The Grenfell Tower inquiry is a statutory inquiry established under the Inquiries Act 2005. Under the Act, the drafting of an inquiry’s final report and the timing of that process are rightly matters for the independent inquiry chair. In its November 2023 newsletter, published on its website, the inquiry confirmed that
“the report will not be published before April next year but the Panel hopes to be able to send it to the Prime Minister before the next anniversary of the fire with publication soon thereafter.”
I thank the Minister for his response. It is now nearly seven years since the Grenfell tragedy, in which 72 people lost their lives. What assurances has he had from the inquiry chair that there will be no further delays in the publication of the report? It is essential that justice is done, and I know that view is echoed across the House.
The hon. Gentleman will have seen, further to what I have just read out, the report that was published in November, in which the chair explained that rule 13 of the inquiry rules requires the inquiry
“to write to those who might be subject to criticism”
and give them fair time to respond. The newsletter states:
“The rule 13 process is proving time consuming.”
However, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be reassured by the dates that I have read out.
The Prime Minister assured the public that the Grenfell tragedy would not be forgotten, yet across many different areas of concern—the lack of resolution on the future of the Grenfell Tower site, the many buildings that have been evacuated because of structural concerns, and the lack of justice for survivors—we see a lack of urgency in addressing the concerns raised by the inquiry. When will the Government act to rebuild public confidence and ensure that the necessary measures are taken to prevent a similar tragedy happening in future?
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, but I think it is deeply unfair to suggest that there has been a lack of urgency from the Government. The then Prime Minister announced the inquiry the day after that terrible event, and we have taken huge action to provide compensation for people and to ensure that no qualifying leaseholder living in a building above 11 metres will face the cost of remediation for unsafe cladding. Of course we are eager to get the response from the official inquiry, and we will take action thereafter.
9. Whether he has made an assessment of the adequacy of public procurement processes under covid-19 emergency regulations.
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
ConservativeBrentwood and Ongar
There are well established procedures in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 for handling emergency procurements, which enable the Government to procure lifesaving goods and expertise. We followed those procedures in order to save lives as fast as we could during the worst pandemic in living memory. The Procurement Act 2023, which has just passed both Houses of Parliament, will introduce faster competition processes for emergency buying, reducing the reliance on direct awards while retaining and improving transparency, and the ability to act at pace in situations similar to the covid pandemic.
I am deeply saddened by the death of our dear friend Sir Tony Lloyd.
I fear that the Procurement Act will allow for the same horrific waste of taxpayers’ money and the approach to public procurement that we experienced during the pandemic, with friends and donors to the Tory party being given the first bite of the cherry while decent local skilled businesses are increasingly sidelined by the Government’s approach. We saw that in recent analysis from the British Chambers of Commerce. Can the Minister explain why small and medium-sized enterprises are increasingly being sidelined from access to public procurement?
I have to take issue with a number of the hon. Gentleman’s points. First and foremost, the idea, constantly repeated by Opposition Members, that there was special consideration for individual companies—[Interruption.]It is very important that we go through this yet again. The hon. Gentleman has had answers on this twice in the past year, but I am going to tell him a third time: the simple fact of the matter is that everyone who applied for a contract went through the same process. Very hardworking and professional civil servants made those judgments in uniquely difficult circumstances. Frankly, I am sick of hearing slurs against their good name. [Interruption.]
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi). In spite of the Minister’s protestations, the evidence is to the contrary —[Interruption.]
The fact that Ministers’ mates can get these lucrative contracts, as last month’s evidence showed, while tens of thousands of our constituents struggle to put food on the table is an absolute disgrace. Of the £12.6 billion-worth of personal protective equipment contracts let in 2020, will the Minister confirm—I have evidence on this, so I advise him to choose his language carefully—that up to a third were fraudulent, or the result of profiteering or conflicts of interest?
I would be very interested to see the hon. Lady’s evidence. Where there is evidence of fraud, we will of course go after that, as we have done so in a number of high-profile cases. Where investigations are ongoing, we will recoup as much money as we can for the British taxpayer.