Government official ‘forgot’ to issue clarification that Grenfell-style cladding was banned

In an important day’s evidence, Mr Martin also: 

• Said he did not realise ACM was in use on high-rise buildings in the UK following the meeting, despite the minute on this point being headed “use of ACM on high-rise buildings”
• Told senior civil servants and ministers immediately following the Grenfell Tower fire that the guidance “banned” the use of ACM cladding despite the lack of clarification
• Denied that he did not act on an email warning him of the wide-use of combustible insulation on high rises from the same period because he was overwhelmed by the thought of “a crisis that you simply couldn’t conceive of”

The inquiry heard yesterday that Approved Document B, which contained official guidance on fire safety in construction, was amended in 2006 to say that “filler material” should achieve the tough fire standard of ‘limited combustibility’. 

Mr Martin said he intended this phrase to apply to the combustible core of an ACM panel, but accepted that he never discussed this meaning with anyone outside the department when he made the last-minute changes to the document that introduced it. 

Many in the industry believed cladding panels were only required to meet the weaker fire standard of Class 0. Many ACM products could achieve this classification despite their devastating reaction to fire. 

In July 2014, Mr Martin attended a meeting with industry representatives organised by cladding industry body, the Centre for Window and Cladding Technology (CWCT). 

Under the heading ‘Use of ACM on high-rise buildings’, minutes of the meeting recorded that ACM “generally achieves a reaction to fire classification of Class 0”, but has been involved in “major fires in buildings in various parts of the world”.

“Did it occur to you that that might mean that ACM with a 100% polyethylene core was being used on high-rise buildings on a regular basis in the United Kingdom?” asked Richard Millett QC, lead counsel to the inquiry.

“No,” said Mr Martin. “That’s not what it said.”

“Why did you think this was a topic of discussion at all, in central London in July 2014, if there were not any ACM 100% of polyethylene-cored panels being used in cladding systems above 18 metres in this country?” asked Mr Millett.

“I just saw this as a debate over the different provisions that existed at the time,” said Mr Martin. 

The minutes – previously obtained by Inside Housing in 2018 under the Freedom of Information Act – recorded that it is “not clear” that the words ‘filler material’ were intended to apply to this product, particularly as they are contained in a passage headed ‘insulation materials/products’ and ACM is not used as insulation.

The inquiry saw witness statements from several attendees at the meeting who all said they did not believe the word ‘filler’ referred to the core of a composite cladding panel. One referred to the explanation as a government “construct”.

Mr Martin said these were not the responses he had received “on the few occasions” he discussed the issue with industry.

Asked if he “chose to ignore” the “discordant voices” because he “didn’t like the idea” that his guidance was unclear, Mr Martin said: “I didn’t choose to ignore it. It just… wasn’t something that was at the forefront of my mind.”

The minutes recorded that Dr Sarah Colwell, then a senior member of the Building Research Establishment (BRE), agreed to draft an FAQ to clarify the meaning of ‘filler’ and provide it to Mr Martin, who had left the meeting before this discussion, but he did receive and read the minutes.

The inquiry has heard the Dr Colwell never drafted an FAQ, despite repeated chasing from the CWCT. 

Mr Martin said today that he was waiting to be contacted by attendees at the meeting about the FAQ after reading the meeting minutes. 

“When they didn’t, as must have become apparent at some stage very soon after this, why didn’t you ask them?” asked Mr Millett. 

“I think this was a busy time for us, and I think I probably forgot about it as the honest answer,” replied Mr Martin. 

He said preparing such an FAQ “would have taken some work”, but “certainly wasn’t impossible”. 

“But I think what you tell us is you didn’t do so because, in all candour, you forgot about it,” said Mr Millett.

“I think I owe the inquiry candour. I think that’s the honest answer,” said Mr Martin. “It’s not an excuse, it’s a fact, we were very busy on other things at the time.”

Asked if part of his thinking was that he had “snuck [the clause containing the phrase ‘filler material’] in under the radar” and was “now worried that somebody might ask awkward questions” about it, Mr Martin said: “No, that wasn’t my thinking at all.”

He accepted that he never mentioned the issue to his superiors in the department and that no FAQ was ever published. 

The inquiry has previously seen that at a later meeting in March 2016, also attended by Mr Martin, the minutes stated it was agreed that Approved Document B was “poorly written and open to interpretation” on this point and needed to be redrafted. 

However, Mr Martin was shown a document which showed that on 16 June 2017 – two days after the Grenfell Tower fire – he authored an “urgent” briefing for ministers which said ACM was “banned”. 

He wrote that a “non-fire retardant” form of ACM would have been “in contravention of building regulations guidance” and was “effectively banned”. 

This line was repeated by ministers in media interviews in the days after the fire, including by then-chancellor Philip Hammond on the BBC.  

Mr Martin told the inquiry yesterday that Approved Document B did not specifically “ban” individual products and it was up to designers and building control officials to decide its specific application. 

Asked how he could “reconcile” this evidence with the claim after the fire that the product was “effectively banned”, he said: “I think the term ‘banned’ was something that was being used quite widely in the senior part of the department, whether that was senior officials or ministers. And so this was a very shorthand way of talking about that.”

Mr Martin was also asked today about an exchange of emails with the National House Building Council (NHBC), the country’s largest building control inspector, also in July 2014, where he issued what he called a “friendly warning” about the use of combustible insulation on high-rise buildings. 

In the email – which has been discussed with several witnesses at the inquiry previously – Mr Martin said he had been “talking to a few folk about fire safety and facades recently” and heard that combustible insulation was being used on the misunderstanding that it met the limited combustibility standard. 

A senior NHBC manager replied telling him that the issue related to the use of Kingspan K15, which had a certificate from the British Board of Agrément (BBA) implying it could acceptably be used on high rises. 

The manager told Mr Martin that “there is no reason to suspect” the buildings where it was installed “at risk at this time”. “It’s just the fact that testing carried out to date does not bear this out,” he wrote. 

Asked why he did not issue warnings to other organisations or investigate how widely used the product was after receiving this email, Mr Martin said he thought “NHBC would have taken leadership”.

“NHBC would be able to react so much more quickly than we would. We were a tiny team. I can’t press a button and suddenly instigate a major investigation,” he said, adding that he was “very busy on another project”. 

The inquiry saw he emailed his seniors in the department to notify them of the issue, writing: “If it is a problem, some blocks may need to have their cladding replaced (possibly a lot of them).”

He said he was content to “wait and see what NHBC found”, which would “give us an indication of whether this was a major problem or not”.

“And what about the people living in these blocks in the meantime? Did you think about them?” asked Mr Millett.