The government started preparing its excuses just two days after the Grenfell Tower fire, the inquiry into the disaster has heard.
As families searched for missing loved ones, Brian Martin, the official in charge of fire safety building regulations at the Ministry of Housing, Local Government and Communities, circulated a pre-written rebuttal of press claims that the government should shoulder some of the blame.
Martin contacted Diane Marshall, now operations director at the National House Building Council, asking her to “say this (or something similar) in public” to counter critical reporting that the government’s building control system had allowed the west London council block to be wrapped in combustible materials.
Ministers and government officials are facing cross-examination over their role in the lead-up to the fire, including the “bonfire of red tape” policy of David Cameron’s government and the failure to review fire safety rules after the fatal 2009 Lakanal House high-rise fire in south London.
