fire has been described by commentators as one of the gravest failures of the British state in modern times. Personally, I would go further and call it the greatest crime committed in this country this century. What is beyond dispute is that the cladding that turned a small kitchen fire into an inferno was not installed for thermal efficiency or structural protection, or for any purpose that served the residents inside the building. It was installed for cosmetic reasons—for those who looked at Grenfell, not for those who lived within it. This was a deliberate attempt to hide a community that some considered inconvenient or unsightly, or somehow less deserving of dignity. At the heart of this tragedy lies a toxic mix of elitism, class prejudice and a disregard for people living in poverty. A memorial cannot put that right, but it can ensure that we do not look away. It can ensure that the lessons of Grenfell are not confined to inquiry reports or regulatory guidance but are embedded in our national memory, and that future Governments, of whatever political persuasion, remain accountable for the long-term stewardship of that memory.

That is why this Bill legislates for expenditure not only today but for the decades ahead. It mirrors the long-term commitments we have made to the maintenance of our war memorials, recognising that remembrance is not a one-off act but a continuing and collective intergenerational responsibility. The Bill may well set a precedent; other tragedies linked to state or institutional failure—Hillsborough, the contaminated blood scandal and the Post Office Horizon scandal—have prompted calls for memorialisation that acknowledges harm and honours those affected. The approach taken here, with community leadership and statutory funding, may shape how Parliament responds in future.

I end on a point raised by many survivors and bereaved families. Community leadership does not mean community responsibility alone. The state cannot outsource remembrance. It cannot say: “This is for you alone to decide and therefore for you alone to carry”. The responsibility for learning, reform and ensuring that nothing like Grenfell ever happens again rests with public bodies, regulators and those of us in positions of authority. A memorial is not a substitute for action. It is a reminder of the cost of inaction. So while I support this Bill and the funding it provides, the true national memorial to Grenfell must be a housing system that is safe, a regulatory system that is robust, a culture that listens to tenants and a state that never again allows people to be treated as though their lives matter less. This Bill enables a physical memorial. It is our duty to ensure that it also builds a moral one.