Survivors and campaigners say Cameron’s statement is ‘total bullshit’
David Cameron has provoked a wave of indignation from Grenfell fire survivors and housing campaigners after claiming that the inquiry agreed with him that fire regulations had not been part of his government’s “red tape drive” to cut regulations.
But campaigners said the former prime minister’s words were “bollocks” and “total bullshit”, since the inquiry report had explicitly said the effect of the Coalition government’s attack on red tape was that “even matters affecting the safety of life were ignored, delayed or disregarded”.
Ed Daffarn, 62, a Grenfell tower resident who raised multiple concerns about fire safety before the fire, said he was “angry but not surprised”, and said Cameron was “failing to take responsibility”.
After Cameron’s government came to power in 2010, it created a “one in, one out” rule where new regulations could only come into force if another was scrapped, later becoming one in, two out and one in, three out.
Survivors of the fire in June 2017 believe that the lack of regulations and ministers’ failure to act on a coroner’s report into a fire at Lakanal House, another London tower block, eight years earlier had contributed to the disaster that killed 72 people.
When the inquiry examined the issue, chair Sir Martin Moore-Bick took evidence from Eric Pickles, the housing secretary under Cameron, who made the claim that his prime minister’s “red tape challenge” had specifically excluded fire safety.
The inquiry report said it was “unable to accept his evidence” on the issue, which was “flatly contradicted by that of his officials and by the contemporaneous documents”.
Cameron’s government had excluded one part of fire regulations, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the inquiry found, but not building regulations and other documents which had a material impact on how construction firms approached fire safety concerns. Pickles’s remarks “served only to reveal the limits of his understanding” about the difference, it said.
In its summary, the inquiry was explicit that “the government’s deregulatory agenda … dominated the department [for community, housing and local government]’s thinking to such an extent that even matters affecting the safety of life were ignored, delayed or disregarded.”
And it said the government “determinedly resisted calls from across the fire sector to regulate fire risk assessors and to amend the Fire Safety Order to make it clear that it applied to the exterior walls of buildings containing more than one set of domestic premises”.
The former prime minister chose to make his statement on X, formerly Twitter, at 6pm on Friday evening.
Cameron said “all of us who have
served in positions of power” wer” had made mistakes and said he wanted to “echo” apologies by Keir Starmer mer and Rishi Sunak to survivors and d the community, saying: “the British itish state let you down”.
Yet he claimed: “The report ort is clear that fire safety and d building safety regulations s were explicitly excluded from m the Coalition Government’s s greatly-needed ‘ red tape e reviews’, given the importance - we placed on safety ty and build quality. Indeed, the he Coalition and post-2015 governments ovease took steps to increase fire safety regulation.”
Pete Apps, who won the Orwell Prize for his book
How We Let Grenfell Happen, said Cameron’s Cameron statement was “demonstrably strably and a very clearly total bullshit”. “Cameron Cam is making the same mistake mistak Pickles did – conflating the regulatory re reform order, which was exempt, with the building regulations, regu which weren’t,” he said. said “Whoever wrote that statement me for him either hasn’t read the report, has woefully misunderstood de or is lying.” Giles G Grover, co-leader of End Our Cladding Scandal, said “that’s tha bollocks” when told of Cameron’s Cam comments.
“It was w Cameron’s government’s focus on deregulation that played a key part in people’s homes not being safe,” Grover said.