Grenfell Tower Memorial (Expenditure) Bill

Lord Boateng Excerpts

2nd reading & Report stage & 3rd reading & Committee negatived
Tuesday 14th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak in this debate only in my capacity as co-chair of the Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission. The commission welcomes this Bill. On behalf of the commission, I thank the Minister and the representative of the Opposition for their support for the Bill, and I thank the whole House for its unanimous support for the Bill. The commission is grateful.

The commission reflected at its last meeting on the Bill and the circumstances that led to its introduction. The commission wrestles with this issue not only at its meetings but for the overwhelming number of its membership, excepting only me and my co-chair, who is a source of inspiration to us all. Deputy Lieutenant Thelma Stober is a survivor of 7/7. She has been with the commission and with the people of the Grenfell community from the outset of this tragedy and its aftermath, and the commission has asked me to thank her publicly for her service over these many years.

Hers is the only name I will mention in my contribution to this debate, save for—they have not asked me to say this, but I am going to—each and every one of the people who have lost and had to bury their nearest and dearest, the people who have lost neighbours and friends, the people who have lost their very homes, and the people who are bereaved, the next of kin, survivors and residents of the immediate community. To have served with them on this commission has been the greatest privilege of my life.

We begin every meeting of the commission with a two-minute silence in memory of the 72 who lost their lives. They have been at the heart of the commission’s work and have to be at the heart of this Bill as it is implemented. We in the commission are in the business of memorialisation; noble Lords will therefore forgive me if I do not address the specific points that individuals have made in this debate, with great force and great acuity, and bringing to bear their enormous, first-hand experience of these matters.

I will address only the issue of memorialisation, save in one matter. Memorialisation is all very well in its built and material form, and, rightly, with this measure, the Government provide the material resources that will enable a memorial to be erected. That is all very well.

The Minister, in her excellent introduction to the Bill, referred to the community’s desire for, and entitlement to, respect. I welcome that. But this community, while appreciating respect, demands justice. They have not had justice and, I have to tell noble Lords, they do not expect it. You may hope for it, and your expressions of hope are appreciated, but this community does not expect justice. They will continue to demand it, but they do not expect it. So the memorialisation has to address wider issues around learning lessons that all noble Lords in this House have expressed. That can be the only memorial.

If we do address those difficult issues, so well articulated by my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier, that will require legislation. This is an easy Bill to pass: it has passed without opposition. It will not be so easy to pass a Bill that puts in the dock those people who are responsible for this injustice. That will not be so easy to promulgate. It will not be so readily passed, but, if these are to be anything other than empty words, it must be. That is all I am going to say about the content of your Lordships’ debate today.

The rest of what I have to say, in very few words, is simply to mouth, as is my duty as co-chair, the expressions —the ready expressions, the printed expressions, the published expressions—of the aspirations of the commission as to what a future memorial should be like. It is contained in the Grenfell Memorial vision statement. These are its words:

“The Grenfell Memorial will be at its heart a peaceful place. It will provide a space for reflection and remembrance, of those that lost their lives, and of why this tragedy happened and the need for justice.


The memorial will reflect the Grenfell Community and the love within it; evoking a sense of hope and positivity that remembers the past and looks forward to the future.


It will be a place for bereaved, survivors and members of the local community to come together.


A respectful, bold and lasting memorial that honours those that lost their lives and their families, the survivors of the fire and members of the local community”.


That is the vision that, in passing the Bill, we will enable materially, with the resources, to be realised.

I thank noble Lords for their vigilance; I am authorised to say that on behalf of the commission. I thank each and every noble Lord for their vigilance, for their service. I say a particular thank you to my noble friend Lord Roe, and the other men and women of the London Fire Brigade on that night, for their service. We say a huge thank you to the first responders. Noble Lords’ vigilance will be required because—we addressed this at the last meeting of the commission—there are, and will continue to be, obstacles ahead.

I will say only this about those obstacles, and I say it to both Front Benches and to the leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: do not allow any disagreements between the royal borough and the Government of the day. Do not allow any party-political considerations to come into the decisions that must be made to ensure that the Lancaster West Estate is properly developed, so that the memorial is properly encompassed on all sides by an estate that is in itself a worthy place—a place where people who are all too often marginalised and forgotten are respected. Do not allow any party-political disputes or disputes about resources to get in the way of that. Listening to Members of this House, as I listened to Members in the other place, I do not believe that your Lordships will allow them to get away with it. The community, and the commission, expect noble Lords to deliver on the promise, the hope and the expectation that your Lordships’ sentiments and work rightly have aroused.

In that, I hope that noble Lords will be led, as we have been led, by the incredible spiritual power and engagement that the faith communities have marshalled around this tragedy. Immediately on that night and thereafter, the one set of institutions that were able to deliver to that community were institutions of faith: the churches, the mosques, people of faith coming together, being there alongside a community. This is a community which, however marginalised and however disrespected, has been a community of faith—of different faiths, but believing in a God, believing in something greater than ourselves and our individual self-interest.

The meditation that guides us as a commission is there on the very first page of the report:

“Grief, Remembrance, Empathy, Nerve, Fortitude, Energy, Loss and Love”.


Those are the words; that is the title of the meditation. It ends, as I do, with these words:

“We have faith in the truth we all know. We have hope in the very justice of our cause. We have love in our hearts for which there can never be closure. And of all these three, it is in the name of love that we will journey on”.