The government was “well aware” of the deadly risks posed by combustible cladding and insulation a year before the Grenfell Tower fire, but “failed to act on what it knew”, a landmark report has found.
The report also said “systemic dishonesty” from cladding and insulation companies and a “toxic” relationship between the tower’s residents and the Tenant Management Organisation (TMO), which was responsible for running services, were contributing factors.
More than seven years on from the fire that claimed 72 lives, Grenfell Inquiry chair Sir Martin Moore-Bick has published his final findings into how the building in west London came to be in such a deadly state.
Image: Pic: PA
Sir Martin also concluded:
• Government officials were “complacent, defensive and dismissive” on fire safety, while cutting red tape was prioritised
• There was an “inappropriate relationship” between approved inspectors and those they were inspecting
• Grenfell residents who raised safety concerns were dismissed as “militant troublemakers”
Image: Flames engulfed the 24-storey tower block in Latimer Road, west London, on 14 June 2017
The report details what it calls a “path to disaster” and “decades of failure”.
It asked: “How was it possible in 21st century London for a reinforced concrete building, itself structurally impervious to fire, to be turned into a death trap?”
“There is no simple answer to that question.”
Sir Martin’s report runs to nearly 1,700 pages, and encompasses years of work and the testimony of hundreds of witnesses.
It contains 58 recommendations to ensure a similar disaster never happens again.
Image: Hundreds of firefighters tackled the blaze. Pic: PA
Image: Crews tackled the fire in shifts – resting at the scene. Pic: AP
Complacency in government
The first phase of the inquiry’s report found in 2019 that combustible cladding was the primary cause of the rapid spread of the fire.
The inquiry has now concluded that the tragedy was the culmination of those in charge failing for decades to properly consider the risks of combustible materials on high-rise buildings, while ignoring the mounting evidence before them.
Image: The building was covered in combustible products. Pic: Reuters
Successive governments missed opportunities to prevent the tragedy.
The deadly risks of combustible cladding panels and insulation had been identified as early as 1991, when a fire engulfed the Knowsley Heights tower block in Huyton, Merseyside.
The block had recently been covered in “rainscreen” cladding.
Six people were killed at Lakanal House in Camberwell, south London, in 2009 after a fire spread to combustible cladding.
“By 2016 the department [for communities and local government] was well aware of those risks, but failed to act on what it knew,” the report states.
It adds that by the time Grenfell Tower was being renovated in the 2010s, a “seriously defective” system was in place to regulate the construction and refurbishment of high-rise buildings.
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0:49
‘We want changes and justice’
Unsafe products kept on market and dangers ‘deliberately concealed’
The report condemns cladding and insulation firms involved in this work, saying they engaged in “deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market”.
It said that “systemic dishonesty” from the companies resulted in hazardous materials being applied to the block.
Arconic, the company that made cladding for Grenfell Tower, “deliberately concealed” the danger of the panels used on the tower, while Celotex, which supplied most of the insulation, similarly “embarked on a dishonest scheme to mislead customers”.
Kingspan knew its insulation product failed fire safety tests “disastrously” but continued to sell it to high-rise buildings, the report found.
The firms got away with this because the various bodies designed to oversee and certify their products repeatedly failed to monitor and supervise them.
Grenfell residents dismissed as ‘troublemakers’
There was also harsh criticism of the Tenant Management Organisation (TMO), which was responsible for running services at Grenfell Tower.
Residents who raised concerns about safety were dismissed as “militant troublemakers”, while there was “a toxic atmosphere” with the TMO “fuelled by mistrust of both sides”.
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Relations “were increasingly characterised by distrust, dislike, personal antagonism and anger” and “some, perhaps many, occupants of the tower regarded the TMO as an uncaring and bullying overlord that belittled and marginalised them”.
The TMO and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea were jointly responsible for managing fire safety at Grenfell Tower – but the years between 2009 and 2017 were marked by a “persistent indifference to fire safety”, the report said.
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2:30
‘I realised the burning building was my own home’
Next steps
The Counsel for the inquiry has accused parties involved in the disaster of a “merry-go-round of buck-passing” – largely blaming each other for the disaster.
The inquiry can’t make findings of civil and criminal liability.
Now its work is complete, the police investigation into the disaster will continue.
The UK Tonight With Sarah-Jane Mee will have a special programme on the Grenfell Tower report at 8pm on Sky News
A British fintech which counts Standard Life among its key clients is close to finalising one of the industry’s biggest funding rounds so far this year.
Sky News understands that Hyperlayer, which is run by the former Morgan Stanley executive Rob Rooney, is lining up a major equity injection led by CDAM, a UK-based investment firm, and several new institutional investors.
City sources said this weekend that the new capital from CDAM and other backers could total at least £30m.
The funding round is expected to take place at a post-money valuation of about £160m.
Hyperlayer, which operates a consumer-facing digital wallet called Hyperjar, intends to use the new funding as growth capital to finance the development of new partnerships with global banks and asset managers.
The company provides smart account technology on existing client infrastructure, and is said to work with a number of the world’s 10 largest banks – although it has not publicly disclosed their identities.
Its work with Standard Life involves the future launch of a consumer money app aimed at people approaching or in early retirement.
Hyperlayer’s consumer-facing platform sees customers organise their money in what the company calls “digital jam jars”, enabling them to earn rewards which give them access to partner brands such as Asda, Morrisons and Starbucks.
IKEA and the John Lewis Partnership are among the other merchant partners with which Hyperlayer is working to develop distinctive loyalty-based initiatives for its financial institution clients.
Founded in 2006 by Adam Chamberlain and Scott Davies, CDAM has $1.5bn in assets under management and is an experienced investor in financial services technology.
Mr Davies has had a seat on Hyperlayer’s board for several years.
Mr Rooney, who was a prominent Wall Street executive for years, ultimately serving as Morgan Stanley’s technology operations, joined the company as CEO in 2023.
The new capital injection led by CDAM is understood to be subject to approval by Hyperlayer’s shareholders.
Octopus Energy Group, Britain’s largest residential gas and electricity supplier, is plotting a £10bn demerger of its technology arm that would reinforce its status as one of the country’s most valuable private companies.
Sky News can exclusively reveal that Octopus Energy is close to hiring investment bankers to help formally separate Kraken Technologies from the rest of the group.
The demerger, which would be expected to take place in the next 12 months, would see Octopus Energy’s existing investors given shares in the newly independent Kraken business.
A minority stake in Kraken of up to 20% is expected to be sold to external shareholders in order to help validate the technology platform’s valuation, according to insiders.
One banking source said that Kraken could be valued at as much as $14bn (£10.25bn) in a forthcoming demerger.
Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are among the investment banks invited to pitch for the demerger mandate in recent weeks.
A deal will augment Octopus Energy chief executive Greg Jackson’s paper fortune, and underline his success at building a globally significant British-based company over the last decade.
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Octopus Energy now has 7.5m retail customers in Britain, following its 2022 rescue of the collapsed energy supplier Bulb, and the subsequent acquisition of Shell’s home energy business.
In January, it announced that it had become the country’s biggest supplier – surpassing Centrica-owned British Gas – with a 24% market share.
It also has a further 2.5m customers outside the UK.
Image: Kraken is an operating system licensed to other energy providers, water companies and telecoms suppliers. Pic: Octopus
Sources said a £10bn valuation of Kraken would now imply that the whole group, including the retail supply business, was worth in the region of £15bn or more.
That would be double its valuation of just over a year ago, when the company announced that it had secured new backing from funds Galvanize Climate Solutions and Lightrock.
Shortly before that, former US vice president Al Gore’s firm, Generation Investment Management, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board increased their stakes in Octopus Energy in a transaction valuing the company at $9bn (£7.2bn).
Kraken is an operating system which is licensed to other energy providers, water companies and telecoms suppliers.
It connects all parts of the energy system, including customer billing and the flexible management of renewable generation and energy devices such as heat pumps and electric vehicle batteries.
The business also unlocks smart grids which enable people to use more renewable energy when there is an abundant supply of it.
In the UK, its platform is licensed to Octopus Energy’s rivals EON and EDF Energy, as well as the water company Severn Trent and broadband provider Cuckoo.
Overseas, Kraken serves Origin Energy in Australia, Japan’s Tokyo Gas and Plentitude in countries including France and Greece.
Its biggest coup came recently, when it struck a deal with National Grid in the US to serve 6.5m customers in New York and Massachusetts.
Sources said other major licensing agreements in the US were expected to be struck in the coming months.
Kraken, which is chaired by Gavin Patterson, the former BT Group chief executive, is now contracted to more than 70m customer accounts globally – putting it easily on track to hit a target of 100m by 2027.
Earlier this year, Mr Jackson said that target now risked being seen as “embarrassingly unambitious”.
Last July, Kraken recruited Amir Orad, a former boss of NICE Actimize, a US-listed provider of enterprise software to global banks and Fortune 500 companies, as its first chief executive.
A demerger of Kraken will trigger speculation about an eventual public market listing of the business.
Its growth in the US, and the relative public market valuations of technology companies in New York and London, may put the UK at a disadvantage when Kraken eventually considers where to list.
One key advantage of demerging Kraken from the rest of Octopus Energy Group would be to remove the perception of a conflict of interest among potential customers of the technology platform.
A source said the unified corporate ownership of both businesses had acted as a deterrent to some energy suppliers.
Kraken has also diversified beyond the energy sector, and earlier this year joined a consortium which was exploring a takeover bid for stricken Thames Water.
The boss of Ryanair has told Sky News the president of the European Commission should “quit” if she can’t stop disruption caused by repeated French air traffic control strikes.
Michael O’Leary, the group chief executive of Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers, said in an interview with Business Live that Ursula von der Leyen had failed to get to grips, at an EU level, with interruption to overflights following several recent disputes in France.
The latest action began on Thursday and is due to conclude later today, forcing thousands of flights to be delayed and cancelled through French airspace closures.
Mr O’Leary told presenter Darren McCaffrey that French domestic flights were given priority during ATC strikes and other nations, including Italy and Greece, had solved the problem through minimum service legislation.
He claimed that the vast majority of flights, cancelled over two days of action that began on Thursday, would have been able to operate under similar rules.
Mr O’Leary said of the EU’s role: “We continue to call on Ursula von der Leyen – why are you not protecting these overflights, why is the single market for air travel being disrupted by a tiny number of French air traffic controllers?
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Image: Ryanair has cancelled more than 400 flights over two days due to the action in France. File pic: PA
“All we get is a shrug of their shoulders and ‘there’s nothing we can do’. We point out, there is.”
He added: “We are calling on Ursula von der Leyen, who preaches about competitiveness and reforming Europe, if you’re not willing to protect or fix overflights then quit and let somebody more effective do the job.”
The strike is estimated, by the Airlines for Europe lobby group to have led to at least 1,500 cancelled flights, leaving 300,000 travellers unable to make their journeys.
Image: Michael O’Leary believes the EU can take action on competition grounds. Pic: PA
Ryanair itself had axed more than 400 flights so far, Mr O’Leary said. Rival easyJet said on Thursday that it had cancelled 274 services over the two days.
The beginning of July marks the start of the European summer holiday season.
The French civil aviation agency DGAC had already told airlines to cancel 40% of flights covering the three main Paris airports on Friday ahead of the walkout – a dispute over staffing levels and equipment quality.
Mr O’Leary described those safety issues as “nonsense” and said twhile the controllers had a right to strike, they did not have the right to close the sky.
DGAC has warned of delays and further severe disruption heading into the weekend.
Many planes and crews will be out of position.
Mr O’Leary is not alone in expressing his frustration.
The French transport minister Philippe Tabarot has denounced the action and the reasons for it.
“The idea is to disturb as many people as possible,” he said in an interview with CNews.
Passengers are being advised that if your flight is cancelled, the airline must either give you a refund or book you on an alternative flight.
If you have booked a return flight and the outbound leg is cancelled, you can claim the full cost of the return ticket back from your airline.