“Sadly, you know, everyone dies in the end. It’s just how you go, right?” said Simon Dudley, once chair of Homes England.
Reform UK’s housing spokesperson Simon Dudley was sacked today after comments he made about the catastrophic Grenfell fire drew condemnation from Grenfell United, a group representing Grenfell victims and families, who called them “dehumanising”.
In an interview published yesterday in Inside Housing, Dudley, formerly interim chair of Homes England who was appointed Reform UK housing spokesman last month, criticised the current regulatory regime.
He said the Grenfell fire, which killed 72 people and injured 74, was “a tragedy” and “a failure”, before adding: “Sadly, you know, everyone dies in the end. It’s just how you go, right?”
He went on: “Extracting Grenfell from the statistics, actually people dying in house fires is rare. Many, many more people die on the roads driving cars, but we’re not making cars illegal, so why are we stopping houses being built?
“Think about all the human suffering of not having a home, not being able to have children, being stuck with your parents, in your childhood bedroom. You can’t stop tragic things happening. You can try to minimise excesses, but bad things do happen.”
‘Deeply dehumanising’
The Grenfell Inquiry found that the 72 deaths were avoidable and followed “decades of failure” by governments and the construction industry to deal with risks posed by flammable materials on high-rise buildings.
In her final report following her review of Building Regulations and fire safety after the tragedy, Dame Judith Hackitt FCIOB called for a new regulatory framework for buildings more than 10 storeys high, clearer responsibilities for building safety and more rigorous enforcement, among other measures.
In response to Dudley’s statements, Grenfell United this morning issued a statement saying: “Amongst others, Simon Dudley’s comment – ‘Sadly, you know, everyone dies in the end. It’s just how you go, right?’ – is not just insensitive, it is deeply dehumanising.
“Our loved ones did not simply ‘die’. They were failed. They were trapped in their homes, in a building that should have been safe, in a fire that should never have happened. Reducing their deaths to an inevitability strips away the truth: this was preventable.”
Already sacked
In a tweet this morning, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Reform UK leader Nigel Farage “should do the decent thing and sack him”.
A few hours later, answering journalists’ questions after a press conference, Farage said Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK and the party’s business spokesperson, had already sacked Dudley.
Farage added that Dudley’s comments had been “deeply inappropriate” and “frankly rather shocking to many people”.
This morning in response to the outcry, Dudley – also former chair of Ebbsfleet Development Corporation – tweeted: “Grenfell was an utter tragedy and quite rightly prompted a wholesale review and tightening of fire regulations.
“I said it was a tragedy in my interview with Inside Housing and in no shape or form am I belittling that disaster or the huge loss of life. It must never happen again. I reiterate that, and am sorry if it was not sufficiently clear.
“Within the last 24 hours, the Berkeley Group, one of Britain’s biggest housebuilders, has paused new land purchases and announced a hiring freeze. They blame ‘an unprecedented surge in costs and regulation.’
“These concerns are felt across the industry. The result? The UK’s long running housing crisis is getting worse. To address the national housing crisis, we must ensure that regulation remains safe, sensible and proportionate. My concern is the introduction of numerous measures that do nothing to protect life and are throttling housebuilding.”
