Theresa May visited victims of the Grenfell Tower blaze in a west London hospital on Friday, after being criticised for failing to meet residents of the block earlier.
Mrs May spent almost an hour speaking to patients and staff at London’s Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on Friday. She had been widely criticised on Thursday when she went to the scene of the fire to meet members of the emergency services who had tackled the blaze, but did not speak to local families directly.
Her failure to do so contrasted with a visit by the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who was pictured on Thursday comforting victims at a community centre.
May’s visit comes as the government scrambles to show it is tackling the issues raised by the fatal tower block fire. The leader of the House of Commons, Andrea Leadsom, has already visited the site, and the communities secretary, Sajid Javid, will do so later on Friday.
The prime minister will also chair a meeting of key cabinet ministers, including Javid and the home secretary, Amber Rudd, at 1.30pm, to coordinate the response to the fire. That contrasts with the government’s initial approach on Wednesday and Thursday, when the tragedy was dealt with by a civil contingencies committee attended by junior ministers.
When concerned MPs gathered to raise questions about the consequences of the fire on Thursday, two new junior ministers – Alok Sharma and Nick Hurd – were sent to represent the government.
Downing Street sources said it was May’s decision to escalate the government’s handling of the tragedy, and take direct charge of it. They rejected the claim that the government had been slow to grasp its scale and importance.
“If there’s more to do – and there will be more to do – then we will be doing it,” a source said, suggesting nine separate departments would be involved, from the Treasury, ensuring victims can get access to their money if documents were lost in the fire, to the Department for Education, which would make sure children displaced by the tragedy can continue to attend schools nearby.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, who had a series of highly-charged encounters with local residents on Thursday, has also written to the prime minister urging her to take immediate action.
Khan said: “I spent several hours yesterday talking to local residents around Grenfell Tower. These were difficult conversations with a tight-knit community that is understandably distraught, frustrated and increasingly angry. They feel the Government and local council haven’t done enough to help them in the aftermath of this horrific incident, or to provide answers to their increasingly urgent questions.”
He said residents had raised several issues with him, including a lack of information about the whereabouts of victims, and the need for urgent answers about the causes of the blaze.
“I would ask you to ensure that the local community is given as much information as possible today and over the coming days about the number of victims and their identities,” he said.
He also called on the government to ensure that a preliminary report from the public inquiry ordered by the prime minister yesterday be published by the summer.
He also asked for the government to provide a list of the tower blocks who have already been safety-checked by the end of today; and a timeline for inspecting the remaining high-rise towers.
Leadsom, who became leader of the Commons in May’s weekend reshuffle, was heckled by local people when visiting the site on Friday morning. As she was interviewed on Sky News, one man asked: “Sadiq Khan, Corbyn, have come down here, not with all these bodyguards and police, they’ve come down here and spoke to people, and actually, down to the level. Why is Theresa May coming down here, with a load of police, not meeting anyone?”
Leadsom said she had come to represent MPs, and ministers would be doing everything they could to respond to the consequences of the blaze. “Various ministers have been, and I think a number have come here more privately, to try and talk to people and try and give practical support.”
With 17 people confirmed dead and scores still missing in the Grenfell Tower blaze, Javid announced that the government had launched an emergency review of fire safety at 4,000 tower blocks across Britain .
Javid said on Friday that officials would do whatever was necessary to make sure the buildings were safe.
On Thursday MPs pressed the government over the risks for residents of other high-rise towers, and urged it to make sufficient resources available to tackle the consequences of the blaze.
Javid said preliminary findings from the Grenfell Tower fire investigators would inform the review.
The block caught fire in the early hours of Wednesday morning and was quickly engulfed by flames. About 30 people are being treated in hospital and scores of residents are still missing.
Observers of the fire said cladding fitted during a recent refurbishment could have helped the fire spread so quickly. Similar material has been prohibited in the US since 2012 but is thought to be used on buildings across the UK.
“This should never have happened in a country like Britain in the 21st century. It is not acceptable,” Javid said in an interview that signalled the government’s determination to deal urgently with the implications of the fire. He would not speculate on what kind of cladding had been used on the tower.
Asked why no action had been taken on recommendations made by a coroner in 2013 about cladding and sprinklers after a similar tower fire in 2009, he said: “That is why we need a proper inquiry. There were a number of recommendations. The coroner did not recommend new planning regulations. He recommended a change in guidance.”
Javid tried to reassure people living in similar high-rise blocks who fear they may be at risk.
He told BBC Breakfast: “There are about 4,000 high-rise buildings in the country but not all of them have been re-cladded, but also let’s not just make the assumption that it is all about cladding.
“We need to be led by the experts and as soon as we have more information from the experts, which we expect either later today or certainly over the weekend, that is what I think should be used to do these emergency inspections.”
He defended May, who made a private visit to the scene during which she spoke to emergency service workers but left without talking to community members affected by the blaze.
He said it was “absolutely right” for the prime minister to go “as quickly as she could to learn about the operation and to discover if there is anything more that the government could be doing to help with the operation”.
Javid, who is set to visit a relief centre near the tower block, also said those who had been made homeless should be given “the right quality local temporary accommodation, but I also want to make sure that their permanent accommodation is somewhere local”.
Gavin Barwell, the prime minister’s new chief of staff, refused to answer questions from a Sky News reporter about the possible causes of the tragedy as he strode along Whitehall and entered Downing Street on Friday morning.
Barwell, a former housing minister, has been accused of failing to act on the recommendations of a report on fire safety produced in the wake of an earlier tower block fire in Camberwell.
He replaced May’s advisers, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, after they resigned following last week’s general election, in which Barwell lose his Croydon Central seat.
(TheGuardian UK)
