The Grenfell Tower inquiry: truth, justice and change

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

A week after the final report of the Grenfell Tower inquiry it’s time to focus on the responses so far and what happens next.

Sir Keir Starmer made a dignified statement in the Commons in which he spoke directly to the Grenfell community: ‘I want to start with an apology on behalf of the British state to each and every one of you, and indeed to all the families affected by this tragedy. It should never have happened. The country failed to discharge its most fundamental duty to protect you and your loved ones—the people we are here to serve—and I am deeply sorry.’

We’ve heard prime ministers say things like this many times over the decades, sometimes after disasters, sometimes after scandals. The difference is that Grenfell was both. 

For Grenfell United, publication of the report  is ‘a significant chapter in the journey to truth, justice and change. But justice has not been delivered. The inquiry report reveals that whenever there’s a clash between corporate interest and public safety, governments have done everything they can to avoid their responsibilities to keep people safe. The system isn’t broken, it was built this way.’

All disasters have an element of scandal about them too. There were basic operational failures that led to them, often compounded by a cavalier attitude to health and safety and establishment resistance to justice for the victims.

Similarly, scandals like the Post Office and infected blood were systemic failures but also disasters that cost victims their livelihoods and their lives.

Grenfell combines the two: not an accident but an entirely preventable disaster; and a scandal that does not just implicate local and central government and the entire construction industry but also raises fundamental questions about societal attitudes towards social housing and the safety of most of the blocks of flats built during this century.