Government 'cannot mark own homework on Grenfell'

The government cannot be left "marking its own homework" when it comes to following through on recommendations from the Grenfell Report, MPs have said.

In a letter to Housing Secretary Angela Rayner the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee urged independent oversight of progress on building safety.

Members branded it "completely unacceptable" that survivors and next of kin of the 72 people who lost their lives in the Grenfell Tower disaster "are still awaiting justice for that terrible day".

Building safety minister Alex Norris told the committee last month that the government had promised "quarterly reporting" on its website and annual scrutiny in the House of Commons.

Campaigners on a range of scandals, including the Grenfell fire and infected blood victims, have previously called for a national oversight mechanism - an independent public body - to be put in place, responsible for collating, analysing and following up on recommendations from public inquiries.

They have argued that, without such a body in place, governments can delay the implementation of, or even ignore entirely, recommendations from public inquiries.

Backing this call, the committee told ministers: "The clearest, most consistent message we heard in our inquiry was that the government must now be held to account for implementing these recommendations.

"We therefore endorse witness calls for the design and implementation of an independent mechanism to ensure that the government is held to account going forward and is not left marking its own homework."

Florence Eshalomi, the MP for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green who chairs the housing committee, said survivors and next of kin wanted to see government action "at a pace".

"The sense from them was that so much time had been lost and yet nothing had moved on considerably," the Labour politician told BBC London.

"What we are asking is there should be a national oversight mechanism, similar to what's been proposed with Hillsborough, to effectively monitor the different stages of implementation and looking at those recommendations so that we can all track the progress."

Appearing before the committee last month, Mr Norris said that, while he recognised the call for an oversight mechanism from campaigners who have been the victims of "scandal and failure of the British state", he "can't make that commitment".

He said: "That's a Cabinet Office-run process. I've made the commitment I've made in line with what we published in the inquiry on the publicly available information. The work is ongoing across government on the national oversight mechanism more generally."

The committee said an independent oversight mechanism would "reduce the risk of future governments repeating the catastrophic mistakes which have historically led to state-related deaths, from Hillsborough, to the infected blood scandal, to the Grenfell Tower fire itself".

Elsewhere in their letter, the MPs also demanded an urgent review of the decision to mandate sprinkler installation in new care homes but not existing ones, and that sufficient funding was provided to ensure all disabled residents in high-rise buildings could have Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans.

A government spokesperson said: "The Grenfell Tower tragedy claimed 72 innocent lives in a disaster that should never have happened.

"We are acting on all of the Inquiry's findings, working closely with industry, local authorities and the bereaved, survivors and residents, and have committed to updating on progress regularly.

"We have also committed to introducing a more robust system to improve the transparency, accessibility and scrutiny of inquiry recommendations received by government."

Additional reporting from PA Media.

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