Memorial to 72 victims of Grenfell fire to be funded by new legislation

A permanent memorial to the 72 people who died in the Grenfell Tower fire will be funded by new government legislation, the housing secretary has announced.Steve Reed said the bill would provide the spending authority needed to support the memorial commission and community in building and maintaining a “lasting and dignified memorial” to those who died in the blaze on 14 June 2017 in west London.Reed told the Commons on Wednesday that honouring their memory was an “enduring duty” of the state and the fire in Kensington was a “terrible moment in British history”.In comments reported by the BBC, he said: “We will not forget what happened that night. We must make sure that nothing like it can ever happen again.”Work on dismantling the tower began in September and the process is expected to last for two years.Reed said the government is on target to complete 70% of the inquiry’s recommendations by the end of this year and work to remove and replace dangerous flammable cladding had been completed on 91% of high-rise residential and public buildings in England so far.How the failures that caused Grenfell still exist todayAll remaining recommendations would be implemented during this parliament, he added.The government also published a construction products reform white paper, setting out plans for a new construction regulator and changes to modernise building product rules.Reed said the building safety regulator would “evolve into the regulator the inquiry recommended” and confirmed a consultation on those reforms had opened.He also announced new regulations requiring emergency evacuation plans for high-rise buildings would come into force on 6 April.On the Metropolitan Police investigation into the fire, Reed said it is “one of the largest and most complex in the force’s history” and police said there are 220 investigators involved.A number of MPs questioned the progress of the Met investigation into the fire, with Conservative Sir Julian Lewis asking why it was taking “so long”, while Labour’s Dawn Butler called on Reed to “push the Met to move quicker”.Grenfell survivor Edward Daffarn voiced his frustration at what he described as the slow pace of change.He told the Press Association: “I believe that they’re turning me from a survivor into another victim in expecting anything meaningful to change for bereaved and survivors of Grenfell.“I think the [lack of] national oversight mechanism is one example. I think that the failure to bring the testing of products in-house as was recommended by Sir Martin Moore-Bick is another piece of evidence of how this government are not being honest with the public.“The fact that we’re still here discussing a timeline for recommendations is simply not good enough.”The final report of the Grenfell inquiry concluded that each of the deaths was avoidable and had been preceded by “decades of failure” by governments and the building industry to act on the dangers of flammable materials on high-rise buildings.It also found victims, the bereaved and survivors were “badly failed” through incompetence, dishonesty and greed.The tower block was covered in combustible products because of the “systematic dishonesty” of firms that made and sold the cladding and insulation, inquiry chair Moore-Bick said in his final report in 2024.He also condemned the “deliberate and sustained” manipulation of fire safety testing, misrepresentation of test data and misleading of the market.