Bob Blackman
MP for Harrow East · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I hope that the Leader of the House will again provide protected time and prevail on his colleagues not to have too many Government statements, so that we can have a reasonable debate on the subject.”
“Since the changes, we have been inundated with requests from Select Committees to have statements in the House, which I welcome. Next Tuesday, before the two debates that have been scheduled, there will be Select Committee statements on the Treasury and Public Accounts Committee reports.”
“On Tuesday 20 October there will be a debate on manufacturing skills. On Thursday 22 October there will be a debate on compensation for Equitable Life policyholders. I am sure that the whole House will recognise the importance of hospital radio across the country.”
“Many of my constituents work at Heathrow airport. They have had to work extra hours, as the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned, and they have suffered abuse, too. I put on record my appreciation for all that they have done. Even more of my constituents use Heathrow for business travel and social travel.”
“I am sure that the Leader of the House will join me in congratulating Radio Brockley on this wonderful anniversary. Perhaps we could have a statement in Government time on the importance of hospital radio in the health service and the benefits it brings to patients and staff.”
“This is a sad day for the UK-Israel relationship, given the risks of what the Foreign Secretary is doing. Affecting the Israeli elections by making even moderate politicians even more hawkish is a huge risk.”
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“This affects a number of constituencies around London because many people drive to Stanmore to leave their car there and get into London via public transport. I take the view that we want to encourage people to get out of their cars and use public transport, but this will in effect encourage people to drive into London and then leave their car on residential streets, or to drive further down the line and then use stations further into London, so it is a very foolish move in both regards. Over the next few weeks, I will be working with residents groups to combat this at Stanmore station. Equally, the Mayor has a plan for Canons Park station, which is the next station along the route. He wants to build all over that car park as well, which I think is a retrograde step.”
“The do-nothing Mayor of London has come up with a grandiose scheme to build on the car park at Stanmore station, which, hon. Members may not be aware, is the terminus of the Jubilee line. It currently has 450 car parking spaces. The Mayor’s aim is to reduce that number by 150 and build multi-storey, high-density flats all over the car park. This has given rise to a very focused local campaign against this monstrosity. The area is characterised by two-storey housing. The Mayor wants to build an 11-storey block of flats alongside the station, which would dwarf the whole area and prevent proper access to and from the station. I am at great pains to say that I want to see more housing provided, but not in this way, and certainly not by reducing the amount of car parking available.”
“The victims are receiving only 22.5% of their assessed loss and that affects nearly 1 million people across the UK, many of whom are nurses or people in our caring professions, who were encouraged by the Government and their employers to invest in these schemes, which then effectively were ceased. We clearly need to combat that. Mr Deputy Speaker, you will be pleased to know that we have a number of new recruits for the all-party beer group. I was delighted to hear that in the debate, as I am sure you are. You will have to read Hansard to see the contributions made, in particular that by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton). I want to raise a few local issues before we rise for the Adjournment. First, almost no speech by me in this debate would be complete without me raising the issue of Stanmore station.”
“The Government set up a compensation scheme, but only provided £1.5 billion of the £4.1 billion that was accepted as being owed, meaning that the Government still owe £2.6 billion to the victims of the Equitable Life scandal. As co-chair of the all-party group, I will continue to campaign for justice for those victims, until such time as we get the Government to provide the funding required. Many of the victims are now very old and vulnerable and desperately need the money. Many others are coming up to retirement age and will need to draw on their pensions, which have been severely downgraded as a result of the particular issues of that scam.”
“When someone has been sleeping rough for any period of time, they need not just a secure roof over their head, but a network of support: they will probably need to be treated for mental health problems and certainly for physical health problems. They may need to be cured of alcohol, drug or substance abuse. It is no good just putting them in a home and hoping they will get on with it. They need that network of support. That is going to be key. I next want to raise the long-term scandal of the victims of the Equitable Life scam. I was proud that the Conservative Government I supported when first elected to this House in 2010 made the commitment, which we are all encouraged to make, to provide justice for those robbed of their money.”
“We built 220,000 units of housing last year, which was the highest number for all but one of the last 30 years, but the Government’s target is 300,000 a year for five years. Unless local authorities build new council houses or properties, we will not get anywhere near the 300,000 units required to enable people to have a home of their own. We need to ensure that we enshrine within this the right to buy for those in council housing and prevent local authorities from using external bodies and housing companies that seek to provide housing but frustrate individuals who wish to exercise the right to buy. We now need to learn the lessons from the Housing First pilots and roll them out across the country.”
“We see every day the signs of homelessness in this country, with people sleeping rough on our streets. I repeat: it is a national scandal that in this country, we still have people sleeping rough. I want the Government to repeal the Vagrancy Act 1824, which makes it a crime to not have anywhere to live. That cannot be right in a civilised society. People who are homeless need assistance, not to be arrested and taken to a police station. We need a revision of the law to combat aggressive begging, which we unfortunately see on our streets and our public transport system every day. One key thing that the Government should do is provide more housing at affordable levels that people can rent and, if they so wish, buy.”
“The National Audit Office has reported on the exposure involved when local authorities buy up commercial properties to get a rental stream, particularly in the retail sector. We know how problematic the retail sector is, how big a risk that is and the threat to the public purse. The Government will need to investigate that shortly. One of the major issues that most people associate me with is homelessness. I piloted the Homelessness Reduction Bill through the House in 2017. The Act has only been in operation effectively for a year; the duty to refer has been in operation for just over a year. Many thousands of people up and down the country have been prevented from becoming homeless as a direct result of the biggest shake-up in homelessness legislation for more than 40 years. But we still have a big problem.”
“We gravely miss him, but I have no doubt that next time we have one of these debates, he will be back. He may be on his way to Downing Street—we never know. On a serious note, before we rise for the short February recess, there are a few things that I wish to raise. I have often had the opportunity of initiating this debate, and I now have the pleasure of closing it for Back-Bench Members. I raised at business questions this morning the huge deficit in local authority pension funds. That is a real scandal, and it threatens the retirement and future of public sector workers who have worked so diligently for us. That is not the only thing that local authorities have been engaged in.”
“It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who gave us a great tour of her constituency and the problems she has faced not just recently but, I suspect, for the past 10 years. For new and returning Members, the great beauty of these debates is that we, as Back-Bench MPs, can raise anything that we choose. To those who have made excellent maiden speeches today, I suggest booking a season ticket for these debates, because they will have the opportunity to raise issues on many occasions in the future. Unfortunately, we have not heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), who gives a virtuoso performance at these debates, rattling through every single piece of correspondence he has received over the past three months.”
“Can my right hon. Friend update the House on the untapped capacity for using renewables in Scotland, and how many jobs would be created as a result of enhancing that capability?”
“I declare an interest in that my late parents met while they were working for the BBC, and that I installed the computer system that is actually used for collecting and verifying the licences. What assessment have the Government made of the increase in the avoidance of paying the licence fee and therefore the increase in costs of catching those people who do not pay, because that all adds to the costs and, indeed, to the implications of the funding?”
“I can assure the shadow Leader of the House that we are taking the responsibility of getting our Select Committee nominees very seriously—but we have such a huge number of colleagues to satisfy. Could we have a debate in Government time on the Government’s decisions on the London plan? There are serious objections in relation to the green belt, parking issues, industrial land, density of housing, and back-garden developments. This does not just affect London; it affects the whole of the south-east. So could we have a debate in Government time on this pernicious plan put forward by the do-nothing Mayor of London?”
“Will my hon. Friend confirm that the special status that Northern Ireland has, now that we have left the European Union, means that there is a bright new future for all the people in Northern Ireland, and that that future should be embraced, not greeted with the doom and gloom from Labour?”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend’s support for getting peace talks going. Will he confirm that no less than five Arab countries have already welcomed this proposal as a basis for restarting talks between the Palestinians and the state of Israel? Will he therefore commit the United Kingdom to helping the Palestinians to get around the table with the state of Israel and deliver peace in the middle east?”
“One of the more popular measures in our manifesto was the abolition of some hospital car parking charges. It therefore came as a great shock to me to hear that APCOA, which runs the parking control at Northwick Park Hospital, is without notice or consultation dramatically increasing the parking charges, especially for staff, and taking away many of the staff permits that are available to them. May we have a debate in Government time about abolishing car parking charges? That would be popular across the country.”
“He lived with his mother, father and older brother. He attended a local non-Jewish school; in fact, there were only two Jewish students in his class and school. In 1936, Nazi laws ruled that Jewish children could no longer attend non-Jewish schools—that was part of the programme to eliminate and delegitimise Jewish people.”
“In autumn 1941 she was moved to the ghetto in Krakow, and then moved after some of her family were shot by the SS in the ghetto. She was then forced into a labour camp, and in 1945 to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she was sent with her mother on the death march from Auschwitz, leaving behind her sister, whom they never saw again. They then arrived in a further labour camp, were forced on to trucks, and travelled under terrible conditions to Bergen-Belsen, where they arrived in February 1945. On 15 April 1945, the British Army liberated Bergen-Belsen and among the liberators was Norman Turgel, who became Gena’s husband just six months later. Gena passed away in 2018, but her record is in a book called “I Light a Candle”, so her legacy will live on. Hermann Hirschberger was born in 1926 in Germany.”
“Eve Glicksman and Henri Obstfeld both died last year, and Hermann Hirschberger MBE passed away on 1 January. One of the most famous holocaust survivors was Gena Turgel, who lived in Stanmore in my constituency. In many ways, she was a pioneer of holocaust education, as she was going into schools and colleges way before many of the current structures were set up. She was born in Krakow in Poland and had eight brothers and sisters. She was only 16 when her home city was bombed on 1 September 1939. Here is the part of Gena Turgel’s story that I think is most pertinent. Her family had relatives in Chicago, and they planned to leave for the United States, but they made their decision too late, as the Nazis had already invaded and closed all the entry and exit points, so her family had to move to just outside Krakow.”
“I echo the need for a holocaust education centre to be set up alongside this building. People visit this place as the cradle of democracy, and it is right that we have a holocaust education centre alongside our Parliamentary Education Centre so that people visiting London can see a proper record of what happened without having to travel to Jerusalem or other parts of the world. I co-chaired the all-party parliamentary group on holocaust memorial in the last Parliament. I pay tribute to my co-chair, Ian Austin, who called out antisemitism and did so much to ensure that people understood the evils of antisemitism and the need for an education centre. The testimony of survivors is most important. I want to place on record the details of those who sadly lost their lives last year and this year.”
“The memory that I have above all else is walking across the park with the lakes, where there is an eerie stillness. No birds tweet, and there is no sign of wildlife. There is nothing there because those ponds were where the Nazis put the ashes after emptying them from the gas chambers and incinerators. The wildlife know what happened, and so should we. One aspect of the Holocaust Educational Trust’s work that has become more important is the outreach programme. Last year, more than 600 schools partnered with the trust to enhance educational provision. That is important, because it allows holocaust survivors to give their first-hand testimony and lead workshops so that more and more young people can understand what happened and learn the lessons from it. It is important that we remember the survivors.”
“We must also remember that antisemitism was rife in this country at that time. We should not think that it was only going on elsewhere. The thought process and the demeaning of Jewish people was going on in this country, and that is one reason why few people were allowed to escape from Germany to here. Had they been allowed to do so, many people who unfortunately lost their lives in camps would have survived. I pay tribute to Karen Pollock and her brilliant team at the Holocaust Educational Trust, who do such wonderful work to educate people—young and old—about the horrors of the holocaust. Not everyone can go to Auschwitz-Birkenau and witness evidence of the terrible crimes that were committed. We talk about the shoes, the spectacles and the clothing at Auschwitz-Birkenau.”
“It is difficult to visualise the horror of this attempt to wipe out the Jewish race. We have to remember that this did not just take place in one or two years. This was a deliberate attempt by the Nazis to eliminate the Jewish race. The roots of this are at the end of the great war, when Germany was subjected to severe reparations. That led to incredible poverty in Germany, which then gave rise to the Nazis, who could say, “It’s the Jews’ fault that you haven’t got any money. Let’s take it out on the Jews. If we take Jews out of their position, we can spread the wealth.” That was a deliberate policy, and it should never be allowed to be repeated. There needs to be a greater understanding and appreciation that, from the early 1930s onwards, this systematic approach led to the Shoah. We all have to remember that.”
“The problem with that is funding and the fact that lengthening the amount of time spent away might reduce the numbers who could go on such visits. The problem that I see with the programme of Auschwitz-Birkenau visits is that students learn about what went on there and think that that was it. We need to remember that there was a network of death camps—forced labour camps—across eastern Europe and Germany, where Jews and others were forced into slave labour and then systematically exterminated. I have often wondered how a civilised nation such as Germany could get into a position in which it would commit such inhumane acts. How could that possibly happen? When we talk about 6 million Jews being killed, it is a number, and it is hard to personalise that down to individual circumstances.”
“When I was elected to this place, the first all-party parliamentary group that I joined was the one on combating antisemitism, because it is right that we in this House stand up against it. I also do not mind admitting that when Holocaust Memorial Day was first mooted—it was when I was the leader of my party’s group on the London Borough of Brent Council—I was concerned that we were going to get into virtue-signalling. I am glad to say that I was wrong. It is right that we educate people, that we commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz and that we bring to bear greater understanding of the horrors that went on. I, too, have visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) alluded to the concern that students see Auschwitz for one day, and it would be better if they could stay for longer.”
“It commemorated things that had gone on. It had the first recordings of survivors—people who had sadly passed away, but recorded their testimony—and early photographs and other details of what had gone on in Germany and in eastern Europe, in particular, during the holocaust. That made Yad Vashem more intimate, in many ways, than it is now. When I heard the names of the children being recited, it brought home to me how people could systematically murder children—wipe them off the face of the planet—and what a terrible experience it was. I do not mind admitting that I cried. I cried for humanity, and I cried for the people who had lost their lives and their relatives.”
“I was at school with many Jewish children, and no one ever spoke about the holocaust. It was ignored—perhaps to be airbrushed from history forever because it was such a tragedy. The relatives—the fathers and mothers—of many of my friends had actually come from eastern Europe or Germany as refugees, but they never spoke about the holocaust. Whenever one went for dinner on Friday nights, it was never mentioned—I often wondered why. When we were at school, we never got the opportunity to learn about the horrors of the holocaust and what people went through. I remember my first visit to Yad Vashem. It was not the Yad Vashem that we see now—I have been there many times since—but the first formation of it. This was back in 1992, I think, on my first visit to Jerusalem. It was a much more intimate museum at that time.”
“I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this deeply emotional debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) on her speech—on a personal level, but also in understanding the Jewish people and what they actually went through. Antisemitism is not new. It has been prevalent in society for centuries, and it is still prevalent today. But what makes the holocaust different is that it shows us the ultimate destination of antisemitism, with a systematic attempt to wipe out the Jewish race and anyone of Jewish religion—not just people who were openly Jewish, but anyone with Jewish genealogy somewhere in their DNA. The way in which people’s backgrounds were traced to see whether any relative or any person of their blood was Jewish was systematic, deliberate and intentional.”
“However, they managed to arrange for Hermann and his brother to be sent to England on the Kindertransport, meaning that they were making a huge sacrifice—they knew they would probably never see their sons ever again.”
“This is known as Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass. Hermann and his brother had not seen these crimes at first hand, but when they went to school the following morning, many of their teachers had been arrested and they were sent home. Hermann’s mother went to the bank where his father worked to warn him. However, two members of the Gestapo forced their way in and arrested his father at work. His father was then held for two days before being allowed home. After Kristallnacht, Hermann’s parents realised, as did many others in Germany, that they could no longer stay there safely. They tried to arrange for the family to leave but could not obtain visas for the whole family.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. It was clear that this was going on for a long time before the second world war broke out. Hermann and his brother had to walk to and from school, because German culture at that time prevented Jewish people from travelling on trams. Jewish people were not allowed to mix with other people on trams—this was the dehumanisation of Jewish people. Of course, on their way to and from school, Hermann and his brother were often verbally and physically attacked by students from the non-Jewish school. The people they called friends suddenly turned on them because they were Jewish. Then, at 9 pm on 9 November 1938, across Germany the synagogues were burned, and businesses and homes and shops were smashed. Windows were smashed and homes and buildings were burned to the ground.”
“The duty we owe is to ensure that those people who have perpetrated murder are brought to justice and suffer for the war crimes they have committed, and that we help and assist people who are refugees. I end by saying that the theme of this year is “stand together”, and I think that the whole House stands together united today in remembering the horrors of the holocaust and saying, with one voice, never again.”
“The first is Angela Ioannou, who is an ambassador for the Holocaust Educational Trust. She recently attended the Lord Merlyn-Rees annual lecture in Parliament, and has given an account of her views on how we can make sure that holocaust education continues to be rolled out. The other is Dr Alfred Weinberger, who was born on 26 April 1900—he shares my birthday, if not my exact birth year. He was deported to the ghetto in 1943, and then on to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he was killed. The reality is that the testimony of survivors and their experiences bring to life the horrors of the holocaust. We must set out our stall to make sure that such things never happen again. Members have mentioned other forms of systematic murder, but I have seen the plight of the Rohingya at first hand.”
“In this country, Hermann and his brother were separated and sent off to different schools. Hermann was sent to work in Staffordshire while his brother worked in London, but eventually they were reunited. Hermann went on to marry and to live in London. He lived in my constituency, and he regularly spoke in schools about his experiences not only in Germany, but in this country, because we should remember that Jewish people coming as refugees to this country did not always have a happy experience. We should own up to that, and we should also say that we are not unique in offering service now to Jewish people. Sadly, Hermann died on 1 January 2020. I met him on many occasions and had the opportunity to hear of his experiences both in this country and before he arrived. I want to single out two other people.”
“I have not visited, but I will make it a priority to do so when it is convenient, because I believe that it is something we should go and witness for ourselves. Hermann and his brother had a long journey to get to the United Kingdom. They were then taken to a refugee hostel in Margate, where they remained for about a year, during which time Hermann had his bar mitzvah. They regularly wrote to their parents and two days before the war broke out, their parents wrote to them to say that they had just received their permits—they were going to be allowed to leave. However, once war had broken out, they were not allowed to leave. They were sent to a camp in the Pyrenees, from which they were still able to write to the brothers, but eventually they were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they were both murdered.”
“It is clearly very good news that Rolls-Royce, a world-renowned company, has taken up the challenge of developing small modular nuclear reactors for clean energy not only for the UK, but for export across the world. What assessment has my hon. Friend made of the opportunity for new jobs in the UK and for exports across the world?”
“I served on the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority between 2004 and 2007. The Minister served on the same board subsequently.”
“I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and I completely agreed with much of what he said. We must learn what mistakes were made and then make improvements across the board so that others never suffer the same terrible tragedy that happened at Grenfell. I want to express both sympathy for the Grenfell victims and admiration for their demeanour. I have met many of them. If such a thing happened to most of us, I do not think we would be able to cope. I express my admiration for the way they have conducted themselves since this terrible tragedy and sympathy for the people who lost their lives and their families. It must be the most horrendous experience possible to die in such circumstances, and we must always remember that that is what happened.”
“A wide variety of buildings need to have their cladding removed and made safe.”
“There is a fundamental issue, therefore, of whether such fire doors are fit for purpose. If fire doors do not keep back fire, fire will spread and people who are trying to get out of those buildings will not have time to do so safely. When we have looked at the various building regulations and the changes that need to be made, we have been looking at them in relation to tests that have been conducted on cladding and so on. We must challenge: are those tests fit for purpose? Do they replicate a real fire, when there is fire all around, as opposed to direct contact of flame on a door or cladding? When there is fire all around, does that fire door or cladding get consumed in a way that no one envisaged in tests? I would challenge whether our tests are now fit for purpose to justify the assertion of safety for people up and down this country.”
“One fundamental concern that I have is that some leaseholders and other individuals who believed they were buying a flat or other property that was perfectly safe, are now being told that they might have to pay towards removing the cladding and replacing it with a safer type. The fact is that someone, somewhere said the cladding was safe according to the building regulations—and if they did, who is responsible, and why should leaseholders be funding the work? Clearly, there is a failure of corporate governance across the piece in preventing that from happening. Another fundamental issue is fire doors. When fire doors at Grenfell were tested originally, because there was a concern that they should be able to resist fire for 30 minutes, they actually resisted fire for 15.”
“I have made this point repeatedly: if the cladding was not compliant with building regulations, someone must have signed it off as being compliant. Someone gave it approval. I am afraid that whoever gives approval for these things must be brought to account, because if they are not compliant with building regulations, someone in a position of responsibility is saying that a building is safe when clearly it is not. I do not want to go into what happened at Grenfell, because there are police inquiries and part 2 of the inquiry will continue, but clearly this is a matter of concern up and down the country.”
“As long as someone comes along and signs off the work, that is deemed acceptable, but in my view it is not acceptable. Most householders in this country do not understand what responsibilities they take on for electrical safety when electrical work is conducted in their own homes. I want us to look into that, because although it was not a fundamental cause of this fire, electrical work may be the fundamental cause of other fires if it is not done properly. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) put her finger on the issue of the cladding on Grenfell. The inquiry has made it clear that the cladding did not comply with building regulations, and we have found in our inquiries that that is true up and down the country.”
“The Select Committee had the opportunity to interview Dame Judith Hackitt. She is an admirable individual who gives robust answers, looks at the evidence and is clearly to be respected. I welcome the fact that she will head the new regulator, because that will make a clear difference. Changes in building regulations also need to be implemented swiftly. I welcome what the Secretary of State said about ensuring that the necessary regulations are in place, but I think that we should look again at part P, which was the subject of one of the Select Committee’s past inquiries. The regulations applying to gas fitters are stringent, but those applying to electrical fittings are very lax. People can qualify as electricians after two or three days’ training, and then conduct electrical works in both Houses, and in flats and high-rise buildings.”
“Not only have I been present for the statements, urgent questions and updates that we have heard from various Secretaries of State and other Ministers, but I have had the opportunity to go through a lot of the detail that has emerged about Grenfell. The Committee made recommendations on two separate occasions, and there is clearly concern about the pace at which the Government have moved. There have been plenty of consultations, but I am concerned about the fact that they have not necessarily, at all times, moved swiftly enough. People up and down the country are still living in tower blocks with unsafe cladding, and two and a half or three years on, that is absolutely unacceptable. We must speed up the process of removing that cladding and making those blocks safe.”
“There were clearly confusions. We hear and read in the report, which makes horrific reading, about the circumstances of the senior officers on site, about what training they had been given and about what they could do in such circumstances. I do not criticise them, but they were clearly underprepared and ill trained to deal with the terrible tragedy that was unfolding before them. I have had the privilege of serving on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for the last nine and a half years, and we have looked at building regulations on several occasions. We have also conducted two inquiries on the Grenfell fire.”
“As was found in the inquiry and as we heard already, there was much confusion on the night about what was going on with the fire brigade. The firefighters went into the initial flat to combat the fire, and in many ways that was routine. We should remember that it was not the first fire in Grenfell; there had been others there and in other blocks across London and up and down the country. The compartmentalisation of these units should mean that a fire is contained within the unit. Then the fire can be put out and everyone made safe. That is the fundamental point of the “stay put” policy encouraged and promoted by the fire brigade. What the fire brigade did not know was that the fire had spread to the external cladding. As those firefighters were leaving, others were trying to go in and deal with the fire that had engulfed the tower block.”
“As others have mentioned, we must praise the bravery of the firefighters who went into a living hell to combat the fire and get the people out from Grenfell that night. As the hon. Member for Hammersmith mentioned, we should remember that the fire was caused by an electrical fault, which raises a question, as he said, about the testing of appliances and how we make sure they are fit for purpose. If we buy goods and services, we expect the supplier to have made sure they are safe, and if they are not, there is a liability on the suppliers and manufacturers. We should look at that issue. Another concern is the testing of wiring not just in high-rise buildings but in all buildings. I will come back to that in a moment.”
“No? The Minister shakes his head. I thought he had served on that board subsequently. The key point I remember from serving on that body is how difficult it is, in London in particular, to deal with fires in high-rise buildings—buildings so high that the fire brigade cannot put ladders up—and with the people in those buildings and how we train firefighters to deal with that type of tragedy. We cannot replicate what our brave firefighters faced on that night in training. It cannot be done. We can try to prepare them for it and teach them what to do in certain circumstances, but replicating what they had to do and suffer is almost impossible. Training and ensuring firefighters are fit and healthy and able to cope with such conditions is obviously at the forefront of what our fire brigades have to do.”
“If, under compartmentalisation, a building is safe and a fire breaks out in one part of it, it is a sensible policy that the fire is eliminated in that part of the building and other people do not try to escape from the building unnecessarily. If a fire spreads from one compartment to another, that is when the building has to be evacuated straightaway. That is the examination that has to take place.”