Grenfell: alternative lessons

The horror of the Grenfell Tower fire will shock the memory off all who heard as it unfolded. To betray its lessons would be foolishness, but we will. The Grenfell Report will lead us astray.

(Do not expect a picture of the fire here – that would be too sickening to those who live in the horror.)

The bare facts of the fire were well known soon after it happened, with almost universal incredulity that it could have happened. Building Regulations are tight; approved materials are regulated, and this was a local authority building. The latter should have been a warning though: the worst of housing scandals are in council and housing association housing. Where the council is both builder and enforcer, marking their own homework, it is a wonder there are not more.

A private landlord works with the regulators breathing down his back, and a private landlord has a financial interest in maintaining the safety and longevity of his building’s capital value. However a private landlord is also punished by socialistic laws assuming him to be a rapacious exploiter, so he is contrarywise disincentivised from finishing the job. All this is deadly. None of this will be reported in the Report.

One can predict the conclusions a report will reach by those placed in charge of it: when the Leveson Inquiry was launched, in the hands of a judge and lawyers, it was always going to recommend a lawyers’ solution to a perceived problem. If a panel of educationalists are tasked with looking into an issue, they will recommend education. When civil servants are given an inquiry, they will recommend more regulation. There is a role for all these approaches, but the narrowness of a profession will narrow the understanding of what are teapotohedral problems.

From the outside, one can see the way that regulation makes things worse and more dangerous. The declared purpose of regulation is the protection of the public. The genuine purpose of regulation to protect regulators. It is good too at nurturing monopolies. There was no failure of regulation at Grenfell Tower: the deadly substance applied to the building was approved by regulators. If any councillor or builder questioned the suitability of it. he or she would have been shut up at once with the truthful assertion that it was declared safe and therefore is immune from criticism. That is how regulation works. The regulators did no wrong: they ticked all the boxes and went home to sleep soundly at night. They had no worry for those who would not wake the next morning.

The Inquiry has looked at how the approval of substances was ‘deregulated’, but it was not – regulation was placed in the hands of a regulator staffed by those who actually understood their subject. If this was too easily swayed by pressure to approve a murderous cladding material, how much more would this happen if the task is given to a civil servant with more understanding of Keats than chemistry? The lobbyist rules all, and knows how to use the system to ban his rivals. We could find that combustible material is approved, and approved as the only permissible cladding, rendering fruitless any research on improvements. I have seen this many times before.

The Grenfell Inquiry is necessary. It is being conducted diligently and will provide honest conclusions. That does not mean that they are the right conclusions, or the only conclusions one can reach.

As it is a most serious matter, painted-on piety from the political class and commentators will speak in hushed tones, as if the panel could begin ‘I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!’

Their pronouncement should not have a monopoly though, and they must not shut up any contradiction.

The solution? Private enquiries, perhaps by those in relevant industries, can give their own conclusions. The main inquiry has drawn out the facts, through hour upon hour of testimony, much of it distressing, some workaday technical matters. These factual conclusions should stand. After that, it is for others to reach their own, reasoned conclusions on the facts: maybe they will find other elements of fact not examined, or just take it as presented and work through conclusions based their own approach. I would hope for an understanding based not on automata, but on how real people work and react and prioritise in the real world, empirically. People and companies are not narrative stereotypes. Conclusions should consider what motivates and incentivises the individual and the company.

There are many angles to look at, which should be looked at. It is only politicians climbing onto the bodies to push their own predeterminations for whom I have contempt.

Ask educationalists to produce a report, and they will recommend public education – ask lawyers and they will talk of liability and procedure – ask civil servants and they will propose blind regulation. Ask engineers, and they might tell you something you have not thought about. Ask investors and developers and you will learn uncomfortable home truths about the vanity of your proposals. There may be many other disciplines with a word to say, and every one with an honest and valid opinion which can educate the discussion on what (if anything) to do, or to undo.

Let many private enquiries follow, and let us listen to them all.