Scottish Government to ‘carefully consider’ recommendations of Grenfell report

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Scotland’s housing minister has said the Government will “carefully consider” the recommendations of the final report into the Grenfell Tower fire.

The near-1,7000 page report was published on Wednesday, with inquiry chair Sir Martine Moore-Bick claiming “decades of failure” led to the loss of 72 lives at the west London tower block in 2017.

Among the 58 recommendations was the creation of a single regulator for construction products, testing and certification.

Responding to the report, Paul McLennan said: “The tragic Grenfell Tower fire emphasised how important building and fire safety is.

“Keeping residents and homeowners safe is our priority and we are taking action to protect lives by ensuring the assessment and remediation of buildings with potentially unsafe cladding.

“We will carefully consider all of the recommendations in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s report.

“Yesterday, I met with UK Government ministers to discuss how we can work collaboratively to take the appropriate actions to deliver the inquiry’s recommendations and ensure residents and homeowners in Scotland are kept safe.”

In the wake of the tragedy at Grenfell, the Scottish Government created a cladding remediation scheme aimed at ensuring such a fire never happened north of the border.

Earlier this year, a Bill was passed to speed up the process, which had been criticised as too slow.

Mr McLennan added: “Scotland already has stringent safety regulations to keep people safe, but we are not complacent.

“Where immediate action is needed to safeguard people we will ensure appropriate actions are taken to manage risks, pending longer-term remediation works.

“Subject to the devolution of the necessary powers, we will establish a Building Safety Levy in Scotland, equivalent to a levy that will be introduced by the UK Government in England.

“The levy will provide vital revenues to support the funding of our cladding remediation programme.”

Meanwhile, one of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s (SFRS) most senior officers weighed in on the report.

Speaking during an appearance at Holyrood’s Criminal Justice Committee on Wednesday, chief officer Ross Haggart said: “The thoughts of the SFRS remain with the victims and the families of Grenfell everyday, but particularly today.

“(The report) of itself is going to create a host of work for the fire and rescue service, the fire and rescue sector and the SFRS.

“While we’ve not seen the report, please be assured we will be scrutinising that in detail and we will be working with relevant partners to ensure that any recommendations are fully implemented and lessons are learned within Scotland.”