Grenfell Tower Inquiry: government must invest in social homes to prevent further tragedy

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report

This week, the bereaved, survivors and residents of the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire finally received the final Phase 2 report of the Public Inquiry. The report examines ’the underlying causes of the fire to identify where mistakes were made and how Grenfell Tower came to be in a condition that allowed the fire to spread.' It also examined 'the response of the authorities to the emergency’.

The biggest heartbreak of this damning report is that the deaths of 72 people, including 18 children, were all avoidable - had their homes been competently modernised, maintained and managed and their concerns taken seriously.

But, instead, they were badly failed by those whose duty was to keep them safe. The Inquiry's conclusions are a stark reminder of what can happen when the safety, health and well-being of tenants are not prioritised. Shelter stands in solidarity with Grenfell United, the bereaved, survivors and communities impacted by the fire in their fight for justice.

If implemented, the 58 recommendations within the report will drive lifesaving and life-changing improvements. Shelter welcomes them, as well as the Prime Minister's commitment to “respond in full to the Inquiry’s recommendations within six months and...update Parliament annually on [their] progress”. And we echo Grenfell United’s call on government to implement every recommendation without delay. But, as Grenfell United have also stressed, the report’s recommendations should already exist – they are basic safety principles.

If we’re serious, we must invest

The Grenfell Tower fire should have been a catalyst for systemic change within our social housing system, as a legacy of the 72 people who died. Chronic government underinvestment in social housing has left homes across the country in dire need of modernisation and urgent maintenance. As the report notes: ‘Grenfell Tower had seen no significant investment for 30 years’. This rings true for many of the decent council homes people grew up in across England, which have now become run down or been sold off, leaving tenants feeling the stigma of neglect.

Our social housing stock has been depleted. In the last decade alone, we’ve seen a net loss of 260,000 social rent homes. This has resulted in record homelessness, with over 150,000 children now stuck in damaging temporary accommodation with their families, where (in just four years) 55 babies and children have died suddenly and unexpectedly. There are now 1.3 million households on the social housing waiting list.

A long seven years on from the fire, the government must show it is serious about affecting transformative change for all those in need of a safe, secure, and genuinely affordable social home. Government must commit to delivering 90,000 social homes a year for the next ten years, to end homelessness and clear the waiting list backlog. We’ve demonstrated exactly how they can do this and shown that this investment will pay for itself within three years. This will be vital to ensuring social tenants living in homes with significant health and safety hazards, that cannot be rectified with tenants in situ, can move into safe alternative accommodation.

And, to avert further tragedies, the government must provide social landlords wherever necessary with the funding to carry out widespread proactive repairs and maintenance programmes, as well as respond effectively to complaints and emergencies. While some social landlords are in strong financial positions and must better use their resources, others are not.

But the Inquiry report misses this wider context within which social housing - and by association its tenants - has been viewed and residualised for decades. The Inquiry states that, since Parliament has enacted the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 (as a result of tireless campaigning by Grenfell United and Shelter), it does 'not consider it necessary to make any additional recommendations [specifically for social housing providers] in relation to the matters that we have uncovered’. Nor does it provide any recommendations concerning the responsibility of central government to properly fund the sector. While the 2023 Act is certainly an essential step in changing our national approach to social housing, on its own it cannot act as the silver bullet that the Inquiry suggests it is.

There must be a culture change - including a national voice for social tenants

To eliminate the stigma and discrimination experienced by social tenants, the social housing sector should be overseen by professionally qualified managers, similar to what we expect of other social professions such as healthcare, social work, and teaching. To achieve this, government must implement a robust version of the Competence and Conduct Standard without undue delay. Social housing management should have an ethos of serving tenants, rather than viewing those who complain as difficult or ‘trouble makers’, as was the case in the leadup to the Grenfell Tower fire.

To this end, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the chair of the Inquiry, has recommended the sector read the criticisms of Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) in the report. They offer valuable lessons that social housing providers must act upon and embed into practice to avoid repeating the grave failures of KCTMO. As the report shows, KCTMO took a ‘casual approach’ to fire safety and was seen by some occupants of the tower as an ‘uncaring and bullying overlord that belittled and marginalised them’. The report finds KCTMO culpable of ‘chronic and systemic failings in…fire safety' ranging from not reporting major safety issues to the board in 2010 and 2013, to actively diluting fire risk assessments.

But to shift the dial closer to where it needs to be, the government must consider returning to a National Tenant Voice similar to the one established by the previous Labour government in February 2010. This was abolished only a few months after its creation in the Coalition government’s ‘Bonfire of the Quangos’. Its reinstatement, led by social tenants, would give a route to influence not only their landlords but local, regional and national government too. Had a strong national voice for social tenants existed previously, social tenants may have been able to research or object to the risks of new forms of cladding being allowed on high-rise buildings in the first place, and the application of combustible cladding to Grenfell Tower may never have been considered. Unfortunately, this is also absent from the Inquiry’s recommendations.

Better help for people made homeless by disasters

Finally, we need both national and local government to take a much better approach to the help offered to everyone made homeless by sudden disasters, such as fires, floods and explosions, regardless of their immigration status. Our advisers and lawyers were quickly on the ground following the fire at Grenfell Tower, as they have been with last week’s serious fire at the Spectrum Building in Dagenham. They know firsthand that people who are homeless due to emergencies, or are evacuated and cordoned off from their homes, are different to most other homeless cases. They will often have nothing other than the clothes and belongings they fled with - no phone, identification, essential medicine or spare clothes.

We strongly welcome the Inquiry’s recommendations on this, including that local authorities should develop contingency plans to secure temporary accommodation when people are made homeless suddenly and provide immediate financial support accordingly. We urge government to amend its statutory homelessness guidance to local authorities to reflect these recommendations.

Time for change

National and local government, along with providers of social housing, have taken too long to respond to the failures that led to the fire at Grenfell Tower: underinvestment, residualisation, lack of regulation, shockingly unsafe conditions, discrimination and stigmatisation of tenants and poor management.

With this final Inquiry report, there is now no longer an excuse. We owe it to the bereaved, the survivors, the wider Grenfell community and the 72 people who died in the fire. Forever in our hearts. If you or anyone you know needs help with a housing problem, please get help today.

Footnotes:

1) The net loss of social rent homes is calculated using DLUHC data comparing new builds, acquisitions and conversions (gains) and data on demolitions, sales and conversions (losses). DLUHC, Live tables on affordable housing supply, Table 1006C, DLUHC, Local authority housing statistics, Section K, RSH, Private registered provider social housing stock and rents in England 2022 to 2023, Stock Details and Table 3.13, DLUHC, Live tables on social housing sales, Table 684 and Table 678.