PM: Grenfell victims and survivors let down by all
Sir Keir Starmer responds to the publication of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry report – telling MPs that "words can lose their meaning in the face of an injustice so painful, so deserving of anger”. Speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir also said the Inquiry had found that "decades of failure" contributed to the tragedy – including by central government. Report by Czubalam. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00This morning, Sir Martin Morbick published the final report of the Grenfell Tower inquiry.
00:07I'm sure the whole House will join me in thanking him, the members of the inquiry and
00:12the whole team for their dedicated work.
00:16Mr Speaker, I want to speak directly to the buried families, the survivors and those in
00:23the immediate Grenfell community, some of whom are with us in the gallery today.
00:30Sir Martin concluded this morning, and I'm afraid there's no way of repeating this that
00:37won't be painful.
00:40He said the simple truth is that the deaths that occurred were all avoidable, and that
00:46those who lived in the tower were badly failed over a number of years and in a number of
00:51different ways, by, as the report lays out in full, just about every institution responsible
00:59for ensuring their safety.
01:02Mr Speaker, in the face of an injustice so painful, so deserving of anger, words can
01:09begin to lose their meaning.
01:12Seven years still waiting for the justice that you deserve.
01:17I want to say very clearly on behalf of the country, you've been let down so badly, before,
01:25during and in the aftermath of this tragedy.
01:31And while Sir Martin sets out a catalogue of appalling industry failures, for which
01:36there must now be full accountability, he also finds, and I quote, decades of failure
01:44by central government.
01:47He concludes that, in the years between the fire at Knowsley Heights in 1991 and the fire
01:54at Grenfell Tower in 2017, there were many opportunities for the government to identify
02:00the risks posed by the use of combustible cladding panels and insulation.
02:07And he concludes, and I quote, by 2016, the department was well aware of those risks but
02:14failed to act on what they knew.