Below in bold is a press statement made yesterday by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. I thought it was worth reproducing (along with my comments) because it’s illustrative of how difficult it is for Grenfell Tower fire survivors to get justice. Many of the people I work with remark on how government officials these days lie uniformly and/or simply refuse to respond to matters of public safety, electing instead to protect their careers, pensions and, quite frankly, their right to do bugger all in their day jobs. This is routinely happening with MHDCLG officals, too, when questioned about buildings legislation in relation to Grenfell.
 
It becomes rather tiresome to point out that this statement, like all the others from BEIS in recent years, is not only full of untruths, it offers absolutely no evidence or facts in support of its claims. Note, too, what it doesn’t do, e.g. provide any links to the relevant documents such as BEIS’s own 2014 proposals on a new match test with the accompanying research and scientific proof of the Technical Annex. Why? Well, almost certainly because anyone reading those will immediately see this statement for what it is: a ghastly, unfounded, self-justification for keeping the entire country at risk from toxic poisoning in their own homes.
 
 
A BEIS spokesperson said:
 
“We have sought views, consulted and proposed ways forward but there is not yet consensus across the sector and Government will not take risks with people's safety. (1)
 
“The UK has the highest furniture safety requirements in Europe and we are committed to improving environmental outcomes and reducing toxicity but need to do so in a clear, well evidenced way which also improves fire safety.” (2)
 
 
Additional Information: 

• The Government considers the safety of consumers to be a priority, and consumers should have confidence that the products in their homes are produced to rigorous safety requirements. (3)
• We are committed to improving environmental outcomes and reducing toxicity but need to do so in a clear, well evidenced way that also improves fire safety. (4)
• UK furniture safety requirements are acknowledged as being the highest in Europe.  We are committed to reviewing these regulations to ensure that the highest levels of fire safety are both maintained, and improved, for UK consumers. (5) 
• Revision of the regulations is complex, with a broad spectrum of views expressed by respondents from industry, fire services, charities and regulators. (6)

 
 
(1)  There wasn’t consensus when they proposed exactly the same changes (as in 2016) back in 2014 but the Minister, Jo Swinson and the next Minister, Anna Soubry ordered that the new test should come in regardless – which was also agreed by the fire sector. BEIS’s own Better Regulation unit advised – rightly – that you’ll never get consensus when some parties will lose out financially, and that consultations are not intended to get consensus over a matter of public safety. And the government IS taking risks with people’s safety! It’s refusing to put right the unsafe situation that Richard Hull’s paper (and other works) proves is in place, e.g. that a UK sofa is more dangerous than an EU sofa.
 
(2)  No it doesn’t – because BIS proved they don’t work! The UK government is currently being challenged by European furniture makers, via the EU Commission, on the basis that the Regulations are an unjustified barrier to trade, because they’ve been proven not to work. There is no proof at all that these regs save any lives – but we do know they’re putting millions of lives at risk through toxic poisoning. The BIS 2014 condoc and technical annex was ‘clear’ and ‘well evidenced’ – since then they haven’t produced a single piece of evidence for anything they’re saying now – 21 months since the 2016 consultation closed and still no change: this hardly constitutes a ‘committed’ approach.
 
(3)  The furniture products in our homes are NOT safe – they’re poisoning us, both in their normal state and especially when they burn.
 
(4)  BIS’s own 2014 consultation document and technical annex (widely praised by the country’s leading test experts) proved in a ‘clear, well-evidenced’ way that there are big safety problems with these regulations. Since then, BEIS has replaced its in-house regulations experts with a couple of people who recently demonstrated that they do not even know the requirments in these regulations are based on British standards. The Grenfell Fire Forum has not been able to find any evidence at all that BEIS officials have done any work on ‘improving environmental outcomes’, other than adopting a deflecting tactic in recent months. This is to keep back their Furniture Regulations officials and instead send Jon Elliott of their Science Unit in the Office of Product Safety and Standards to attend meetings and say things like, “We needto look at environmental outcomes” [my emphasis]. At the same time he tells people that the issues with the match test (that fails in most cases in practice) were ‘then; this is now’, etc.
 
(5) Actually, they’re not; now that the EU knows the truth about how they don’t work. 
 
(6) The same views were expressed by the same respondents in 2014 and dealt with. No evidence at all that they’re consulting anyone on these ‘complex’ regs. The first time in nearly two years that BEIS officials actually went out to visit a stakeholder was a few weeks back, when they booked themselves a trip to IKEA in Almhult, Sweden. 
 
The bottom line is simple: if BEIS puts these regulations right – either by implementing a new match test or by changing to just a smoulder test like the rest of the world – the former producing fire safety, the latter producing FR-free products, which the Grenfell Fire Forum and others believe is the better option) – the following industries will lose out big time financially:

• Flame retardant industry
• Chemical treatment industry
• Furniture industry (by losing its coveted trade barrier to the rest of the world)
• Testing industry (less testing required)

 
Given that all four work together closely – the core group often referred to inside the business as ‘The Skipton Mafia’ – and blocked the 2014 changes despite offering no evidence at all to support their complaints; and given that back then BIS had two full-time national experts working on the regulations, but now has none . . . there is absolutely no chance of these regulations being put right any time soon. The likes of Jon Elliott know this of course and are simply covering their backs until we get to Brexit which they somehow hope will sort everything for them.
 
Meanwhile, Jon, I advise that you buy your sofas and mattresses from outside the UK, if you care about your family being poisoned while they sleep.

Extracts from my journal, 15th June 2017
 
Grenfell Tower, a huge housing block in Kensington, caught fire last night and is still burning. About a dozen people so far have died, and around 40 injured. A reporter I know phoned today to talk about it and said he thought the timing might be suspicious. 
 
The clouds of dark smoke pouring out of the tower are that colour mainly because of flame retardants - and that smoke will include hydrogen cyanide. And yet not one single person has mentioned this in the media, even though hundreds of people, including firefighters have been breathing it in for hours. Which may or may not be a great sleight of hand act on the part of the FR industry. On which point, there was an article in the Guardian yesterday by Dr Malcolm Tunnicliff, who dealt with 12 casualties from the fire. He says:
 
"We knew in advance that it was a fire in an enclosed space so we also knew there was a real risk of cyanide poisoning from foam in older furniture burning. So we had lots of cyano kits – which contain the antidote to cyanide poisoning – ready and waiting to give people. Happily tests shows that none of them had; that was a relief."
 
I find this suspicious - first that he would be talking at all to the press and offering views on the fire before there's been any kind of investigation. Second, that he mentions burning furniture foam as a possible source of cyanide poisoning but does so wrongly, i.e. while foam in older (by which I suspect he means pre-1988 when the Regulations came in) was toxic when burned, modern foam is far more toxic because it contains FRs. Third, he claims victims were tested for cyanide but I thought that diagnoses of blood for cyanide poisoning takes quite some time. [We also learned later blood tests were taken from none of the survivors. I wrote to Dr Tunnicliff about his statements but he did not reply.]
 
Some possible issues/factors:
 

• Richard Hull has just given a talk at BFR 2017 on his work that proves a sofa treated with FRs is more toxic than an untreated sofa. The FR industry as usual was present; also present, and not usual, was Dave Sibert of the FBU.

 

• The Fire Safety Order 2005 removed the requirement upon the 'responsible person' to get a professional fire risk assessment made of his property - which is part of the general issue of industry gradually weakening safety requirements.

 

• TV says that every one of the survivors suffered from smoke inhalation; none from fires/burns, which means we need protection from toxic smoke produced by burning FRs more than from fire. When I mentioned this to Steve Owen earlier today he said, "Well, obviously," but it's not obvious to most of the population and those who advise them on fire safety.

 
The reporter who phoned me wants to do a big story on toxic smoke and furniture, bringing in Richard Hull's research, showing that the Furniture Regs can be used as a good/bad example of failing fire safety requirements, i.e. they don't work; don't increase escape time; produce highly toxic fumes. 
 
I also have some dark thoughts that I do not want to fully express, even in this journal. But I'm concerned that if BEIS finally decides to implement a new match test that will hugely reduce FRs in furniture cover fabrics, which in turn may lead to getting rid of them altogether (as in the US and rest of the EU), then, thinking backwards, the FR industry will do anything to make sure that doesn't happen. It's a BEIS move that might be triggered by Richard Hull's BFR talk and forthcoming paper on the same subject. The FR industry lost its US market then failed in its attempts to gain the EU market, and is at risk of losing its main supporter, the UK - at a time when it is trying to build new markets in India, Africa and Asia. And if it transpires that FRs killed many if not most of the people in Grenfell Tower when they and the Furniture Regs don't work, well, that would be very seriously damaging. Not just for the FR industry itself but also for those who get paid to promote it, including fire services officials and at least one BEIS official. In this respect, it will be very interesting to see if attention regarding the Grenfell fire remains everywhere but on burning furniture.