Grenfell Tower

James Cleverly Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will add to the answer I gave to the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), and I ask hon. Members to remember that a criminal investigation is taking place in relation to this matter. The testing of the cladding and of the materials used is being undertaken, and a statement will be made by the police and the fire service within the next 48 hours.

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

The London Resilience Forum has a number of multi-agency plans for things such as mass shelter, mass fatalities and mass casualties. Can we confirm whether those plans were fully implemented? Can we also ensure that what lessons we learn from the inquiry process are fed back into resilience forums, both in London and around the country, to ensure that the lessons are promptly implemented?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He obviously has experience from when he was on the London Assembly and took a particular interest in the London Fire Brigade and fire service matters. I can indeed confirm that we have already looked at the whole question of resilience forums around the country. We will ensure that any lessons learned from the Grenfell Tower fire are fed into those resilience teams and forums, but we also need to ensure that resilience forums around the country are as resilient as they need to be in providing support should any disaster happen. We have seen this issue in relation to other disasters, such as flooding. We need to ensure that resilience forums are operating as they should at every local level.