David Lammy MP is the Labour MP for Tottenham.

Securing justice for the catastrophic Grenfell fire has two key components. First, those responsible for the gross corporate negligence and manslaughter need to be identified, arrested and sentenced. Second, the government needs to take steps to ensure that no tower block fire on the tragic scale of Grenfell is repeated. Over recent days, we have had progress on both of these counts, but over a year since 14th June 2017, full justice remains a long way off.

The Met Police has revealed that the Grenfell fire investigation has now moved onto a new phase. People will be interviewed under caution, as detectives consider who is responsible for “gross negligence manslaughter, corporate manslaughter and breaches of the Health and Safety Act.” I see it as vital for the victims and for faith in the police that the individuals responsible are punished, as opposed to limiting retribution to fines for corporations. It is understandable that the police take their time to untangle the thousands of pages of evidence, but the perpetrators must be brought to justice as soon as possible.

On the second aspect of justice for Grenfell, the government is right to ban flammable cladding on new high-rises. However, this does not go nearly far enough. Why should residents in existing buildings, with similarly dangerous cladding, be expected to live under the spectre of fear? How are they expected to sleep at night?  The construction industry needs to be forced to wake up after Grenfell. A new era of construction, which prioritises fire safety, is vital, unless this industry wants even more blood on its hands.

By David Lammy MP For Tottenham

Matt Wrack is the General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union.

The Fire Brigades Union stands side by side with the North Kensington community as the terrible agonies of 14 June 2017 are replayed at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. The public is looking at the events unfolding, clearly wanting to know the truth, but also expecting like us, that the years of de-regulation, risk-taking and cost-cutting are to come to an end.

We want to see a complete and total ban of flammable cladding. It is shocking that more than a year after the Grenfell Tower fire that this killer material is still in use. We want to see an end to the privatization of the fire safety inspection regime which has driven down standards. It has created a system where private, uncertified inspectors rubber-stamp building works as they have to win the repeat business of building owners.

What is shocking and sickening is that a year after the fire, people are still not re-housed. A year on we have hundreds of buildings with the same cladding. A year on nothing has really been done. Imagine if this had been a terror attack. Any such attack – even with far fewer deaths – would have resulted in much greater action. Theresa May would probably have invaded a country by now.

But since this is 72 people who died in their own homes, we just see inaction and continued complacency.

The Fire Brigades Union stands side by side with the North Kensington community and with the bereaved, the survivors and other residents affected by the fire. We want the entire labour movement to stand with us and to ensure Grenfell becomes a central political issue which we do not allow to be brushed under the carpet. More than anything we need to achieve justice for Grenfell.

By Matt Wrack

This week, at the Inquiry, we heard further evidence from fire fighters who attended Grenfell Tower on 14th June 2017 and also evidence from Jo Smith, Senior Operations Manager, who attended the Control Centre after 2.00am on the night and on hearing the emergency calls from residents, indicated to the call handlers to tell residents to ‘leave the building’.

An apparent emerging theme this week was the inadequacy of communication methods and equipment available to our emergency services.

Additionally, this week, bereaved families have complained about the cramped conditions, with little sunlight at Holborn Bars. Again, paramedics had to attend to treat someone who fainted.

J4G questions to the Inquiry this week:

• Why in 21stCentury Britain do we have an emergency service still reliant on outdated radio equipment?
• Is it an indictment on government that our Fire Service had to rely on white boards, pens and ‘scraps’ of paper to record and communicate where residents were and what the conditions were in the Tower?
• Why don’t our fire service have mobile phones that can record dialogue and be linked to an electronic recording system?
• Should the Fire Service’s training budget be increased immediately?
• Have the firefighters and officers who have given evidence so far; received adequate counselling for PSTD and trauma?
• Is the Venue at Holborn Bars suitable for the Inquiry hearings?

There was a focus last week on the ‘stay put policy,’; a policy the LFB use when fighting fire in high rise buildings. Most of the firefighters that gave evidence this week took the stand for several hours undergoing gruelling questioning and painfully recalling memories of what happen on that night. Their priority was to save lives, even if it meant at times risking their own.

There was also a focus on the lateness in implementing an evacuation policy and how ‘Order of Command’ and/or Rank dictates when and if a change in procedure can be made. Usually this is an officer not fighting the fire!

Evident last week, was that none of the firefighters were aware of any particular risks associated with the cladding.

Finally, the Home Office could force bereaved families with Core Participation Status to return home before the conclusion of the Grenfell Inquiry; as their visas are to be limited to six months.

Questions J4G would have asked this week:

• Why in 21st Century Britain would our fire service have a shortage of basic equipment; including breathing apparatus, hose nozzles and door breaking equipment?
• How can the fire service enable those actually fighting the fire to move from a stay put policy to an evacuation procedure policy with urgency rather than awaiting bureaucratic responses?
• Do you think that the ‘stay put’ policy should be immediately suspended until all flammable cladding is removed from all buildings across the UK, and is completely banned?
• Could recommendations following the Piper Alpha disaster 30 years ago, have made a difference or avoided the Grenfell Disaster?
• By not issuing longer term visas to bereaved families, do you think that the Home Office is making the Inquiry is a ‘hostile environment’?
• Do you think that the firefighters evidenced this week at the Inquiry showed us that these are ordinary firefighters who did extraordinary things on June 14th 2018?
• Do we live in a society where some lives just don’t matter?

Phase 1 of the Inquiry continues with Part 4 – The Outbreak of the Fire

Interviews this week included Firefighter Michael Dowden – the Watch Manager  who took the ‘stand’ for 3 days;  Crew Manager, Charles Batterbee who was first to respond to the fire along with  Firefighter Daniel Brown and Firefighter David Badillo, who have also given evidence.

The Culture of the Inquiry this week seems to be focussing on junior ranking staff, questioning them like suspects and questioning their competence to do their job.

Inquiry lead Counsel Richard Millet QC  asked the firefighters many questions. Most of the questions he posed opened with the phrase ‘Do you think …….?’

Here are some questions that J4G think that Counsel should have been asked:

• Do you think that cuts to the fire service played a role in the response to the fire at Grenfell Tower?
• Do you think that removing the responsibility of fire safety checks from firefighters contributed to the fire?
• Do you think that not having a fire engine with a long enough hose or ladder in central London hindered the response to the fire?
• Do you think that the governmental failure to implement the recommendations from the Lakanal House investigation contributed to the fire?
• Do you think there is anything that needs to be changed immediately on fire safety that could have made a difference if they were in place on the night?
• Do you think it should be those who made the policies, deregulation changes and cost cutting schemes sitting here and answering these questions?
• Do you think there should be an outright ban on flammable cladding?
• Do you think I should question you in a more respectful way?

Our Guest Writer this week is Joe Delaney, Resident of Lancaster West Estate and representative on the Grenfell Recovery Scrutiny Committee.

Here he shares his thoughts with us:

Whilst all of us in the area have heard the various organisations involved in the management and renovation of Grenfell Tower express their sorrow and sympathy for what happened. We’ve not heard a single one of them accept responsibility for the tragedy which has caused at least 72 deaths and upended the lives of countless others.

Week four of the Inquiry was when we first heard from some of the experts it had appointed; they spoke about the fire safety measures present (or not), the cause and origin of the fire, and its spread throughout the Tower. None of these experts spoke about blame or assignment of blame, but that does not mean that this hasn’t been happening already – it seems that there are plenty of armchair experts who know exactly who is to blame and oddly, their views do not match those find in our community.

A major target of blame so far has been Behailu Kebede from Flat 16; people who were not there on the night of the fire seem to think that they are in a better position to describe and condemn Behailu’s behaviour. They say that he had packed his entire household up without warning neighbours and that his carelessness lead to the fire spreading from his home to the rest of the building. Hopefully, such nonsense has now been dismissed once and for all – the witness statements of Behailu and other residents of Flat 16 as well as the CCTV evidence submitted show that neighbours were alerted and Behailu worked quickly to get the fire brigade to attend.

So this week gave the armchair experts another target; the firefighters. Let me be clear about something at this point; I do feel that the policies, procedures, training, and staffing of the fire brigade leave a lot to be desired but it is NOT within the power of individual firefighters to alter or override these and so I do NOT feel that blame lies with individual firefighters on the ground that night. For people to now say that individual firefighters and their actions that night are the cause of this fire is absurd; whilst the Fire Brigade and its policy makers certainly have a lot to answer for, the individual firefighters do not.

Evidence from firefighters will continue into next week, so I am sure we will no doubt hear more from the armchair experts who know so much.

Someone else who has recently had a lot to say about blame is Andrew O’Hagan in his piece The Tower published in the London Review of Books (LRB). Much criticism has already been levelled at the accuracy of this piece; numerous corrections has been made to the online piece and no doubt many more will be made in the weeks to come, but the damage such pieces can do to the morale of those at the centre of this tragedy cannot be underestimated. What I find most disturbing about O’Hagan’s work comes from the interview he gave afterwards for an LRB podcast, in which O’Hagan muses that perhaps we are all to blame for Grenfell. Whilst on the surface this seems a fairly innocuous comment on the state of modern society, it is an extremely dangerous position to take regarding the causes and consequences of the Grenfell Tower fire. After all if everyone is to blame, then it actually means that no one is – this would certainly suit the organisations and individuals in both the public and private sector who have a lot to answer for but it certainly doesn’t suit any of the victims.

This Inquiry is going to take a lot of time, money, and effort to complete; the police investigation is still progressing too. I would much rather wait until all of the evidence for both of these is public before making final decisions on apportioning blame – I just hope that everyone else feels the same as this will be the only way that we have a chance of ever seeing any justice for Grenfell.

By Joe Delaney

The Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry began hearing evidence from Firefighters, who were first on the scene, this week.

Sitting in the room, listening to the interrogation that Michael Dowden was subjected to was a distressing experience. I wondered if the Counsel for the Inquiry wanted to demonstrate to the public and the bereaved families that he aimed to be piercing in his questioning to uncover the truth. It had a somewhat of the opposite effect as the public watched a low ranking firefighter struggle with relentless questioning. Michael Dowden’s silences and body language revealed that not only that he lacked training in key areas of managing fires in high rise buildings, but that he still remained deeply scarred by the fire and the events of that night.

Was Michael Dowden to blame for his lack of training, the dangerous cladding, the poor fire safety doors or the range of other safety defects in the building?

It is incumbent on the Inquiry that it is as thorough in it’s questioning of those who made decisions which led to Grenfell Tower being a deathtrap.

To get justice, we need to be confident that this way of questioning will lead to the truth of why the fire happened on 14th June 2017.

At the moment, it feels more like the Firefighters are being scapegoated.

The assembly point for the March is Downing St at 12pm.

We will then follow the route displayed here on the map – and we have some incredible speakers for you too. See you there!

Press Release: For Immediate Release

At the first anniversary of the Grenfell Disaster, the Justice 4 Grenfell Campaign finds itself as members of a stronger, closer and unified North Kensington community.  On the Anniversary, we will foremost honour and remember the 72 children, women and men who lost their lives. We will be here with our community and we will stand with Grenfell.

Yvette

I find myself going through three phases each day. Firstly, it feels like it was only yesterday that I stood at the base of the tower watching the ‘inferno’; at other times it feels longer than a year as there have been so many struggles, e.g. lack of permanent homes for former residents; sometimes I wake up questioning if the horror at Grenfell really happened?  I want the world to stand with Grenfell on the anniversary. The community needs to see and feel huge support at what will be a difficult time. The road to Justice continues and ‘Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.’

Moyra

One year on, as I reflect on that fateful morning, I recall that for a brief time our community felt like we were in a warzone where a bomb had been dropped. The horror of watching the fire, the pain of the loss of lives and homes as well as the frustration and anger at the absence of support from the local authority still resonates. We have stood firm and used the unity of our community and the solidarity from across the country and internationally to keep our focus on the demand for justice. Today I will honour the lives of my neighbours and friends who lost their lives so needlessly and take courage from the dignity of the bereaved families.

Tasha

I can’t believe that a year has passed, though at times I find myself still questioning if the fire at Grenfell Tower really happened. It has been a whirlwind year, and although full of so many difficult emotions that I didn’t know existed, we’ve also seen so many beautiful gestures from people to people, and city to city since. When we’ve been at our lowest, it’s been ordinary people and communities who have given strength. Today, as we mark the 1st anniversary of the fire, I want to thank this community for all that they have done and continue to do. I am so honoured to have grown up in and live in North Kensington, and will continue to fight alongside this community for as long as it takes. We will get justice but, today let’s remember the 72 men, women and beautiful children that were lost, let’s remember their families and the survivors of Grenfell Tower. Most importantly, let’s do what we have proven to the world we do so well: love and support one another.