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Government 'almost ready' to begin fire regulations review

New housing minister Alok Sharma has said the government is “almost ready” to begin the review into fire safety regulations it promised four years ago.

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The comment was made during a Home Office briefing in Westminster this afternoon in which MPs were informed of the current state of affairs. Mr Sharma, along with fire and policing minister Nick Hurd, took questions.

After the Lakanal House fire in 2009, in which six people died, the coroner recommended that the government updated fire safety building regulations. In 2013, then communities secretary Eric Pickles promised a “future review” of regulations.


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The session was held behind closed doors and not broadcast, with reports of the meeting coming from political journalists invited to attend. Mr Sharma was quoted as saying the government was “almost ready” to begin its review of part B of the building regulations, which govern fire safety.

Yesterday, a spokesperson for the Department for Communities and Local Government claimed work on the regulations was “ongoing”.

Andy Slaughter, Labour’s shadow housing minister (junior to shadow secretary of state for housing, John Healey), welcomed Theresa May’s announcement of an inquiry, but said interim measures were needed.

“First, we do need that sense of urgency. We can have some provisional findings,” he said.

“People have raised issues to do with sprinklers; would sprinklers have stopped this fire spreading? Is cladding the issue here that led to the accelerated spread?

“It’s a first world country where we have huge expertise in these areas, and it’s just frankly unacceptable that we’re still not implementing the lessons of Lakanal eight years ago, and indeed other fires.”

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