Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Detective Superintendent Fiona McCormack, who is conducting some of the inquiries, has said that the insulation has proved

“more flammable than the cladding”.

Has the Home Office had representations from the police or the fire service on this? Does the Minister sit on the Government’s taskforce and, if not, has whichever Home Office Minister does raised the testing of the insulation with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government? If not, will they do so urgently and call for testing of insulation to be done?

[Mr Hurd]

I can assure the right hon. Lady that both the Home Secretary and I have sat on the regular Cobra meetings that have addressed this, and I sit regularly on the sub-group as well. The right hon. Lady is right; of course, testing the cladding was the priority, but it is becoming increasingly clear that this is not just about the cladding. There is a significant issue with insulation and fitting, and there are considerable questions to be answered about safeguarding and risk inside buildings. That is what we have to understand better, informed by the police investigation and the public inquiry about what exactly what has happened, but we also have to get on with the business of stress testing our current systems.