Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can confirm that we will do everything to ensure that there is full accountability, including criminal accountability, where appropriate. I remind the House—as you have done, Mr Speaker—that notwithstanding the strong findings in the report, the last thing that the victims, the bereaved and the community want or need is for anything to go wrong with possible legal proceedings. We must all bear that in mind, but I absolutely understand my hon. Friend’s sentiment. On the contracts, I stand by what I said in my statement.

I concur with my hon. Friend on the resilience and strength of the victims, the families, the survivors and the community. It must have been really hard to give evidence to the inquiry, and it must be really hard to read the details of what happened in this long report. It must be even harder still to read the conclusions about the failures and the dishonesty, so we must pay respect to their resilience and strength.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Very sadly, for most of us this report is not a surprise, because many of the things that were being said over many years have now come to fruition in its recommendations. As the Prime Minister has rightly alluded to, it is clear that the conspiracy around the testing of products must be subject to criminal proceedings. Will he therefore look immediately at some of the recommendations that affect the Government: namely, bringing responsibility under one Department, with one Minister being responsible and answerable to this House, to make sure that action is taken? Secondly, will he ensure that a single regulator is introduced to make sure that the various different aspects that were clearly wrong do not occur again?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, which is really important. We will report back on all the recommendations within six months, but if we can act more quickly on some of them, we will do so straightaway. We have six months to report back, but if there are recommendations that we can accept and move forward, we will do so rather than wait for the end of the six-month period, because it is very important, for all the reasons that he powerfully put across.