From my journal, June 5th 2019
 
Attended the last oral session today at the EAC [Environmental Audit Committee]. The BEIS Minister, Kelly Tolhurst, with three other government reps, faced some very tough questioning. Mary Creagh's first question of the day to Tolhurst was: "If I can ask you first of all, Minister Tolhurst – about the fact that five years ago BEIS proved that the current match test is not fit for purpose. Do you agree with that? If you do not, why do you not agree with it?"
 
This of course is probably the key question to everything concerning the Furniture Regs, and great that Mary Creagh got straight to the point. Would we now get a definitive yes or no answer from the Minister on a subject that is crucial to the safety of the entire country? Would we hell.
 
Tolhurst first thanked the Committee for the opportunity to talk about this subject. Well, she didn't really have much choice, did she? She might have explained why her officials have been incredibly reluctant to talk about the same subject over the past 3 or 4 years but given those same officials had written her words I suppose it wasn't very likely. She went on for quite some time, giving a potted history of the review of the Furniture Regs – sorry, "review". Told one outright porky – that there was not a big enough evidence base for changing the test, when the uncontested evidence for doing exactly that is on her own department's website. 
 
The Chair interrupted Tolhurst's stream of unconsciousness to point out that the review she was talking about has been going on for ten years with no result in sight. To cut a long story short, Tolhurst's dodges took the form of waffle about how the review is looking at everything (it isn't); that she wasn't  around then (so what?); it's all so complex (no, it isn't -the EAC has picked up the issues and details pretty swiftly), and the oft-repeated assertion that she must "make sure there is no reduction in fire safety". The latter I suppose could be accurate in that there is no fire safety presently provided by the Furniture Regs, therefore it isn't actually possible to reduce it any further.
 
The EAC tried every variation of the main question, about the fact the Regs in effect don't work – e.g. Caroline Lucas pointing out that no one else has a match test so why do we? – but the answer was always the same, "We're reviewing . . . "
 
A big alarm bell for me was when Tolhurst talked about the British Standards Institute. She started with a lie – or read out the lie that was given to her by her officials – that in 2015 further work was facilitated by BEIS from BSI on the match test. It wasn't. BSI turned it down because it was regulatory work and too political for them to be involved in. Then she went on to say that they are going to get BSI to come up with a range of new requirements. If anything proved that government is aiding the desires of industry above public safety, this was it. Because K Kannah of Lanxess had previously insisted to the EAC that this was the proper route for BEIS to take in updating the Regulations. Well, he would, wouldn't he, given that the BSI committee concerned comprises almost entirely industry reps, most of who are making a packet one way or another out of flame retardants in furniture.
 
Professor Tim Gant of Public Health England did a great job, just a pity it wasn't for the people he's supposed to be representing. If you read his responses to the EAC without knowing where he was from you'd conclude he must be from industry. According to Gant, the Grenfell fire wasn't toxic, the Grenfell Cough doesn't exist (which means all those folk coughing up their lungs at the Grenfell meetings I've attended must be suffering from False Cough Syndrome), and soil around Grenfell is no more toxic than anywhere else in London. 
 
He did make one interesting comment, however, which was this: "We know that the plume [of smoke and fumes from burning cladding] rose up and went a long way out, so it was not deposited in the immediate area."
 
Hmmmm. Could this be an example of how those with something to hide sometimes contradict others with something to hide? Because many of course claim that cladding was the main supplier of toxic fumes which killed people in the fire. I mean, basic physics says Gant is right: hot air moving fast on the outside of the Tower would have stayed outside for the most part. But it's clear he's stating this now only to "explain" why the soil around Grenfell Tower was not toxic. Except of course it was. Because what he isn't referring to is the vast volume of flame retarded furniture which burned inside the Tower. How did that get carried "a long way out" professor?
 
The fact is that all four of them – from Defra, BEIS, PHE and HSE – never once stated anything with positivity and clarity. Worse, what they didn't do, not once, was give public safety the benefit of the doubt, only industry. One example was Gant stating that the levels of organophosphate chemicals in mattresses are "low" and therefore not a risk. But the thing is, he can have no way of knowing. We happen to know that they are in fact high – but only via internal intelligence that's not in the public domain. So why would he err in industry's favour? 
 
Most telling was something the Countess of Mar said to me at the end. We were sitting behind the two rows of civil servants who'd briefed their masters and every now and then had been slipping them notes. "They look really pleased with themselves," said the Countess, "because they think they've got away with it."

From my journal, 3rd July 2015
 
This morning I got a call from a director at XXX, a big retailer that was hit hard (and unfairly) by the "Fake Britain" programme last year, orchestrated of course by the Skipton Mafia (FIRA, Clarkson Textiles, etc). He talked about not wanting to follow FIRA any more, instead to take a lead in improving safety and traceability. He said that FIRA has been telling everyone that the new match test is Steve Owen's "pet project" but he thinks that's probably because they didn't think of it. Which is exactly what H of DFS said to me too. We had a good talk and he's going to come to the stakeholder day. He said it was refreshing to talk to someone who understands the industry, chemicals, etc. Which is another great piece of stakeholder management on my part of course but another that Bridget and Phil will make sure doesn't appear on my annual report.
 
I had a long talk with Steve in which we reflected that these people (B & P, Chris, Susannah) don't know how to think. Steve said they listen to our words but they don't hear what we're saying, only what they want to hear. He gave the example of the recent phone call he'd had with Bridget (who was trying to get him to agree to support her requirements at the upcoming FW6 meeting). [Note: FW6 is the British Standards Institute's working group on furniture flammability, that Steve was and is the Chair of.] He told her that he would be impartial, as he needed to be as Chair, but she just didn't hear him. I said that's because she lacks integrity and the ability to be impartial and therefore doesn't recognise it in anyone else. Because she's a senior civil servant she thinks that automatically provides her with those qualities but anyone with actual integrity will easily spot her as manipulative and reacting badly if she doesn't get her own way. 
 
There was another example of this in Phil's internal note yesterday, telling us about his recent trip to BSI, and including the email he'd had back from them afterwards. [Background: Bridget and Phil manipulated the Department's official response to the 2014 consultation, aiding industry in blocking/delaying changes to the Regulations by getting the Minister to agree that more work would be undertaken by BSI. The slight problem they faced was that no more work was actually needed. Nevertheless, they'd badgered BSI management into agreeing to hold a meeting of FW6 at which, they hoped, more work would be agreed upon. Phil's meeting that I'm describing here was to in effect seal the deal. I was of course the Department's expert on the Furniture Regulations but I don't think anyone reading this will have too much trouble in guessing why Mr Earl didn't invite me along to the meeting.] According to Phil it was a "success"; then again, I have this nasty habit of looking a bit closer at the details . . . 
 
First, he tries to imply that BSI management will tell FW6 about our August deadline but looking at BSI's email that clearly hasn't been promised [and indeed never came about]. Second, he records their conversation as if everything he wants has been agreed to but it hasn't; it's been "acknowledged", to use BSI's word – one that Phil should spot as the kind he often uses to the very same end. Thirdly and crucially is what isn't mentioned:

• Why the f*ck did BSI management remove the August deadline from the papers they sent to FW6 about the upcoming meeting? (A much clearer sign, surely, that they don't intend to meet it.)

• Why the f*ck didn't Phil ask Steve what he thinks? He is after all the Chair of FW6. Well, I think we know why: Steve would have told him where to go if he'd suggested in any way that Steve might like to compromise his impartiality, and would have made sure that unlike with Bridget, Mr Earl definitely heard him.

 
Overall, then, it's the usual half-witted half-fix, intended to preserve their backsides for a few more months when they hope something, anything, maybe the civil service Sir Humphrey shaped fairy, will save their bacon. 
 
Finally, the main thing Phil has failed to mention is why he doesn't want to personally attend the FW6 meeting despite his great "success" in setting it up to suit his – sorry, the Department's – needs.
 
Because the one big truth which they are all studiously avoiding is that it is Terry who will have to stand in front of FW6 and guests and single-handedly deal with all their technical questions and all the sneaky tricks from FIRA and FRETWORK and Sir Ken Knight for a couple of hours or so. Phil and Bridget will be safely hunkered down in our headquarters and while Chris [Knox, my line manager] has been told to attend, there is no way she will actually face the music [in the event she failed to turn up until lunch time when all the hard questioning was over; something about a "family matter"]. She has agreed however to draft the lines-to-take that I'm supposed to use at the meeting. Which should be very interesting since a truthful line would be something like: "Terry's management f*cked up, are misleading ministers and now doing anything they can to cover their backs. Oh, and at least one of them is probably on the make."
 
Just to make it more interesting for her, I've told her that I am not going to say anything that isn't true. Wish I'd taken a picture of her face: first, white with fear, quickly turning red with mock anger at my insubordination.
 
Also today, I received an email from the PA for Martin Donnelly [Permanent Secretary to the Department; head honcho civil servant. I'd written to him requesting that he do something about the fact my managers were putting the entire country at risk and in such a way that could greatly embarrass the Department.] Apparently, he can't intervene because that might prejudice my Civil Service Code case. That's very considerate of him but I wrote back requesting a meeting with him and pointing out that no one, including him, has done anything about my point that the Department's process in handling my case is prejudicing it for real, i.e. because Susannah Simon has been allowed to appoint the case officer even though Susannah is Bridget's manager, one of the people my case is against, and who clearly could be implicated in any findings against Bridget, and of course Bridget is Phil's manager. I'm not holding my breath that Donnelly will do anything mind you [he didn't].

 
Today, BEIS finally issued its official response to the 2016 consultation. You can access it here. Their public statement about it is here. As for the statement, I don't think I've ever seen as big a pack of lies issuing from a government department. Literally, every single sentence is untrue.
 
As for the response itself, the first thing to consider is that it was forced on BEIS by the EAC's damning report. The 2016 consultation itself was forced on BEIS by press intervention regarding my whistle-blowing case that highlighted the fact BEIS was, once again, sitting on safety changes for no good reason.
 
Bottom line of the response? BEIS is not going to implement any of the proposals in the consultation. Instead it is going to take a different course of action that was not in the proposals at all. I'm not sure this is even legal; at the very least it's caused hundreds of stakeholders five years worth of work, waiting, being consulted, responding, having to chase BEIS endlessly via letters, forced meetings, etc – and all to be told at the last minute that none of it counted anyway.
 
In short, BEIS is dismantling the Regulations and handing over responsibility to manufacturers, combined with getting British Standards to come up with new standards. Which is rather confusing since the response also states that it is doing away with testing standards. To make new ones.
 
BEIS claims it has been working with British Standards (BSI) on this. But one of my sources there tells me there has been no communication at all with the BSI committee that deals with furniture fire safety standards. BEIS also seems to be totally unaware that it tried the same thing in 2015 – to get BSI to take over responsibility but BSI eventually refused, quite sensibly on the grounds that it did not want to get involved with regulations, especially ones that are so politically sensitive. BEIS may not know this because, believe it or not, it has no files or records from that period. They could of course have found out simply by reading this website, but then their main response in that respect has been to ban BEIS officials from looking at it at all.
 
Bottom line, consequences wise? Even if BSI agrees to take on this work, a normal, non-contentious standard takes about three years to produce. This however is very contentious so we are looking at 5/6 years before anything emerges. In the meantime, says BEIS, the current regulations will stay in place.
 
Which means at least another 500,000 tons of toxic flame retardants will get into UK homes and make fires hugely more toxic, thereby continuing to give firefighters above-normal levels of cancer – this from a Department that is apparently committed to reducing flame retardants in furniture.
 
As I've said before on this site, the fact is that the 2016 consultation was unimplementable. And here I'm going to name the two civil servants who are chiefly responsible for in effect consigning us all to at least 10 years of toxic poisoning in our own homes: Bridget Micklem and Phil Earl. These two went against Ministers' orders to implement the new match test in April 2016. BEIS lawyers advised that this could be done without another consultation. Micklem and Earl, without any input or agreement from Ministers, concocted the 2016 consultation and ensured it could never be implemented by the fact it was incomplete and contained contentious proposals that also had not been cleared by a Minister.
 
These two are the main culprits for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of UK children contracting cancers and other diseases. They are chiefly responsible for ensuring that firefighters will continue to battle the most toxic house fires in the world. These are the two who have no conscience and answer only to their egos. Not to mention the flame retardant industry's long history of buying up key officials.
 
Gareth Simkins described the Furniture Regulations to Mary Creagh, Chair of the EAC, when she first asked us about them as "The biggest-ever scandal in UK product history." I think he's right. And the scandal continues.
 
The head of the Office of Product Safety Standards – the part of BEIS now responsible for these regulations – Graham Russell, said this in a recent interview:
 
“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.”
 
Given his response today, this must rank as one of the most hypocritical, sociopathic and downright dishonest statements ever made by a public official. 
 
He is of course, like Micklem and Earl, a public servant who is supposed to serve us, the public. As I recorded in an earlier blog, this is the man who, when I tried to talk to him about these regulations recently, shouted, "I'm not talking to you!" then barged me out of the way as he ran from the room.

Listen to Mary Greagh, Chair of the EAC, introducing the report here. 
 
The report itself is here.
 
There have been numerous press articles about the report but a very good one by Gareth Simkins of the ENDS Report is here.
 
Front page of the Daily Mail today below. Article here.

 
Yesterday, I was invited to attend a meeting in the House of Lords of the All Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group. Jon O'Neill of the Fire Protection Association gave a short talk on third party certification. He also talked about the need to update the Fire Safety Order, particularly in light of the Grenfell Tower fire. He and the FPA have talked a lot about the FSO recently but strangely have never mentioned the Furniture Regulations. This, despite O'Neill, along with Sir Ken Knight and Dave Sibert, having given a presentation to the Department of Business in December 2014 where they agreed that the current match test does not work and the new one will improve fire safety.
 
At the end of the meeting yesterday, I approached Mr O'Neill and asked him: "Where is the new test foam formula you insisted BEIS needed before putting the new match test in place?" There was quite a long pause then he said: "We passed it to British Standards."
 
Below is an entry from a paper I've written detailing the way that various parties blocked safety changes to the changes proposed by the government to the Furniture Regulations in 2014. It's based on BIS's meeting note and on the FPA's own presentation slideshow. I've mentioned before that Jon O'Neill was particularly aggressive over these changes, initially commanding my colleagues at the Department for Communities and Local Government to stop them. DCLG was not of course the department in charge of the Furniture Regs but then Mr O'Neill knew that. He also knew that Sir Ken Knight was the big fire chief at DCLG and had considerable influence over the officials working there on fire safety. In the event, two meetings were held in order for O'Neill, Sir Ken and others to try to bully BIS into dropping the changes. Unfortunately for them, the evidence that we had provided was unequivocal: the current test did not work and the new one would. 
 
Finally, O'Neill etc talked my BIS managers into a third meeting at which they said they would provide a new test foam formula for the new test – even though this was not needed since we already had one (that is actually in the current regulations). They did not come with the formula, however; instead they presented a delaying tactic (see below), i.e. that British Standards should be commissioned by BIS to spend 12 months coming up with a new test foam formula. As you can see from Mr O'Neill's follow up email to Bridget Micklem at BIS, he assumed that she had agreed they could go ahead. She did not reply to this email; however, the same suggestions were put to the minister, Jo Swinson, a few months later by amongst others, Dave Sibert and Paul Fuller (well-know lovers of flame retardants). She agreed. However, British Standards bailed at the last moment (in July 2015), informing the Chair of their relevant committee that they did not want to get involved in regulatory work especially when it was so politically sensitive. Since that time, changes to the Regulations remain blocked. BEIS did however go out to consultation once again in 2016 with exactly the same new match test proposal containing exactly the same test foam formula as proposed in 2014. In short, Mr O'Neill, Sir Ken Knight, etc, had done nothing more than hold up important safety changes for two years, and counting.
 
As I've recorded elsewhere on this website, I wrote to Sir Ken Knight twice in his capacity as Chair of the Grenfell Independent Experts Group, reminding him of the December 2014 meeting where he'd agreed that the current match test doesn't work and therefore to look at the role the failed Furniture Regulations played in the Grenfell fire. He didn't respond; neither has his panel ever even mentioned the Furniture Regulations. I also wrote to Jon O'Neill on the same lines who also did not reply.
 
Back to yesterday . . . I reminded Mr O'Neill that British Standards had refused that work, then asked him why the Fire Protection Association has done nothing about the fact the current match test fails in practice ever since (more than four years and counting), i.e. they're failing to protect the public from fire risk. To which he said, "We didn't agree the current match test fails." See below and make up your own mind about that.
 
But here's the thing: even if what he said was true, i.e. that in effect he believes the current match test works, why did he insist on a different test foam for the new test. Why not simply state that we should stick with the current one? Well, he was lying anyway. Just check out the third bullet point on his slide below: that the new test "should improve fire safety through the inclusion of materials which appear within 40mm of the cover fabric of a furniture product." Now I don't think I'm putting unfair interpretation on this but surely this is saying that because the current test doesn't allow for this effect, finished sofas are clearly not fire-safe? Also, a man apparently dedicated to fire safety has never since mentioned this failing of the current regulations.
 
At this point, Mr O'Neill was ushered away by a colleague, arm around his shoulder, to protect him from further questioning. Really, I'm not kidding. 
 
I've shown the links before between the FPA and the FR industry. One such being that after Dave Sibert was sacked by the FBU for colluding with the flame retardant industry (Matt Wrack's words), he was offered a lucrative new job by Jon O'Neill running the FPA's new test laboratory.
 
Does the FPA really care about fire safety? Well, I think that depends on who's paying them.
 
Oh, by the way, that colleague of Mr O'Neill's said that I should not be making these these claims (such as they were) without proof. If he's reading this blog, I suggest he checks out the entry below.
 
* * * 
 
Third meeting with the FPA/FSF – December 16, 2014
 
Sir Ken Knight, Jon O'Neill and Dave Sibert attend for the FPA/FSF (Fire Sector Federation). They start by giving a presentation, the essence of which is that they agree the new match test will work and that the current one has many problems. But they do not as agreed provide a new test foam formula. Instead, they insist that BIS commissions the British Standards Institute to 'fast-track' (over 12 months) a new formula for the regulations, in the meantime suggesting that BIS should go ahead with an interim test. 
 
See key slide in the FPA/FSF's presentation at bottom of this entry.
 
The important bottom line here is that the FPA/FSF is agreeing with BIS's proposed test, even if they're falsely claiming these are all FSF proposals! The only addition they're making is that BIS should initially go ahead with the new match test but continue using the old test foam, while British Standards comes up with a new one. However, this is blatant back-covering since they know very well that BIS cannot simply introduce a new interim test: that would require another consultation and would in any case be an unfair burden on industry. On the last slide point: they have of course ensured that this issue has continued to drag on ever since. 
 
It’s perhaps worth mentioning here that there is no evidence at all that the British Standards Institute had agreed to these proposals. In fact, their actions over the meeting they hosted on July 15th suggests they did not. For example, they instruct the Chair at the last moment, that they want this whole subject off their agenda since it is too political for them and in any case they do not believe they should be involved in drafting legislation.
 
Immediately after the meeting, O'Neill writes to Bridget Micklem of BIS to thank her for the meeting and ask her views on their proposals (see email below). She doesn't respond, despite Terry advising that this proposal from the FPA is pivotal, i.e. it is a Yes or No situation: if BIS says Yes, then a) the new match test will surely be delayed for at least a year, and b) BIS will have accepted FSF/FPA/Sir Ken Knight as being the main authority on the FFRs, and that will mean they’ll be able to extend the delays indefinitely. Not responding is likely to be taken as Yes, as indeed proves to be the case when the FPA/FSF gets their proposal confirmed at the Minister's round-table meeting in February 2015.
 
 
From: Jon O'Neill 
Sent: 16 December 2014 14:43
To: Micklem Bridget (EU); Earl Philip (EUD); Mike Larking; Louise Upton; Ken Knight; Dave Sibert; Edge Terry (EUD)
Subject: Furniture Regulations.pptx
 
Bridget
 
Thanks for your time today. As promised please find enclosed copy of my presentation. Having got the support of individual insurers to the proposal I am speaking to the ABI tomorrow and will pass on ant comments that arise.
 
I look forward to receiving your feedback to our proposal in due course.
 
Thanks & regards
 
Jon
 
 

Over the past 30 years, at a rough estimate, if you live in a house or flat you are almost twice as likely to die in a fire as someone who lives in a tower block covered in combustible cladding. In addition, the fire will be more toxic than a cladding fire and will affect you more negatively.
 
On top of that, you will also be risking your health from the large volumes of flame retardant dust that wear off your furniture on a daily basis and get into you; something that is not a problem with cladding.
 
So, when people living in tower blocks covered in cladding say they cannot sleep soundly in their beds, it's actually their bed they should probably be more worried about. For a start, they've been told it's not flammable because it must comply with the UK's tough furniture fire safety laws. But as this website has revealed, those laws do not work. For a start, they do not take account of the fact that no one sleeps on a bare mattress upon which they may drop a lighted match (the basis of the ignition test that applies). Bedding catches fire first and the amount of flame it produces completely wipes out any resistance the match test provides (even if it worked) by the time it reaches the mattress.
 
Why then is there so much talk about removing cladding from buildings but none about removing furniture from people's homes? 
 
Let's look at some fire statistics. In the year 2017/18 there were 334 fire deaths in England. Around 80% of these occurred in dwellings, making 267 deaths. This represented an increase of 71 on the previous year, which is roughly the same as the official Grenfell Tower death toll. In the same year there were just over 30,000 primary fires in homes in England. A 'primary' fire is one that involves fatalities, casualties, rescues or five or more pumps in attendance. While most of these did not result in deaths, the statistics do not record the damage done to health and the environment by the massive volumes of toxins produced in all those fires. 
 
It seems, perhaps understandably, that a concentration of deaths in one place increases people's perception of risk. But there were nearly 200 fire deaths last year in dwellings other than Grenfell Tower. Yet they were spread out over the country, as were the deaths, and therefore received little if any attention other than local. But each death would have been totally devastating for the family concerned, and they would have been homeless too, everything lost in the fire.
 
And if you are concerned about firefighters' health, then clearly many more are affected by toxic fumes and smoke on a daily basis by house fires in general than were at the Grenfell Tower fire. While it is completely proper and understandable that the Grenfell fire should go through an official inquiry, where is the inquiry into the 200 deaths in fires in UK homes that same year? 
 
In short, in my view, a major reason why so much attention remains on cladding and so little on toxic fumes from furniture and other products inside the Tower is that it suits government and business to keep the argument narrow rather than expand into all the associated, at least equally and in some cases more important issues. At the very least, there are costs comparisons that make the argument obvious. The cost of replacing all combustible cladding on tower blocks is clearly dwarfed by the cost of replacing virtually every sofa and mattress in 27 million homes, not to mention disposing of them safely too. 
 
The obvious tactic, therefore, is to spend years debating about who's responsible for cladding replacement while in the meantime ignore the greater threat and, in the tried and tested British way, even if you end up paying for the one (and that is of course still open to debate -  long, long debate), you will at least avoid paying anything at all towards the much bigger problem.
 
Another cost argument is that at present, the flame retardant industry does not make much money from cladding. However, its paid for puppets, like the Fire Protection Association, BRE, Sir Ken Knight, Dave Sibert, etc, are working hard to increases the market via 'non-combustible cladding' (they never argue for simply removing it altogether). So it'll either lose a bit or gain a lot from cladding. Meanwhile, it's working hard to keep attention off of upholstered furniture because if that massive fire and poison risk is sorted out, the chemical industry could lose around £300m a year, and the UK furniture industry its much-loved trade barrier. Not to mention the massive hand-outs enjoyed by the puppets.
 
 

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.