Grenfell Tower Memorial (Expenditure) Bill

Lord Sikka Excerpts

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

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the Bill and hope that the memorial will bring some comfort to the friends and families of those who lost lives and the thousands more scarred by this avoidable tragedy.

The root cause of this tragedy is lust for higher profits, performance-related pay, failure of regulators, local authorities and Governments. No memorial will be complete without ending regulatory failures to ensure that there are no more Grenfells. People’s lives and welfare must come before corporate profits. Yet, sadly, deregulation is the mantra of the day, as Governments push for economic growth at almost any human cost.

Sir Martin Moore-Bick, chairman of the Grenfell inquiry, said that cladding manufacturers Arconic

“deliberately concealed from the market the true extent of the danger of using Reynobond 55 PE in cassette form”.

The inquiry found that Kingspan knowingly made false claims about its insulation’s fire performance and conducted

“long-running internal discussions about what it could get away with”.

The inquiry concluded that Celotex used “dishonest means” to break into the market, presenting its insulation as safe while knowing that it did not meet the required standards. The inquiry found that companies used

“deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market”.

The inquiry identified “persistent indifference” of the tenant management organisation, “systemic dishonesty” of product manufacturers, and decades of government failures as the causes of this tragedy.

The Government have accepted all 58 of the inquiry’s recommendations, but they have not yet been fully implemented. Many buildings still have the same cladding as Grenfell. Despite the evidence, no one has yet been charged or prosecuted over the death of 72 innocent people. No director has been disqualified, the offending companies are not excluded permanently from public procurement, no legislation has been introduced to improve corporate governance or accountability, and directors are not held personally liable for causing grievous harms. Ministers bat away calls for urgent actions by claiming that somebody else, such as the police, is looking into the issues, and prosecutions may follow.

Governments speedily prosecute carers and poor people for minor indiscretions but suddenly lack the necessary backbone for dealing with corporate crimes. Here are just some examples. After 30 years, and despite the 2019 High Court judgment and a landmark inquiry, no one connected with the Post Office or Fujitsu has been charged or prosecuted. Yes, there is the ever-ready excuse that police are looking into this, which may or may not be able to bring any prosecutions.

England’s water companies have over 1,200 criminal prosecutions. Fines on companies are announced but then quietly waived or not collected at all. No company has had its licence to operate withdrawn. Company executives are rewarded for boosting profits by dumping sewage in the rivers. No one is charged or prosecuted for killing marine life, destroying biodiversity and even harming humans.

Then there is the long-running saga of the £1 billion fraud at HBOS, which since 2009 has been part of the Lloyds Banking Group. The FCA, the SFO and the City of London Police, which is partly funded by City institutions, declined to prosecute anyone. In 2017, the Thames Valley police and crime commissioner successfully prosecuted some HBOS managers for fraud. Still, the regulators refused to fully investigate and secure compensation for the victims. Instead, Lloyds Bank was persuaded to appoint Dame Linda Dobbs to investigate and issue a report by 2018. No report has been issued. Some victims of the fraud have since died, and obviously never received any compensation.

I have raised matters relating to HBOS in this House on many occasions, such as 28 January 2021, 14 April 2021, 6 February 2023, 9 February 2023, 22 January 2024, 14 February 2024, 15 May 2025 and 26 March 2026, just to give your Lordships a few examples. The typical response from the Ministers is silence, carefully calculated indifference, or that it is a matter really for somebody else or a failed regulator. This is how the political system incubates tragedies such as Grenfell, because Ministers and Governments are too afraid to upset the corporate lobby.

The most fitting memorial for the victims of the Grenfell fire is effective democracy, regulation, corporate and director accountability, Governments who can be called to account, and speedy justice to ensure that such a tragedy never ever occurs again.