Tory former housing secretary Michael Gove has claimed that the Treasury impeded his efforts to punish firms responsible for the flammable cladding on Grenfell Tower.
The damning final report of the seven-year inquiry into the blaze which killed 72 people on 14 June 2017 this week accused the three firms – Arconic, Celotex and Kingspan – whose cladding products were installed at Grenfell of “systematic dishonesty”.
The firms “engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the [fire safety] testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market”, the 1,600-page report by Sir Martin Moore-Bick found.
In the wake of the report’s publication, the bereaved relatives of those who died in what was the worst residential fire since the Second World War are demanding manslaughter charges for those responsible after seven years without justice.
With pressure growing on government figures over the lack of accountability for Grenfell, Mr Gove – who served as housing secretary for more than two years prior to the July election – claimed in an article forThe Sunday Times that his own efforts to punish the cladding firms were stymied.
“The task now falls to others to secure the justice I sought but failed to bring,” Mr Gove wrote. “I hope the Crown Prosecution Service and Metropolitan Police will do all they can to bring criminal prosecutions quickly.
“But pursuing a few of the most guilty individuals is not enough when these companies are still making vast profits without acknowledging their full responsibility.”
Accusing the three firms of having “willingly, knowingly, recklessly put greed ahead of decency”, Mr Gove alleged that his own attempts to restrict imports of their products ran up against the “commercial purism of Treasury Mandarin Brain”. The Treasury was approached for comment.
And the former Tory minister said there had been “insufficient action” from foreign governments on companies based overses.
“Because Kingspan is based in Ireland, and Arconic’s European operations and Celotex are in France, our jurisdiction was limited. But we were determined to go after them,” Mr Gove said.
He claimed to have “pressed the Irish government to act against Kingspan without success”, while receiving “only haughty froideur” from France.
Warning that “taking the necessary action will require toughness”, he wrote: “I worry that the new government may be dissuaded from doing everything necessary by those counselling caution.”
Citing arguments in Whitehall that the cladding firms “can be partners in combating climate change”, that the UK “shouldn’t pick fights with EU neighbours when we want a closer commercial relationship” and that pursuing companies abroad could deter foreign investment, Mr Gove said: “I understand all those arguments.
“But you cannot purchase prosperity at the price of justice. You cannot build a safe home for the vulnerable on an unquiet grave. You cannot allow the unacceptable face of capitalism to be left smirking when the tears of victims are still wet. Those who are the guiltiest must pay, and pay the most.”
However, Grenfell Next of Kin – a group whose immediate family members died at Grenfell – accused Mr Gove of “historical revisionism”.
In a statement to The Independent, the group said: “Has he forgotten he was in cabinet almost continuously from 2010 onwards, and the coalition government of David Cameron with his policy of ‘bonfire of regulations’ which launched a deregulation of planning standards? The political and policy decisions that embraced the ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’ he speaks of?
“He nudges us with emotive language of ‘purchasing prosperity at the price of justice’ and ‘our wet tears’ when it was precisely these policies that created the wild west conditions that allow these manufacturers to do harm.
“It is the ashes of his government’s ‘bonfire of regulation’ that were returned to us, the ashes of our kin to be buried. Thanks for championing our justice, but we think we got this from here on.”
Warning that all those to blame for Grenfell need to be punished, the group added: “The deliberate deflection of the responsibility of the state in our tragedy by Michael Gove ignoring the role of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, a Tory jewel in the crown where he and half the Tory cabinet lived at the time of the fire, and the Tory government at the time of the refurbishment of the tower, is historical revisionism at best.”
Apologising in The Times for the government’s failures, Mr Gove criticised the “many others who failed the victims of Grenfell”, including tenant managers, Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council, the Building Research Establishment, and developers.
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Sir Keir Starmer said “appropriate cases should go through to court”, with the prime minister adding: “The worst we could do is say or do anything which would prejudice the outcome of any proceedings.”
Additional reporting by PA