Emma Dent Coad, the former Kensington MP, has called on Eric Pickles to resign from the House of Lords and as a government ethics adviser after criticism in the Grenfell inquiry. Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, also said he should be stripped of his peerage.
The inquiry found that Pickles' department failed to act on a coroner's 2013 recommendation to tighten fire safety regulations after the Lakanal House fire, which killed six people. It said the recommendation was “not treated with any sense of urgency” and had not been implemented by the time of the Grenfell fire in June 2017, which killed 72.
In a statement, Pickles said he had raised the coroner's recommendation as a “serious matter” with the then permanent secretary Bob Kerslake, who died last year. He said evidence emerged that “middle-ranking officials” did not share Kerslake's sense of public duty, and that they let down the government and the public.
The report also said Pickles “enthusiastically supported” the government's drive to slash regulations, meaning fire safety matters were “ignored, delayed or disregarded”. Pickles insisted the anti-red tape drive did not cover building regulations, but the inquiry said this was “flatly contradicted” by evidence. He said he had separated ministerial responsibility for housing from building regulation and that a Lib Dem minister held the building regulations brief.
Dent Coad said Pickles “should have the grace to resign”, describing his conduct at the inquiry as contemptuous. Wrack said Pickles had “more opportunities than almost anyone else” to avert the catastrophe, and that his pursuit of deregulation led to “the tragic deaths of 72 people”.
