On 14th June, Boris Johnson gave his first media interview following his entry into the race to be leader of the Tory party. At one point he said:

“We already have goods that conform to different standards. France, for instance, has different laws on flame retardant furniture - but we have no laws to check goods.”

This was very unusual indeed. A BBC reporter picked up on it and by a somewhat roundabout route I ended up having a conversation with him about what might be behind Johnson's comment. Below is an email I sent to some colleagues about it. There are other connections with Tory Ministers I didn't list here, mainly for brevity's sake, e.g. the fact that the Special Advisor to Greg Clarke (Secretary of State for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) took a sabbatical to go work for a few months for Burson Marsteller, the massive PR firm that represents the three biggest flame retardant producers, at a time when the future of the Furniture Regulations was being decided by his own department.
 
From:EDGE TERRY 
Sent:14 June 2019 20:15
To:various
Subject:Boris and the Furniture Regs

I just had a long talk with [a BBC reporter] who was suitably amazed to hear what's behind all this. He's going to talk to others in the BBC who are perhaps more suitable for a bigger picture story.

I think the key question is why would Boris Johnson even raise the issue of the Furniture Regulations and flame retardants? Okay, he seems to be claiming the opposite of what is true - hardly a first for Boris - that France has nasty flame retardants in its furniture which we can't stop them importing. But as said, given the controversy around them, why mention them at all? What's he trying to head off?

Well, to speculate: it could be that the Tories see this as a potential scandal about to come out with them at its centre; for example:

• In 2014, Mathew Hancock and Oliver Letwin leaned on Jo Swinson to prevent her making safety changes to the regs
• Anna Soubry failed to get the changes made in April 2016 despite ordering civil servants to do so
• Sajid Javid appointed Sir Ken Knight as Chair of the independent experts group to the Grenfell Inquiry after Sir Ken had played a key role in blocking changes to the Furniture Regs
• James Brokenshire, his successor, has refused to look at the evidence against Sir Ken
• Kelly Tolhurst is now blocking changes and in a most unconvincing manner
• All of this impacting on the full truth about the toxicity of Grenfell Tower coming out
• Labour MPs like Emma Dent Coad and Mary Creagh doing the right thing against all these Tory shenanigans

Best wishes,

​Terry

Below is an email I sent to Graham Russell, CEO of the Office for Product Safety and Standards, on 28thMay. It is a genuine offer, supported by several other experts I've been working with who are as keen as I am to get the Furniture Regulations sorted and make the public safe again.
 
From:Terry Edge 
Sent:28 May 2019 09:48
To:Russell, Graham (Office for Product Safety and Standards) 
Cc:A wide range of interested parties.
Subject:The Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988
 
Dear Mr Russell,
 
Please let me help you and BEIS find a sustainable solution to overcoming the current impasse regarding the review of the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 (FFRs). 
 
Since BEIS's 2016 consultation, your response to stakeholders repeatedly asking when you will amend the FFRs has remained "soon" (e.g. as stated by the Minister, Kelly Tolhurst, to the APPG Fire Safety and Rescue on 30thApril, and in the latest Parliamentary Q&As raised by the Countess of Mar). Citing this long delay as the issue being 'complex' must be increasingly embarrassing to the Department.
 
It is evident that BEIS is still struggling to grasp the full complexities and undertones, and find the technical expertise necessary to make realistic recommendations and changes in this vital area of product safety. 
 
I wish to propose that with a group of genuinely independent experts I form a small consortium to help BEIS:
 

1. bring the FFRs into line with the rest of the EU and the USA by adopting a new cigarette test, dropping the match and fillings tests, thereby removing all flame retardants from UK domestic upholstered furniture; and 

 

1. revise the other outstanding aspects of the FFRs, which everyone agrees are hugely out of date, including those not covered by the 2016 consultation for whatever reason.

 
As you probably know, with full stakeholder support I first introduced proposals to revise the FFRs back in 2009 because they were already outmoded and not fit for purpose. I have worked consistently since to try to improve these regulations for the good of product and public safety, first as a full-time civil servant and now as an independent. I believe I still possess the most comprehensive and unbiased knowledge of the FFRs and their flaws that you will find. I also have the technical expertise and understanding for what needs to urgently change and how to achieve it. 
 
I also understand the political, industrial and academic landscapes to help you navigate conflicting stakeholder interests to make this right. I have maintained excellent contacts across the globe including both US and EU experts in furniture flammability standards, and I continue to work on a daily basis with groups and individuals campaigning for better health and environmental management regarding flame retardants, such as the Cancer Prevention Society and the Countess of Mar. 
 
I am therefore confident that I can bring the right mix of people on board, and that this proposal could be fully completed by the current exit target date for Brexit (31 October), enabling the UK to have the means to quickly remove the trade barrier the Regulations currently represent. 
 
I believe my proposal will be supported by, amongst others:
 

• The Environmental Audit Committee
• UK firefighters 
• The European Furniture Industries Confederation
• Trading Standards
• Grenfell residents (I work closely with Justice4Grenfell and Humanity for Grenfell and was recently commissioned by an Inquiry solicitor to provide a memorandum for Judge Moore-Bick on the role the FFRs played in the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy)
• Universities researching the negative effects of flame retardants, such as Birmingham and UCLAN 
• The Cancer Prevention Society, Breast Cancer UK, CHEM trust, Greenpeace
• The Countess of Mar and her supporters
• Furniture manufacturers - large, e.g. IKEA, and small, e.g. Cottonsafe 
• The public 
• The APPG Fire Safety and Rescue

 
I appreciate that certain elements of industry will not readily support the removal of flame retardants from furniture. However, if you watched the Environmental Audit Committee's session of 14 May, you will have noted the failure of industry to answer convincingly the EAC's fundamental question of why the UK alone insists on fire tests that don't work while the rest of the world is convinced that a cigarette/smoulder test alone supplies fire safety, without the need for any flame retardants. 
 
I understand that Kelly Tolhurst is due to face the EAC on the 5thJune. Her discomfort at the APPG meeting was completely understandable when it was pointed out to her that the current and failing match test means that UK children are sleeping on mattresses containing flame retardants that were banned from weed-killer for being toxic. I believe she would be universally applauded if she was able to tell the committee that she has put into action a proposal that will rapidly lead to children's mattresses and all other upholstered furniture being free of flame retardants.
 
I would be willing to work in a full-time capacity on this project with you (detailed proposal to follow if you agree in principle), with consortium members providing their time where best needed; funding to be provided by BEIS, possibly from the OPSS budget you described recently to the Environmental Audit Committee. 
 
Thank you for your consideration of this offer. I would be pleased to meet with you to discuss this further.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
 
Terry Edge
Tel: xxxxxxxxx
 
 
Here is Mr Russell's reply:
 
 
From: "Russell, Graham (Office for Product Safety and Standards)" <graham.russell@beis.gov.uk>
Date: Thursday, 30 May 2019 at 17:25
To: Terry Edge
Cc: as before
Subject: RE: The Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988
 
Dear Mr Edge
Thank you for your email, the contents have been noted.
The government intends to publish its response following the consultation on the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 in due course.
 
Graham Russell
 
 
It's difficult to know if he is being sarcastic with his first sentence, since we both know that 'noted' is one of the dismissive terms civil servants use when they really mean 'F*** off'. It's similar to another favourite word of theirs, often used in Ministers' replies, which is 'consider'. The Minister will consider your points, which means of course that he/she won't.
 
One can only speculate as to why he doesn't feel the OPSS could do with some help over the Furniture Regulations. Perhaps it's because they have around 300 people on their books, with a budget of £12m per year. Yet not one of them appears to know anything at all about the regulations. Also, it may be an embarrassment to Mr Russell that in OPPS's first year being responsible for the Furniture Regulations, prosecutions and convictions have fallen to their lowest-ever: just 3. This, despite Trading Standards having reported that over 80% of furniture covers fail the match test in practice. What are those 300 people doing, one might ask? Well, my sources in OPSS tell me that they do have a lot of meetings. Something that I know from my last few years in BEIS, civil servants have become expert in.  
 
This lack of knowledge of the regulations in BEIS/OPSS was apparent when their Minister, Kelly Tolhurst, addressed the Environmental Audit Committee last week and amongst many inconsistencies and misleading statements claimed that the (still outstanding) 2016 BEIS consultation responses produced a consensus that there is not enough evidence behind the proposed changes to the (match) test. Unfortunately, there is a major obstacle facing anyone who may wish to verify this claim, which is that BEIS has refused to release the 2016 consultation returns, despite it closing nearly three years ago. The EAC asked to see them but was refused. I wonder why?
 
Well, while it is probably true that there would not have been consensus about changing the match test, since that would have led to huge losses in profits to industry, there simply cannot be an evidence-based consensus that BEIS's case regarding the match test has not been made. The clear-cut evidence for this is set out clearly in their 2014 consultation and accompanying technical annex.
 
So, why would Ms Tolhurst make such a false statement? Well, she is simply of course reading out from her briefing notes. Which are supplied by the OPSS. Why would the OPSS lie about their own consultations? I can only speculate but if the Minister had actually told the truth - that her own department has proved the current match test is unsafe - then of course she would be wide open to some serious questioning.
 
As it was, the EAC did seriously question her on this very subject. The Chair opened by saying that BEIS had proven 5 years ago that the current match test is not fit for purpose; did the Minister agree and if not, why not?
 
You can watch this session yourself to find how she replied but I don't think it requires a spoiler alert to tell you that no straight answer was forthcoming.
 
And so it went throughout the session, with the EAC asking Ms Tolhurst evidence-based questions and getting nothing but waffle or untrue responses. Her oft-repeated response to the question of why BEIS has failed to put these regulations right after so many years was that she would not do anything that might compromise fire safety; and her 'proof' that the regulations provide that, she claimed, lies in the government's commissioned report into the regulations by Greenstreet Berman in 2009.
 
Well, I commissioned that report, while at BIS (as it was then). And we commissioned it on the basis that at that time we all believed the regulations worked. On that basis, Greenstreet Berman guessed – because that's all you can do – how many of the drop in fire deaths was down to the furniture regulations and not, say, smoke alarms and the decrease in home smoking. Since then, of course, we have learned that the main ignition test in the regulations does not work; therefore, the estimates of lives saved in the GB report are invalid.
 
This point was put in a different way by the EAC to Ms Tolhurst and earlier to industry witnesses: that the rate of fire deaths per million population in the UK is not better than New Zealand (which has no furniture fire safety regulations) and at least 5 other EU countries (which only use at most a cigarette test that requires no flame retardants), therefore why do we have so much tougher furniture regulations? FIRA, extraordinarily, in response to this tried to claim that the UK suffers from 'unique' kinds of fires that warrant stricter regulations. But as the Chair pointed out, that's irrelevant (as well as being nonsense, of course) because the outcomeis the same. A point that FIRA appeared not to get, or want to get. Ms Tolhurst also had trouble understanding this somewhat fundamental point.
 
There were four witnesses at last week's session, all responsible one way or another for public safety. Without going into too much detail, what was depressing was that every single one of them, when asked about a subject that puts into conflict safety against profits, always gave industry the benefit of the doubt.
 
Behind them were two rows of civil servants, sometimes passing notes to their masters facing the Committee. My companion said to me, at the end of the session, "Look at those civil servants. They actually look happy – because they've got away with it."
 
Quite. And that, more than anything else, probably explains why Mr Russell told me and my colleagues to f*** off.
 
Even though he knows that if he took us on, we could sort out the mess he's maintaining at BEIS in nine months tops: we'd have safe fire regulations and an end to flame retardants in UK furniture.
 
And with that I'll f*** off for now.
 
 
 
 
 
 

As said in a previous post, industry's defence to the Environmental Audit Committee with regard to their support of the current Furniture Regulations has been, well, pathetic. All they've offered is opinion posing as fact and the strange inability to mention the fact that the Furniture Regulations in their current state make them a lot more money than they would if they were put right.
 
There is evidence that many in industry have always known these Regulations do not work, and all of them have known for sure since 2014 when the government published the evidence. What has been their response? - to deny, block, evade, lie and carry on raking in the cash.
 
All of which would be bad enough if it only involved money. But these Regulations in their current state mean that UK homes contain the highest volumes of flame retardant chemicals in the world. But they're safe, said Mr Kannah of the flame retardant industry to the EAC recently. When it was pointed out to him that flame retardants are often banned for being toxic he said they were working hard to make them safer. Meanwhile, millions of sofas and mattresses in the UK still contain the poisonous decaBDE, a now-banned brominated flame retardant which adds nothing at all to fire safety but certainly adds to toxicity and ill health.
 
What is the true mentality of the industry? It can be seen, for example, in the fact that they were told several years back by government lawyers that it is illegal and dangerous to be treating sofas with stain-repellent sprays. These often make sofas flammable again and can react with flame retardants to produce highly toxic fumes and dust. When I told a journalist this he was stunned. "So, you're telling me," he said, "that we pay more for our sofas because they contain flame retardant chemicals to supposedly make them flame resistant, then we pay more again to have them treated with stain repellent that makes them flammable again?"
 
He was right. And guess what: they're still persuading customers to pay extra for stain-repellent chemical treatments.
 
Then there's the perhaps somewhat ironic practice of undertreatment. This involves a textile manufacturer treating a roll of fabric properly with flame retardant chemicals – the "golden roll" as it's known in the business – and having it tested to the Furniture Regulations' requirements. But the fabric that's actually sold to manufacturers is under-treated, with everyone in the chain profiting nicely. Trading Standards found that around 80% of furniture fabrics on finished products fail the main ignition test because of this. You might think that's good because it means less flame retardants, doesn't it? Perhaps but it also proves the lie that these chemicals are needed to make your furniture fire-safe (that and the fact that the damn stuff wears off so easily anyway). And your home and blood will still be infected with large volumes of chemical dust – flame retardants and mixer chemicals which no one outside of the chemical treatment industry even knows the identity of. And the chemical, treatment and furniture industries will be profiting hugely from duping you into in effect paying for something you aren't getting.
 
Speaking of the chemical treatment industry, their representative organisation, FRETWORK, has made two written submissions to the EAC. Both were written by Peter Wragg. Mr Wragg has been involved throughout the ongoing review of the Furniture Regulations – ten years and counting now. However, he appears to have somehow completely avoided seeing all the evidence produced in that process to prove the current regulations are not fit for purpose. I'm sure the fact that if they're put right it would lead to the treatment industry taking a massive hit in profits has nothing to do with his continuing assertion that the regs are just fine as they are.
 
Mr Wragg makes a very nice living from chemicals. Most of the time, he is not required to defend the darker side of the negative effects they can have on health and the environment. When he is, he tends to react with condescending opinions presented as solid facts which he himself sometimes calls 'rants'. 
 
See for yourself. Below is a link to Mr Wragg's first submission to the EAC. I've gone through it in detail since I think it is worth exposing the fact that his members are in effect poisoning the entire country by treating (or undertreating) fabrics for regulations that do not work for no good reason other than profit. Sorry, that's remiss of me; I should have pointed out that Mr Wragg provides ample proof that the regulations work – see his "Case of the Pink Cushion' – really, I'm not making it up (he is).
 
FRETWORK submission with my comments here.

On 14th May, industry representatives gave oral witness to the Environmental Audit Committee's Inquiry into toxic chemicals in everyday life. The second session included representatives from FIRA, the British Furniture Confederation and Lanxess (ex-Chemtura). The key questions put to them by the EAC were: 

• Why is the UK alone in insisting on a [Furniture Regulations] match test (which doesn't work) for its furniture flammability regulations when the rest of the world agrees that a cigarette/smoulder test alone provides fire safety and which requires no flame retardants?

• What are your industries doing about reducing/removing harmful flame retardants from furniture?

• What have you been doing about getting the Furniture Regulations updated since 2014?

 
You can read the session transcript here: http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/environmental-audit-committee/toxic-chemicals/oral/102212.pdf
 
Or watch the video recording here (second session starts at around 11:26:00): https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/2322b527-3fbc-45c6-ba06-eda9e872118e
 
It's no exaggeration to say that all three performed very poorly, offering no substantive answers to the Inquiry's questions at all. Indeed, they were often outright misleading and evasive, with some statements which can only be described as lying. 
 
Gareth Simkins and I will be submitting a full analysis on this session to the EAC. In the meantime, there is a short extract below.
 
By the way, Lanxess was represented by my old friend K, who in a neat circular fashion features in the very first blog post on this site. Then, I wrote about how he'd phoned in May 2012 to tell me that he'd heard we were planning to change the match test, even though Steve Owen and I had not discussed it with anyone else at that stage. Seven years on and K has certainly been successful in ensuring that massive amounts of his company's toxic products remain in our sofas. Big bonus every year, no doubt.
 
While we were waiting outside the EAC meeting room last week, I introduced Gareth to K. We asked K what his company was doing about removing the millions of kgs of the now banned flame retardant, decaBDE, still in millions of sofas and mattresses in UK homes (that Lanxess has made a fortune from). His reply was odd: he said that never has there been a death in a hospital that was diagnosed as being caused by a flame retardant chemical. Well, that's all right, then.
 
Extract from the EAC session with commentary:

Kerry McCarthy: The other thing is the allegations of corruption that were made against officials at what was then the BIS Department and the suggestion that there was interference with the process. Does anyone have any views on that? 

Kasturirangan Kannah: Can I go first again?

Kerry McCarthy: That was evidence from Terry Edge and Gareth Simkins.
 
Kasturirangan Kannah: Yes, there was one allegation made about an ex-Fire Services Chief, and the Chief of Merseyside was named. Our company—it was Chemtura then—had sponsored the Fire Safety Platform, as it was then. It has now moved on to the European Fire Safety Alliance. We completely refute any suggestion of corruption, totally.
 
Kerry McCarthy: In terms of your involvement in that, could you say a little bit more about what your involvement was in that process? 

Kasturirangan Kannah: Sure. The Fire Safety Platform’s objective was fire safety in the home. They talk about smoke detectors, they talk about vulnerable populations, they talk about unsafe furniture and so forth. That was their job. At no point did the Fire Safety Platform ever speak up on behalf of flame retardants. It made it very clear at the beginning that it would not do so. We respected that. We said as long as there is a spectrum of fire safety solutions, that is fine. That is exactly what it did. In terms of the specific allegation, I think the gentleman concerned has to respond to the allegation, but in our understanding there was no such impropriety, no corruption at all.

Commentary:
 
Chemtura (and the other FR companies) did indeed fund Mike Hagen's Fire Safety Platform (and his subsequent ventures). However, Hagen always claimed he was independent of them. But it's certainly not true that he never spoke out in favour of flame retardants. Hagen attended several BIS workshops and that is precisely the line he often took: that flame retardants equal fire safety. 
 
It may be worth looking a little closer at Mike Hagen's Fire Safety Platform's response to BEIS's 2014 consultation. He describes the FSP thus:
 
"The Fire Safety Platform is a non-profit association with a mission to reduce the risk from fire. It is an independent body that does not support any fire safety product, technology or commercial organisation. Support is welcome from all individuals and organisations concerned with fire safety. Currently, the Platform receives financial support from Albemarle, Busworld, Chemtura, the European Flame Retardants Association, ICL Industrial Products and Sprue Safety Products. Burson-Marsteller [PR company for flame retardant producers] acts as the secretariat to the Fire Safety Platform."
 
Given Burson-Marsteller's and Chemtura's etc deep involvement with trying to block fire safety changes to the California standard, it's a little hard to believe that Mike Hagen's attempts to do the same with the UK's proposals are independent of the same companies' aims here.
 
In his response, Hagen sets out his pro-FRs position pretty clearly: 
 
"There is a danger to the safety of UK and US citizens if 'scaremongering' [about the dangers of flame retardants] rather than balanced, risk-based arguments is allowed to prevail. For instance, the strong UK environmental lobby against such chemicals forced change in California which is widely accepted to be leading to a reduction in fire safety standards [hardly 'widely – only the FR industry and its supporters are claiming this]."
 
Hagen also claims that BIS's proposals are the sole work of Steve Owen who, he says, 'BIS has presented . . . as their 'guru' in these matters.' And concludes that Mr Owen's proposals do not appear to have 'been peer-reviewed nor subject to scrutiny by technical experts' – see above [earlier in our full commentary for the EAC] for proof that the opposite is the case. I perhaps should point out that Mr Owen was appointed as official technical advisor by his line managers, which followed his company (Intertek) winning an open tender to develop proposals for a new match test.
 
In 2018, Anna Stec told me that she was being incredibly frustrated in her efforts to obtain data about cancers in UK firefighters, chiefly by Mike Hagen and Dave Sibert who sit on all the relevant BSI committees and government-appointed bodies. She has since been commissioned by the FBU to look into such cancers, shortly after which Matt Wrack of the FBU told her that Dave Sibert (then fire safety officer for the FBU) had been sacked for 'colluding with the flame retardant industry'.
 
Earlier in the session, the Chair of the EAC pointed out that Chemtura had been responsible in the USA for setting up false citizens' safety groups to advocate for more flame retardants in products, and other lobbying activities; she said:

Chair: I am challenging you on your covert lobbying in the US. Does any of that go on here?
 
Kasturirangan Kannah: I cannot comment on what happened some years ago in the States, but I can find out more detail. You are saying it is covert lobbying on the part of Chemtura along with other companies. You need to— 
​
Commentary:
 
Kannah's wording is interesting here, i.e. "what happened some years ago in the States." Lobbying by the flame retardant industry is still very much alive in the USA. See this article in today's Guardian, for example: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/24/massachusetts-flame-retardants-firefighters-safety-cancer- about how lobbying from the American Chemistry Council is blocking bills to remove flame retardants in a lot of US States. Kannah's company, Lanxess, is a member of the ACC, as are the other two huge flame retardant producers, ICL and Albemarle.
 
K goes on to deny that any kind of similar lobbying has gone on in the UK where changes to the Furniture Regulations are concerned. However, as this blog has recorded, the three FR companies and their PR outfit, Burson Marsteller frequently lobbied me and always to press me to keep up the high levels of flame retardants in UK furniture. Flame retardants equals fire safety, they often chanted. Well, this EAC session showed that they do not have the faintest bit of evidence to support that claim; indeed, all the actual evidence points the other way.
 
 
 

The Environmental Audit Committee's inquiry into toxic chemicals in everyday life held its second witness session on Tuesday 30 April – you can view it here: https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/02213e37-0dfe-47c3-89eb-b487ab5b0d86.
 
Following this, on the same day, the All Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group met to discuss the Furniture Regulations and fridge-freezers with the BEIS Minister, Kelly Tolhurst MP (this meeting is not publicly available). The Furniture Regulations were also on the table for the EAC session. Because of this, the CEO of the Office for Product Safety and Standards (part of BEIS), Graham Russell, was present at both meetings. His demeanour varied considerably, however, between the two, mainly because at the EAC he was under direct questioning while at the second all he had to do was sit next to the Minister who did all the talking. At one he looked nervous and shifty, at the other he appeared rather smug – I'll leave the reader to guess which was which.
 
Let's take a closer look at Graham Russell. Yesterday, an article appeared in Civil Service World about the OPSS and Mr Russell:
 
https://www.civilserviceworld.com/articles/interview/safety-guard-office-product-safety-standards-chief-graham-russell-reflects-agency
 
Here are a few quotes from it:
 
Simply put, Russell says, the primary purpose of the office is to “make sure that consumers in the UK have confidence in the safety of the products they buy”.
 
[On the Grenfell Tower fire and BEIS's investigation of the fridge-freezer that is alleged to have started it] “The way that fire developed and had such a horrendous effect on human life, I think has also made us all rightly think again about making sure we’re doing enough, particularly for the most vulnerable people,” Russell says.
 
Products the OPSS regulates include toys, furniture and children’s clothing. “These are not products that people think are going to put their lives at risk.”
 
“What motivates me is that this is about protecting people – particularly the most vulnerable people. I think that’s what drives a lot of people in this area,” he says.
 
What motivates him most is protecting people, he says. And yet this man has known for several years that the Furniture Regulations do not work and are therefore putting the entire population at risk from toxic poisoning. He's right when he says people don't think that furniture is going to put their lives at risk – partly because he's telling everyone, including his Minister, that the Furniture Regulations actually work.
 
He also knows that people in his OPSS team have been telling other civil servants behind closed doors meetings that they know the Furniture Regulations don't work but don't know what to do about it. They're terrified at what the public will think and do if it gets out that these regulations have never worked and that his Department proved conclusively that they don't in 2014. In short, his successors and now he as the product safety boss are lying to the public and politicians purely to protect their backs.
 
He and his OPSS officials have also lied about their investigation into the Grenfell fridge-freezer that caught fire. They concealed the actual report into the product, just told the world that 'independent experts' (which were almost entirely just their own staff) had concluded that the product was safe. But if you get hold of the actual test report, it shows that in key areas the product is actually dangerous. How about that? Two products – furniture and white goods – that are putting the population at risk and Mr Russell is lying about them both. With the result that the people of Grenfell are being blocked from an important aspect of the truth about the fire.
 
Russell is also blocking the truth about the toxicity of furniture which is further preventing the Grenfell community from learning the full truth about what they were exposed to. 
 
If you watch his performance at the EAC, it's apparent that the committee was very exasperated with his ducking and diving around the fact that the OPSS in practice has been pretty useless since its formation at the start of last year. Also, he kept insisting that consumers were well protected from defective products, even though everyone in the room knows they aren't. For example, Robert Chantry-Price from the Trading Standards Institute, another witness, informed everyone that Trading Standards has lost 59% of its officers in recent years and had its budgets slashed. There were several wry smiles when Russell said the OPSS has £500K for Trading Standards to undertake product safety, which increased when Chantry-Price commented that TS officers do not have the funding to travel to the products and pay for them in the first place.
 
At one point in the APPG meeting, Lady Mar asked the BEIS Minister a question about the fact that organophosphate chemicals were removed from weed-killers because they're so toxic but they're heavily used in mattresses, including children's. Lady Mar asked Tolhurst what she thought about the fact children are being poisoned as they sleep. Tolhurst chose to go on the offensive, stating that this was an "aggressive" question and how dare anyone question how she felt about children's health. This led to Lady Mar having to clarify that of course she is criticising the Department's policy. Which should not have been necessary of course, since Kelly Tolhurst's personal feelings are irrelevant. However, acting outraged allowed her to avoid answering the question and Lady Mar's additional point that the match test doesn't work. 
 
Instead, Tolhurst repeated endlessly that while BEIS is looking at the possible negative effects of flame retardants, she will not do anything to risk fire safety (of furniture). Let's be clear about this: Graham Russell knows full well that the Furniture Regulations do not work and represent a huge risk to the entire UK public. Yet he's briefing his Minister that they working, which is a lie, pure and simple.

In short, he is the key person responsible for ensuring that millions of children in this country are being poisoned by toxic flame retardants on a daily basis.
 
What kind of man is that?
 
Oh, at the end of the EAC session I approached Mr Russell and introduced myself. I started to ask him if he'd read his own Department's 2014 consultation document and technical annex, since these prove that the current match test doesn't work. But he jumped to his feet, avoiding my gaze, and said, "I'm not hear to talk to anyone; I'm not discussing anything with you!" I started to point out that he's a public servant and I'm a member of the public but he literally shoved me aside and, now red-faced, rushed from the room.
 
Now, I don't know about you but I figure that's not the way a man behaves who believes in what he's saying. Such a man would stand his ground, look me in the eye, and point out exactly why I'm wrong, along with warning me to stop spreading lies about his Regulations and unnecessarily spooking the UK public.

Yesterday (23 April 2019), I and Gareth Simkins (reporter with the ENDS Report) testified at the EAC Inquiry into toxic chemicals. You can watch it here:
 
https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/12b6bfb1-f578-4056-bbc2-c0d1df54b29d
 
Our testimony begins at 15:07. 
 
You can listen to the BBC's Parliament Today report on it here:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0777wmz
 
My written evidence to the EAC can be accessed here: 
 
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/environmental-audit-committee/toxic-chemicals/written/97678.pdf
 
Gareth's here:
 
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/environmental-audit-committee/toxic-chemicals/written/97684.pdf 

There is much to say about this Inquiry, including looking at the submissions provided by those with an interest in ensuring the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 remain unchanged. I intend to put up a page on this site concentrating on the Inquiry soon.
 
In the meantime, the bottom line in many ways that Gareth and I put to the Committee yesterday was this: 
 
There are around a million tonnes of flame retardant chemicals in UK dwellings – about 45kgs per home – which do pretty much nothing for fire safety; instead they're poisoning us all and making fires that do take place far more toxic. If the UK did what the US and the EU do, which is to utilise just a cigarette/smoulder flammability test, all those chemicals could be removed and our sofas/mattresses would actually be safer.
 

 
The BFC's manifesto for 2018-19 can be found here. It's subtitled: "The Government and The UK Furniture Industry working together" which they almost certainly are but not necessarily in the best interests of UK citizens.
 
Let's take a look at page 15:

"The BFC applauds the Government’s decision to set up the Office for Product Standards and Safety (OPSS). Regardless of the outcome of Brexit negotiations on recognition and policing of standards, it is a positive development that the UK Government is taking product safety, monitoring and recalls seriously."

Given that the OPSS (part of BEIS) has been heavily criticised by a select committee for doing nothing about Whirlpool washing machines that keep catching fire and that it produced a misleading report into the fridge-freezer that caused the Grenfell Tower fire, lying about the findings of its own commissioned report, i.e. that in fact the product was dangerous and should be recalled, it's perhaps surprising that the BFC thinks the government is taking product safety seriously. But perhaps not; let's read on.

"The BFC continues to be a strong supporter of fire safety in the form of the Furniture & Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988, as amended. The Regulations are thought to have saved many lives, prevented many injuries, and stopped many house fires. Government research published in 2009 estimates that the Regulations saved approximately 54 deaths per year and prevented over 1000 house fires, which could have resulted in 780 non-fatal injuries."

The BFC knows full well that BIS's research in 2014 proved that the estimates in the 2009 report (which was not 'research' by the way, as the BFC claims) were without foundation; that therefore there is little evidence that the Furniture Regulations are saving any lives at all. The BFC is also very aware of Professor Richard Hull's findings, to quote Richard on the BBC's Newsnight:  
 
"We burnt two kinds of sofas: UK furniture flammability regulations sofas with flame retardants and a European sofa without flame retardants and we found that the UK sofa burnt slightly slower than the European sofa but in doing so it produced between two and three times as much toxic gas as the European sofa."
 
It's important to bear in mind here that Richard Hull's team were using furniture constructs that would pass the regulations' flammability tests; in a real life scenario, 90% of furniture fails the main ignition test, therefore there is little chance that an FR-treated sofa burns even slightly slower than an untreated European one.
 
The BFC goes on:

"The BFC is absolutely committed to preserving the safety levels of the furniture industry’s products in order to protect the lives of the public and of the emergency services. This is a view that our members share: 88 percent of respondents in our survey believe that the UK is right to maintain its high level of safety in relation to furniture and furnishings."
 
Let's be clear: the BFC is completely aware that its members are selling huge volumes of products that are not fire safe and therefore are not protecting the public and the emergency services, as proven by the government. The BFC has never disproved this. Here, it is resorting to its one remaining recourse: opinion expressed as fact.

"The BFC also recognises that there are concerns around the use of some fire retardant chemicals due to potential environmental impacts. The BFC supports the aims of the REACH regulations in controlling the use of chemicals that may be harmful to health or the environment. "

Lies by omission here. First, they only mention potential environmental impacts of flame retardants. Vast amounts of research show that FRs are incredibly impactful upon human health. Many of the BFC's members – with its endorsement – are for example packing children's mattresses with organophosphate FRs: the very same chemicals that were banned from agricultural sprays because they're so toxic. They're endorsing the use of these chemicals while knowing that they do little or nothing to prevent fire growth. Second, while it's very noble of the BFC to support the aims of REACH, in fact REACH provides the legislative framework for the use of chemicals which the BFC has no choice but to comply with. This statement is no doubt a bit of misdirection – what the BFC doesn't want you to know is:
 
a)         it has always supported the flame retardant industry's repetitive and deadly practice of putting new FRs on the market it claims are safe only for them to be withdrawn later when proper research finds they're toxic; but
 
b)         millions of sofas and mattresses in UK homes right now contain the banned FR, DecaBDE, poisoning many of us as we sit/sleep. What has the BFC done about ending this continuing harm to the population? Just pressured Defra to add a proviso into its new Waste Management Strategy in defiance of the Stockholm Convention, claiming that furniture which contains chemicals, like DecaBDE, which were legal at the time of manufacture (but later banned), are not 'hazardous waste'. This means the furniture industry won't have to pay for recalls or disposal at the end of a product's life and they can continue poisoning us with the latest FRs.

"However, the BFC is concerned that the Furniture & Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations have not been updated in the 30 years since they were first introduced. Since 1988 the industry has seen huge changes, not only in materials and processes, but also to the risks within the home environment. For the past decade, the industry has been seeking a full revision of the Regulations in order to update them so they are fit for modern purpose. To this end, the industry has been cooperating entirely with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but no response to the 2016 consultation to revise the Regulations has yet been published." 
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Believe me, the BFC is really not concerned that the Regulations have not been updated, nor that BEIS has not responded to its 2016 consultation. The furniture industry loves the Regulations just the way they are because they are a very profitable barrier to trade, giving the UK industry a huge advantage in the home market. They also do not really want to see BEIS respond to the 2016 consultation since the only honest response BEIS can possibly make is to confirm its 2014 findings that UK furniture is not fire-safe. A response which would damn the furniture industry, for continuing to knowingly supply unsafe products for the past 5 years and damn itself for putting pension-protection and career comfortability before public safety over the same period.
 
Finally, it's probably no surprise to find no mention of the Grenfell fire in this manifesto, given that furniture made by BFC members that is not fire-safe and highly toxic made a massive contribution to the deaths and poisoning. Which of course is another reason the BFC does not really want a response to the 2016 consultation - because if it had insisted five years ago that it was going to stop selling toxic, flammable products, the fire would not have been as bad as it was.
 
The BFC also supplies the secretariat for the All Party Parliamentary Furniture Industry Group and was recently telling all the world about a debate in Westminster Hall on 23 January this year, on the furniture industry. The current Chair of this group is Maggie Throup MP. The previous Chair, Stephen McPartland MP, was a key player in blocking changes to the Furniture Regulations (a move that was actively encouraged by the BFC), keeping them unsafe, and received a special award from the furniture industry for doing so, along with a place on the board of Furniture Village and around £40,000 a year for a couple of hours work each month. Richard Harrington MP, a BEIS Minister, has quite a lot to say in this debate although he makes no mention of the fact that UK furniture is flammable and highly toxic. The nearest we get to any discussion about flammability is when Mike Wood MP states:
 
"Research by the British Furniture Confederation showed that some products that come into the UK with CE approval are not properly flame resistant and can be burnt to a cinder in at little as 10 minutes, whereas a properly compliant product would self-extinguish within 10 to 15 seconds. Is he as concerned about that as I am?"
 
I expect Grenfell residents will be most reassured to know that the furniture in their tower self-extinguished within 10 to 15 seconds. Is the Minister as concerned? Well, he says:
 
"We share the desire of businesses for consumers to have confidence that the products in their homes are produced to rigorous safety requirements."
 
Let's just hope that those same consumers don't see the evidence on his own department's website that categorically proves that upholstered furniture is not at all safe. Whether the Minister himself has seen it is for now a matter of conjecture of course.

I was going to call this post, "How to Get What You Need from a Civil Servant" but a) you have to be able to translate what they really mean first, and b) it's extremely difficult to ever get what you need out of a civil servant, council official, or politician. 
 
Remember, you're up against centuries of practice on their part. Medieval nobility made the fatal mistake of handing administration over to early civil servants. It must have seemed like a no-brainer at the time: they do all the boring auditing while you get on with the fun stuff like robber-baroning, hunting and sucking up to the monarch. But it quickly led to the situation we have today where you phone up an official with a legitimate complaint, them being a public servant and you being the public, yet you come away with the distinct impression that you have somehow offended them and feeling extremely lucky that they have agreed to possibly "look into it".
 
Years ago, on the Kenny Everett TV show we see Kenny at home. His doorbell rings; he goes to the door, opens it and outside is Billy Connolly who says to Kenny, "Yes?". Connolly takes the offensive at being bothered, saying, "You opened the door," then threatens to call the constable. Kenny closes the door but can't resist opening it again. Connolly is still there and now exasperatedly says, "YES?". This is exactly what it's like dealing with officials when you have a legitimate problem.
 
I was a civil servant for many years before becoming a whistle-blower against the service, so while I don't necessarily have all the answers, I think I can identify a few tricks of the trade that you can be forewarned about. 
 
NEVER EVER FORGET THAT IT'S ALL A GAME TO THEM
 
Civil servants for the most part, and particularly in recent years in Whitehall departments, are trained to never do or say anything that might lead to work, changes in the law, or helping the public. The game is to come away from any meeting or phone call having said nothing of any substance and promised little by way of actual follow-up work. Behind closed doors, they actually boast about achieving these aims, such as they are.
 
There is no clear solution to this other than to be constantly aware that they are playing a game. Therefore, try to make everything you say in a phone call or a meeting with them propositional, not just part of a narrative. Which is of course much easier said than done but below are some hopefully helpful clues.
 
LISTENING TO YOUR PROBLEM
 
You get through by phone to the right person (which itself is an art form, of course), this could be say the official who is in charge of the piece of law that you have an issue with. Bear in mind that they will already know about your complaint and will have already decided on the outcome. But very often, the first thing they will ask you to do is explain your problem in detail and how it is an issue for you.
 
This of course seems a very fair and reasonable line to take. And it would be if, as said, they hadn't already decided on the outcome of your complaint. In fact, this tactic is designed to both take the wind out of your complaint and to be able to note that they are "listening". As you talk for 5, 10, 15 minutes and all your points are being noted and "Hmmmm"ed and "I see"ed at, you start to feel confident: perhaps they weren't aware of this problem before and they're actually going to do something about it.
 
Sorry, but this technique is in the same department as the word "consider", which civil servants love to use in their drafts for Ministers' replies to MPs. "I will consider carefully all your points" writes the Minister, but of course "consider" doesn't promise any action at all. 
 
In short, they are not listening to your problem; they're managing it. And one way they manage it will be to tell their line manager that you spoke for a full fifteen minutes without interruption - eh? What a nutter. Civil servants have decided that this behaviour is on a par with people who write letters to them in red ink with lots of underlines, bolds and triple exclamation marks and therefore are only too happy to encourage you to take it up.
 
Possible solutions:
 
The Reverse Everett
 
When they ask you what your problem is, you say: "What do you think it is?" This is risky, however, since they will probably counter with The Reverse Connolly and say, "You tell me." Which in the circumstances is unfortunately not that unreasonable.
 
Punctuated Requests for Affirmation
 
You pause after every key point you make and say, "So, what do you think of that?" This prevents them from labelling you as a nutter who never stops for breath. It also requires them to clearly demonstrate their unwillingness to actually do anything about your complaint. Because they can only really reply, "I'm not in a position to say . . . " or "I'll certainly consider it . . . " or "Please carry on; I need to hear your whole argument . . . " This reminds me to advise that you should always record such phone calls - because this kind of avoidance of action, minimal though it is, will probably be the only evidence you ever get.
 
Summing up request
 
When you've finished, ask them politely to sum up what you've just said. They will do everything they can to avoid this because while they're only repeating what you've said, on tape or in notes it could look like they are actually agreeing with you. They may say they'll write to you after they've consulted other colleagues in the department, and they'll set out your issue then. But it's worth persisting with this one, politely pointing out that this is a serious matter which they've agreed to consider; therefore, it's important that you know they understand exactly what you're putting to them.
 
DON'T EVER SWEAR, RAISE YOUR VOICE OR CRITICISE
 
Just as officials are very good at establishing who's going to run an inquiry and quickly putting in place terms of engagement that very much suit them and not you, they do the same thing in miniature, in say a telephone conversation. They won't tell you the rules beforehand, of course, but if you break one of them it allows them to dismiss everything you say.
 
So, for example, if you make the mistake of saying, "For f*ck's sake!", even if it's the most appropriate response to them claiming that they don't know the first thing about the job they get paid £80K a year to do, you are still, er, fudged. Because not swearing is an internal rule in Whitehall departments and anyone who breaks it can be dismissed as a dangerous lunatic. Even if they're not a Whitehall civil servant. Even if they're a Minister.
 
Similarly, don't raise your voice, even if to do so would be the most human response to another duplicitous inanity they send your way, e.g. you say: "WHAT KIND OF PERSON ARE YOU?"
 
Watch out, too, for accusations that you are "criticising". For example, I was once talking to a civil servant, giving them information - on record, verified, factual information - that indicated that one of the "independent" experts they'd appointed was probably in the pay of the very industry that he was supposed to be investigating. Instead of expressing alarm and promising to look into the evidence, they accused me of "criticising" their expert and I could hear the scratching of a red pen making an entry in that nutter register.
 
Solution:
 
Politely, stick to the facts and evidence. Specifically say that you are not criticising (their expert); you are helping them to make sure that this important investigation into public safety clearly needs to be independent. They won't act on this, of course, but at least they can't put another tick against your name in the register.
 
THE TELLING FLASH OF IRRITATION/ANGER/IGNORANCE
 
Civil servants are well trained in never answering your questions and steering you towards premature balding by violent follicular self-assault, but there will usually be at least one moment when their guard slips, unconsciously. This is similar to when marriage experts talk about the flash or snarl of contempt that can appear in one partner which, while quickly suppressed, is a major indication of a failing marriage. 
 
For example, when after much stonewalling, I finally managed to get a meeting with Debra Macleod at BEIS who is now in charge of the furniture regulations, there were a couple of comments she made unconsciously which gave away her true position. Generally, she spent two hours avoiding the key question I put to her, which was: "Given that your department has proved the match test doesn't work in practice in around 90% of cases, do you agree that UK sofas are unsafe?" But there were two moments when she didn't realise what she'd actually said, mainly because deliberate ignorance is never a fool-proof tactic to take.
 
First, I asked her: "What are you doing about BS7177?" She paused then said, "Er . . . remind me?" To which I said this is a key area in the review of the regulations that she was telling everyone BEIS was working hard on, therefore she ought to know. I said it was to do with mattress covers. Her answer to this was another unconscious giveaway: "That's a British Standard and I'm not expected to know about standards, just regulations." However, the Furniture Regulations are based around modified British Standards.
 
The second giveaway was when I asked her what was happening with interliners. She said, "What's an interliner?" She'd previously been telling me that BEIS was working hard on the returns for the 2016 consultation. One of the proposals in that consultation was for interliners. These two comments were definitive proof that despite having been in charge of these regulations for 18 months (at the time), she hadn't even looked at them, let alone understood them. 
 
Now, you probably won't be able to get these people to face the punishment they should receive for this kind of deliberate obfuscation, lying and deliberate incompetence but there are two values in noting these kinds of unconscious responses. First, you have it on record if there ever is a future reckoning, such as a public inquiry. Second, their animal mind that is shaped to do everything to avoid responsibility will know that you know.
 
 
 

From my journal, 13th December 2018
 
The first phase of the Grenfell Inquiry ends tomorrow, exactly 18 months from the day of the fire. This week, there have been various summings-up and a few last minute desperate claims of innocence. For example, the head of Whirlpool (which owns Hoover) made the extraordinary claim that the fire was started not by an electrical fault in the Hoover fridge-freezer alleged to have been the cause but by someone on the 4th floor (say) dropping a cigarette which then blew into the flat below to set light to the same fridge-freezer. As has so far been typical of the Inquiry, absolutely no investigation into what might be behind this statement has been made. But here's a bit of my dot-joining thoughts on it:
 

• BEIS recently passed as safe both the actual model that caught fire and the product type (owned by Whirlpool) but in practice tried to hide the test report that actually shows there was/is a serious fire-risk in this product (as reported by electrical experts to the All Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group)

 

• BEIS obviously wants attention kept off of products that caught fire in the tower, and certainly those that are faulty like flammable furniture that isn't supposed to be

 

• Intertek, a test house not a group of "independent technical experts" as claimed, were commissioned by BEIS in contempt of proper procurement rules for government departments, perhaps because Intertek does a lot of testing work for white goods manufacturers

 

• BEIS has utterly failed to do anything about Whirlpool washing machines which keep catching fire, despite being heavily criticised by the BEIS Select Committee Chair

 
Which might or might not explain why the head of Whirlpool would make such a claim about a flying cig based on absolutely no evidence, rather than cite the 60+ page Intertek report that exposes his products as a fire risk (even if BEIS has lied about its findings)
 
Tonight, I listened to the BBC's summing-up of the Inquiry so far. They did their usual "balanced" report, claiming for example that Grenfell residents/survivors are split equally between those who think the Inquiry is doing a good job and those who don't. Really? Every resident that I've spoken to is utterly disillusioned with the Inquiry.
 
A few days ago, Judge Moore-Bick announced that Phase 2 won't start until the end of 2019 at the earliest, possibly into 2020, despite it originally having been scheduled for spring 2019. He puts this down to the fact the Inquiry will be releasing the 200,000 documents accumulated so far (but only to Core Participants). This "work won't be complete until Autumn next year," he says. "There is lots to do and it's likely to identify new questions . . . however, careful and detailed preparation which enables us to focus on the aspects of the programme that are of real significance should make it possible to ensure that the proceedings, once begun, can be completed within a reasonable time." (My emphasis.)
 
Here we see the casual but utterly deliberate establishment tried and tested tricks – the self-selected undefined timings; the false conflations; the unjustified linear assignments to tasks that could and should be running in tandem. For example, note that he calls the distribution of documents "work", when it clearly isn't: it's something that could easily have been going on simultaneously with the other work over the past 18 months. Also incredibly, in saying that when they start again they should be able to get to the really significant stuff, he is dismissing the 18 months work done so far. 
 
Grenfell residents meanwhile are exhausted, ill and suffering from grief and stress. So far, they've seen absolutely no justice at all and precious little truth. A year is a very long time, and my gut feeling is that this is designed to kill off the residents, both as in their challenge and perhaps even to a degree literally. This is how we do things in this country: what is supposed to be an Inquiry for the benefit of the people who suffered from the fire is clearly and more or less cynically built entirely around the needs of the establishment, both industry and government.
 
Moore-Bick also said he was "particularly grateful" for the 307 statements received from those who have lost relatives, survivors, and local residents.
 
But what he's actually saying is that those statements fell into Phase 1 which is not the significant part of the Inquiry. This, believe me, will be the reason given much later in the day, couched in more subtle words of course, for why the Inquiry has done absolutely no investigative work into those statements, and challenged nothing in any of the other witness statements it has received over the past 18 months.
 
 

One of the mostly unseen effects of the Grenfell Tower fire has been to get officials from different government departments communicating with each other for a change, albeit behind closed doors. It would be nice to think that this is in order to pool knowledge towards providing survivors with the full truth about, for example, the toxicity they were exposed to. Unfortunately, it seems as if this collusion is designed to do little more than protect business interests and the backs of civil servants who do not have the guts to stand up to them and have their own mistakes to cover. 
 
At one such secret meeting last year, an official from BEIS stated that his department knows that the Furniture Regulations don't work but doesn't know what to do about it. Hold that thought.
 
On 18thDecember 2018, Defra published "Our Waste, Our Resources: A Strategy for England" which can be accessed here. In the Ministerial Foreword, Michael Gove states:

"Our goal is to maximise the value of the resources we use, minimise the waste we create, cut emissions and help create a cleaner, greener, healthier planet. 

"By making sure that manufacturers and producers bear a heavier financial burden for the pollution they cause, the Strategy fully upholds the ‘polluter pays’ principle.
 
"And by protecting the natural world, and leaving it in a healthier state for the next generation, it will help us uphold a core pledge of our 25 Year Environment Plan." 

Which sounds good and indeed the press, where it can be bothered to, has picked up mainly on this intention to get industry to clean up its own rubbish. But let's look a bit more closely at how Defra has also made up its own rules inside this strategy that are directly in defiance of the Stockholm Convention (which the UK is signed up to), to allow mass chemical pollution to continue via upholstered furniture. 
 
For a start, there is not a single mention in this strategy of flame retardants (just one to "chemicals" – see below), despite the fact the UK is the largest polluter of the environment with regard to these chemicals in domestic products.
 
Flame retardants are Persistent Organic Pollutants, and here's what the Stockholm Convention says about POPs:

1) They are highly toxic; 
2)  they are persistent, lasting for years or even decades before degrading into less dangerous forms; 
3)  they evaporate and travel long distances through the air and through water; and 
4)  they accumulate in fatty tissue. 

As stated elsewhere on this site, UK homes contain the highest levels of flame retardant dust in the world, mainly because of our tough (but largely useless) Furniture Regulations.
 
Okay, time to step back a few years. Towards the end of 2013, I arranged a meeting at BEIS (BIS as it was then) with a group of furniture industry representatives, to bring them up to date with the changes we wanted to make to the Furniture Regulations. Changes that would have seen a huge reduction in brominated flame retardants in cover fabrics (BFRs are extremely toxic). Their reaction was less than enthusiastic, it has to be said, but at the time we didn't realise the full extent of their collusion with the chemical industry. I'd also invited a colleague from the Environment Agency to give a talk on the Stockholm Convention and how it was due to rule soon that products containing flame retardants like DecaBDE (ubiquitous in UK furniture at the time) would need to be disposed of safely. And that would be a very expensive process. Well, that certainly got their attention . . . so much so, that a delegation from the furniture industry travelled to Brussels soon after to put a case to the European Commission. Was this to support our proposal to remove harmful FRs from furniture? No, it was to try to get the Commission to let them off the likely huge disposal costs. "But we have a mountain of sofas and mattresses in the UK to dispose of!" they bleated. "Tough," said the Commission; "that's the UK's problem."
 
Then again, maybe they're breathing a little easier now, if they've seen the Environment Agency's record on enforcements, i.e. down from around 130 a year in 2012 to around just 15 in 2018 (see graph at end of this blog). The EA has of course been commissioned to undertake a study into the toxicity of the Grenfell Tower fire. Will that put up their enforcement figures? It's hard to tell since the EA has gone totally silent on this project.

Now, here's what's required of any nation that signs up to the Stockholm Convention:
 
a)    Develop and implement appropriate strategies for identifying stockpiles, products and articles in use that contain or are contaminated with POPs;
b)    Manage stockpiles and wastes in an environmentally sound manner;
c)    Dispose of waste so that the POPs content is destroyed or irreversibly transformed;
d)    Not permit the recycling, recovery, reclamation, direct reuse or alternative use of the POPs;
e)  Endeavour to develop strategies for identifying contaminated sites and perform eventual remediation in an environmentally sound manner.

Let's see how the UK deals with furniture under these requirements:
 
a) We'll come to the strategy as such in a moment but in terms of identifying stockpiles, etc, contaminated with POPs, basically the UK doesn't, other than citing a "mountain" of furniture. We don't even know what's in an individual sofa or mattress, just that it's a variety of FR chemicals.
b) At present, most sofas and mattresses at end-life go into landfill, where FRs leach out and get into water, soil and the food chain.
c) Virtually no furniture waste is disposed of safely in the UK.
d) The UK allows second-hand furniture containing toxic FRs to be re-sold.
e) As far as furniture's concerned, I'm not aware of any such identification that has been carried out.
 
In light of this, you'd expect the UK's new Waste Strategy to provide a solution. Well, if you turn to page 39 you'll find a section headed: "Invoking the 'polluter pays' principle and harnessing the potential of EPR for other waste streams". (EPR stands for Extended Producer Responsibility.)
 
On the face of it, then, this is the furniture industry's nightmare made flesh: as the producer they will have to take responsibility and, well, pay as the main polluter. Excellent: at last we'll safely get rid of the millions of kilograms of toxic FRs in our furniture and, because they'll have to pay, they'll stop putting new FRs in new furniture too.
 
Or not. Because on the same page we find this:

"Extended producer responsibility can help deal with those items and products which cannot be classified as hazardous waste, for example soft furnishings that contain chemicals which were legal at time of manufacture but which have subsequently been banned."
 
This is an extraordinary statement in that it completely defies the Stockholm Convention. It even contradicts existing UK government policy, e.g. on asbestos – because this statement rules that anything that contains asbestos is not hazardous waste if asbestos was legal at the time of manufacture. Er, so why all that effort to have it removed and disposed of safely that's been going on since 1999? Why do local authorities provide an asbestos collection service to its citizens? Shouldn't they also be offering a collection service for sofas and mattresses that contain toxic and banned flame retardants? Apparently not because Defra reckons there is a difference between one kind of hazardous waste and another; it just isn't explaining what exactly.
 
Let's translate what this statement actually means with regard to soft furnishings:
 
a) The literally millions of sofas/mattresses that contain now-banned FRs like DecaBDE can remain in UK homes because Defra has decided they're not hazardous waste.
b) When they come to the end of their life, we can continue slinging them into landfill.
c) Furniture manufacturers can continue the process of stuffing furniture with the latest FRs that only the FR industry reckon are safe, and when they're later banned do nothing about it.
 
Are there any hidden motives behind this policy?
 
Let's call this speculation for now, but here are a few possibles:

• If BEIS was to tell the furniture industry that under the Stockholm Convention they must pay to dispose of old furniture safely, the industry would publicly hammer them with the fact that it's BEIS's fault they've continued to use tons of FRs, i.e. because in 2014 BEIS proved the furniture regulations mostly don't work but has refused to put them right.

 

• If furniture containing FRs is (rightly) deemed 'hazardous waste' then clearly Grenfell Tower was stuffed with it and the resulting fire highly toxic. This would again impact on BEIS because as said they've refused to put the regulations right. It would also impact on the furniture industry since they've known for at least five years that they're selling toxic products. And it would impact on the flame retardant industry because their products contributed hugely to the UK's worst domestic fire since the war.

 

• If furniture in Grenfell Tower was hazardous then the Environment Agency will be compelled to start their investigation into the toxicity of the fire from the clear foundation that it was indeed toxic. With this ruling by Defra, however, wriggle room is introduced, i.e. they can claim furniture was not hazardous, which on the surface is ludicrous but shallow claims are surprisingly effective in a country that provides no oversight on its government departments.

 

• The cost of disposal of furniture at end-life would be huge. But if it's revealed that industry was knowingly supplying UK consumers with hazardous products, the costs could escalate and perhaps even be lethal. Law suits would abound, and the government itself would not be exempt from being prosecuted.

 
Let's just remind ourselves that this waste management policy was put together by public servants. It's supposed to protect our health and the environment. Which means that the provision it's introduced to de-hazard toxic furniture and thereby allow industry to continue poisoning all of us forever (unless something or someone intervenes and with Brexit looming that seems unlikely) is either an act of extraordinary incompetence. Or it's something else entirely.


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