The dishonesty and disregard for safety shown by the companies at the heart of the inquiry point to the need for much tougher regulation
So now we know. The suppliers of the cladding system used in the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower are greedy cheats who put sales before safety. Jaw-dropping evidence at the public inquiry into the disaster from key witnesses including Jonathan Roper, who worked for the insulation manufacturer Celotex, and emails sent by employees at the cladding company Arconic, have put beyond doubt what many survivors believed they already knew: these companies knew that what they were doing was dangerous and they didn’t care.
This was not a simple matter of a fatal error on a single project due to a one-off management or product failure, or a “bad apple” cutting corners on a job. The risk-taking in the sector was systematic and deliberate, and included faking tests and misleading customers and regulators, as well as working behind the scenes to weaken rules.
