Government commits to bar Grenfell firms from public sector contracts

The prime minister has pledged to exclude the companies criticised in the final report of the Grenfell Inquiry from public sector contracts.

Keir Starmer told MPs in parliament the government will write to the firms found by the Inquiry to have contributed to the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017, where 72 were killed.

“I can tell the House today that this government will write to all companies found by the Inquiry to have been part of these horrific failings, as the first step to stopping them being awarded government contracts,” said Starmer yesterday (4 September) following the publication of the Phase 2 report.

“We will, of course, support the Metropolitan Police and the prosecutors as they complete their investigations.”

The Grenfell Inquiry, led by retired judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick, named and shamed the companies involved in the refurbishment of the tower and the product manufacturers behind the flammable materials that allowed the fire to spread at speed.

The report said that “one very significant” reason why the residential block ended up being clad in combustible materials was the “systematic dishonesty on the part of those who made and sold the rainscreen cladding panels and insulation products”.

Despite the hard evidence presented in the two phases of the six-year-long Inquiry and its 1,700-page final report, Arconic – the supplier of the cladding that the Inquiry found to be the “primary cause” of the fire spread – published a statement rejecting the claim that its product was unsafe.

“AAP [Arconic’s subsidiary, Arconic Architectural Products SAS] sold sheets of aluminium composite material as specified in the design process,” Arconic said. “This product was safe to use as a building material, and legal to sell in the UK as well as the more than 30 other countries in which AAP customers purchased the product. We reject any claim that AAP sold an unsafe product.

“AAP did not conceal information from or mislead any certification body, customer, or the public.”

Insulation suppliers Celotex and Kingspan, which the Inquiry said engaged in “deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent these data and mislead the market”, also published statements maintaining that their products are safe.

You can read Arconic, Celotex and Kingspan’s full responses here.

Rydon, the contractor of the tower refurbishment, has not published a statement yet and did not respond to CM’s request for comment.