Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Evidence - Monday 28th March 2022 (1/2)

Full transcript

00:00:30 good morning everyone welcome to today's hearing it's good to be back in the room if i may say so today we're going to continue hearing evidence from mr brian martin so would you ask mr martin to

00:00:42 martin so would you ask mr martin to come back in please

00:00:54 good morning mr martin good morning sir all ready to carry on yes sir thank you very much yes mr millet yes good morning mr chairman good morning members of the panel and mr chairman um welcome back in person good morning mr martin

00:01:06 person good morning mr martin uh now um on thursday you may recall we were looking at an email run in mid-february 2016 between you and nick jenkins of booth murray euroclad

00:01:17 nick jenkins of booth murray euroclad can we just go back to that just to remind ourselves where we were a clg 3031093

00:01:24 3031093 [Music]

00:01:31 and to be fair to you because it's been four days since you were last here we were looking at the email on page four if we go to that please

00:01:43 at 1709 towards the foot of the page and this was your response do you recall to his email to you on page five the same day perhaps just have a look at

00:01:54 the same day perhaps just have a look at that

00:01:55 that just to remind you of just just where we were this is your email this is his email to you on the 16th of february 2016. hi brian i'm forwarding the query to you as

00:02:06 i'm forwarding the query to you as advised by sarah colwell and you'll recall he

00:02:10 sent uh his um exchange with her to you and your response

00:02:16 response is at the foot of page four yes

00:02:20 yes and uh

00:02:23 i'll read it to you again you say to him hi nick it's for the designer and the building control body to consider if requirement b4 has been met adb give guidance on this by saying that the

00:02:35 guidance on this by saying that the external walls should not provide a medium for fire spread in tall buildings it then offers two approaches a set of rules or a full-scale test in the rules we deliberately added the word filler to address things that form part of the

00:02:46 address things that form part of the cladding system that are not insulation but could provide a medium for fire spread

00:02:51 spread i think the core of an acp panel could reasonably be considered to be a filler so unless the core material meets the rules in quotation marks then the aeg suggests a full scale test however if the designer and building control body

00:03:03 the designer and building control body choose to do something else then that's up to them and then if you turn the page please to the top of page five you say this i'm on the road at the moment so drafting this from memory brian

00:03:16 now um that's where we were on on friday on thursday

00:03:22 thursday now this question you will remember i think was the subject of the question posed to you by steve evans uh in june 2015 and your answer to him in the first line of that email which we

00:03:34 in the first line of that email which we saw on thursday was you couldn't give a formal interpretation as such now my question is looking at this again why were you able to give this view such as it was to mr jenkins in february 16

00:03:47 as it was to mr jenkins in february 16 but not to steve evans in june 2015.

00:03:57 i think the same caveats are there in that um

00:04:01 that um it's necessary to be clear that can't categorically say what does or doesn't comply with with building regulations because that's a matter for the building control body

00:04:13 a matter for the building control body and the designer so

00:04:18 again i'm explaining the background without categorically saying what is or isn't acceptable yes but you didn't say to mr evans when he asked you the question back in 2015

00:04:31 he asked you the question back in 2015 uh what you tell mr jenkins here as you see in the penultimate paragraph on the screen in front of you which is that the core of an acp panel could reasonably be considered to be a filler

00:04:42 reasonably be considered to be a filler now making allowances for the the way you phrase it you didn't even go that far with mr evans and my question is why you didn't

00:04:51 why didn't you answer his question the core of an acp panel is or could reasonably be considered to be a filler

00:05:01 i i i can't think of a reason to think it's just i've just phrased the answer differently because there's considerable time in between the two emails had your view hardened become clearer between june 2015 and february

00:05:12 clearer between june 2015 and february 2016

00:05:14 2016 about the meaning of the word filler or the arguments about it no i think you're reading that into i think it's just i've drafted two emails some time apart and i've just used

00:05:25 some time apart and i've just used different language um and i mean it's still the the caveat in in response to the advice that uh as officials we've been given which is to

00:05:37 officials we've been given which is to not give a categorical answer um i think we're still still in that that same place is that by saying it's the functional requirement which is key um and that ultimately it's the building control

00:05:48 ultimately it's the building control body in the designer that need to consider whether or not they've met the regulation so i've put that in there i guess if you look at the two this is a more helpful answer um but i don't think i i was consciously

00:06:00 but i don't think i i was consciously doing that i think

00:06:03 i think there's probably a better drafted answer than the previous one

00:06:08 do you know why there's no reaction in here

00:06:11 here to the information mr jenkins had just just provided you about the historic and continuing use in this country of acm panels with the polyethylene core on

00:06:22 panels with the polyethylene core on high-rise buildings um

00:06:29 i'm not sure if i really picked up on that as at the time i think i'd um

00:06:35 um seriously underestimated the hazard associated with ac polyethylene called acm panels so i probably didn't pick on up on that i also didn't know who nick jenkins was

00:06:46 i also didn't know who nick jenkins was i'd never heard of him up until that point no i'd have heard of booth murray so perhaps that would have influenced the way i

00:06:53 the way i you could have asked him i mean the the email run had come from the bre if you didn't know who he was you could have asked him before answering well he set out who he was um so but i'd not met him before so i had

00:07:06 so but i'd not met him before so i had no idea whether um both murie could be a tiny company or

00:07:13 if it was a larger company i would have thought i'd heard them heard of them but i'd not come across them before now you're saying your last answer and i think you've said it a number of times last week too that you seriously underestimated the risks associated with polyethylene cored

00:07:26 risks associated with polyethylene cored acm panels why why did you underestimate them given what you had observed and remarked a number of times about the dubai fires so for example whoosh or game over or the

00:07:39 for example whoosh or game over or the awesome power of such fires i think the reference to game over was talking about the sprinklers that get overrun rather than anything to do with the hazard associated with acm um

00:07:51 um i'd seen large fires it's very difficult to understand what's actually happening with the fire by looking at press reports

00:08:03 sometimes the most innocuous fires are the ones that kill more people so

00:08:11 so um seeing

00:08:13 um seeing a photograph of a building in another country on fire doesn't necessarily give you an understanding of of the true hazard um

00:08:23 hazard um so i think at that point i didn't fully recognize just how severe a risk acn presents

00:08:37 risk in what sense

00:08:43 and well

00:08:46 judging what i now know is

00:08:50 is the amount of energy in that very thin layer of plastic is much greater than i than certainly i appreciated um

00:08:59 um so

00:08:59 so the potential for an acm fire to

00:09:05 re-en enter the building at other levels and and create the hazard that it does is something i just didn't appreciate at the time were you influenced in some way by the absence of any information

00:09:16 by the absence of any information about fatalities in the dubai fires that you buy now knew about

00:09:26 possibly

00:09:31 certainly the the cladding fires that i had seen um

00:09:41 people were able to move away from the fire without difficulty um and i think that probably did color my

00:09:50 my perception of the of the hazard but as i say i think and now having over the last four years before i chat moved to the post i'm in now

00:10:00 now um

00:10:02 um we've investigated the material more and been out and got more information from other

00:10:07 other countries and so on um and it's it's clear to me that um the polyethylene chord panels are kind of in a league of their own in

00:10:19 are kind of in a league of their own in terms of the hazard that they present and i just didn't appreciate that at the time

00:10:24 time well let's just take it in stages you

00:10:28 you had

00:10:29 had seen reports since

00:10:31 since 2012 2013 of uae files involving a cmpe core yes

00:10:37 core yes yes yes

00:10:38 yes yes you'd been asked twice about two particular fires in dubai the torch

00:10:43 torch and the address downtown on new year's eve 2015

00:10:50 eve 2015 and you've been asked questions along the lines of could this happen here and we've seen your answer so can we take it just on what i've just put to you that you knew

00:11:02 put to you that you knew that

00:11:03 that acm panels with a polyethylene core if used at height were capable of burning from the bottom of the building to the top of the building

00:11:15 building to the top of the building with impressive speed and power

00:11:22 yes i think i underestimated the the the speed and power um but i i think i i looking back through the the evidence um

00:11:35 the evidence um i guess i understood that there was a potential for these things to be on a building but i i didn't um

00:11:48 i didn't recognize that risk of non-compliance as being more severe than some of the other risks that i was aware of so

00:11:58 so for example we spoke about the the question of cavity barriers that's something that we'd seen and i think i mentioned last week um

00:12:08 um we've seen a lot of um building fires in particular timber frame buildings but also other buildings um and again certainly with the timber frame um buildings

00:12:19 frame um buildings there we were getting um disproportionate damage to the building and not not in isolation there enough of them for their for them to be statistically significant

00:12:34 but analysis of the statistics showed that whilst you were getting

00:12:39 getting more damage larger fires um that didn't correlate with the casualties or injuries that were occurring in those fires

00:12:51 so

00:12:54 it's more a question of do you um

00:12:58 do you focus on trying to improve this the the guidance and advice and and and try and work with the industry to raise standards

00:13:07 standards or is it a risk that requires some more sort of executive action um

00:13:14 um and

00:13:17 i think that's the situation i was in here and and i was wrong i i think that's that's that's clear and i based on what i've learned in the last four years it's clear that i was wrong

00:13:28 it's clear that i was wrong well

00:13:29 well that i think that's an answer to my question which is yes you were aware of the fire risks that this type of material posed you were also you'd also been asked

00:13:42 you were also you'd also been asked as i said to you whether it had been whether it could happen here and we've seen your answer essentially no without a guarantee and that was because

00:13:53 and that was because to the way you thought of it at the time that the word filler effectively banned polyethylene core yes yes yes

00:14:05 yes yes we've covered all that

00:14:08 but now you're learning from nick jenkins that in fact the use of acm of the polyethylene core was quite widespread in the uk built environment

00:14:21 in the uk built environment yes

00:14:22 yes well allegedly yeah that's what he was i guess yeah i mean and on the flip side of that he's also telling me that he nearly all of the materials he sold was fire retardant well

00:14:32 well we'll see how this continues my question is what how did you underestimate the seriousness of the problem

00:14:43 the seriousness of the problem given that your founding assumption as to why it couldn't happen here which was namely that the effective ban on polyethylene called acm panels

00:14:54 polyethylene called acm panels had worked had been falsified

00:15:01 i'm sorry can you ask that question again yeah how did you come to underestimate the seriousness of the problem now that nick jenkins was bringing to your attention the fact that acn with a pe corps was quite widespread in the uk

00:15:14 um i think at that time um i i guess i i lumped it in with the it sounds awful um

00:15:28 this was one of many conversations that i would regularly have with stakeholders about alleged non-compliance and actual non-compliance you know we were as i say the issue with cavity barriers

00:15:39 the issue with cavity barriers um was definitely something which we were seeing a lot of um

00:15:46 there were

00:15:49 it's a i guess the nature of any regulatory system that there's some that people don't always comply that's kind of um

00:15:59 of um i guess a fact a fact of life and

00:16:03 and what you try to do is you try and address that as best you can by improving the guidance where you can and

00:16:13 and trying to raise awareness where you can and that's what we were doing with a range of other issues and

00:16:22 and i think

00:16:23 i think now knowing what i know now um

00:16:28 the acm problem needed more than that and

00:16:34 and i just didn't register that and um i i

00:16:38 when you go through all of the documents that you that you've put in front of me and there are probably more that you're going to bring forward um i've asked myself the same question why didn't you why didn't you see that this was

00:16:51 why didn't you see that this was um

00:16:53 um more severe than the other issues that we were dealing with um i think it was um you know and so i i should have treated it differently i think but i just treated

00:17:04 differently i think but i just treated it alongside you know the debates that we were having around a whole range of different um issues in relation to fire protection and other aspects of the building regulations well that might answer some

00:17:15 regulations well that might answer some of the questions i've got coming up in the rest of the email i think i'm sorry that was a long answer it's quite difficult to no i understand i understand that's okay let's just see how we go with this um now let's some let's go up the chain

00:17:26 now let's some let's go up the chain please to the top of page four and see what nick jenkins response to this is

00:17:38 uh and he says it starts at the foot of page three i'll give you the time of the email 2154 at the foot of page three and then over to the top of page four

00:17:49 to the top of page four and he says hi brian many thanks for your prompt response in the light of the files that have taken hold of a number of buildings clad in acm panels in recent years i also think that the core of acm panels should most definitely be

00:18:01 of acm panels should most definitely be considered as a filler some acm calls meet the rules of adb however the ones commonly used in the uk at present don't to the best of my knowledge there have been no full scale 8414 tests carried

00:18:12 been no full scale 8414 tests carried out to date of any wall constructions featuring any type of acm panel i'm aware that two manufacturers of acm have plans to have such tests carried out this however unfortunately means that no

00:18:23 this however unfortunately means that no existing buildings in the uk over 18 metres tall that feature acm panels currently meet the b4 requirements there are many such buildings and their numbers are growing whilst i appreciate

00:18:35 numbers are growing whilst i appreciate it is for the designer and building control body to consider if requirement b4 has been met i do think that the current situation is of grave concern surely this justifies the requirement for a less ambiguous statement of the

00:18:47 for a less ambiguous statement of the rules with the above in mind do you think it would be worth setting up a meeting with the relevant bodies and experts represented to review the current presentation of the rules regards nick

00:18:58 regards nick now did the news that no existing buildings in the uk over 18 meters tall that feature acm panels currently meet the b4 requirements and that there are many such buildings

00:19:09 and that there are many such buildings in the numbers are growing did that news cause you to consider that there might be a wider problem that needed to be addressed

00:19:24 so i think at that time um i

00:19:28 i as i said i didn't know who nick jenkins was um

00:19:33 was um i

00:19:36 i didn't know whether in the the the points they were making were true or not um

00:19:42 um and um

00:19:44 and um clearly there's a a concern if there's non-compliance as i say

00:19:49 say trying to address non-compliance was a um

00:19:53 um an issue that

00:19:57 was a part of what we did every day i guess

00:20:00 guess and frustrations with compliance and the way the building control system um

00:20:10 um certainly in my view and i think in some of my colleagues view was was becoming less effective and was something we talked about a lot as a team um

00:20:22 i i didn't i didn't i just didn't pick up on this as being as severe an issue as

00:20:30 as i could have done and probably should have done um as i said when you look at this in isolation it looks like this is the only accusation of of non-compliance i'm afraid that was quite a regular

00:20:41 i'm afraid that was quite a regular accusation sometimes that was justified sometimes it wasn't um so it's clearly something to be concerned about

00:20:54 did you think at the time this is just another

00:20:57 another industry player complaining about non-compliance of other industry players and therefore it's either a trading standards matter or just

00:21:05 just another example of industry factionalizing over products or did you take it seriously

00:21:13 seriously i think somewhere tweaks the two um i i it's

00:21:20 clearly we want people to comply with the

00:21:23 the the

00:21:24 the regulations um as i say this was not not an uncommon um argument um and some of the hyperbole that people used

00:21:35 some of the hyperbole that people used um

00:21:36 um you know people didn't write to me and say um

00:21:39 say um there's non-compliance but don't worry about it people always tended to use words to describe a risk

00:21:51 so when you're faced with lots of communications like that it becomes normal um which is

00:22:00 which is you know in the context of this inquiry it sounds awful um but that's that was the nature of our work and we focused on it more as a policy problem than as a um

00:22:12 than as a um that is an operational sort of immediate problem uh but larry i'm sorry i didn't want to cut you off mister no it's fine martin but the problem here that nick jenkins is

00:22:23 problem here that nick jenkins is pointing out to you isn't just non-compliance in the broad sense he's identified the very problem the very problem that was discussed at the cwct meeting on the 2nd of july

00:22:36 the cwct meeting on the 2nd of july 2014

00:22:37 2014 and we saw the minute for that under the heading acn the very problem that was brought to your attention by steve evans himself at nhbc in the mid middle of the year

00:22:48 nhbc in the mid middle of the year previously and now again this

00:22:52 this isn't just a complaint about non-compliance it's a clear identification of the problem with the language of 12.7 one and two

00:23:05 one and two the fact that it has had a widespread effect

00:23:09 effect which is that at least possibly industry had misunderstood it and applied acm with a pe core in a widespread way for some years

00:23:22 for some years so how in the light of that my question is how in the light of that did you just treat this as another complaint from an industry player

00:23:37 uh can i give you the same answer okay before is this this i would have received quite similar communications from other people talking about other risks now did you um okay let's go up to page

00:23:49 now did you um okay let's go up to page two then

00:23:50 two then and we see your response the next morning at 9 49 as you can see at the foot of page two thanks nick and then over the top of page three you say this

00:24:02 i'm not sure the text is really all that ambiguous given that it must cover all forms construction people often argue that it isn't clear when they are trying to justify doing something that is clearly wrong i'm not entirely sure that

00:24:14 clearly wrong i'm not entirely sure that even the acm products that have flame retardant cores would meet the rules of thumb in the ad so it'll be interesting to see if any of them get through an 8414 test but that's just my opinion we've recently commissioned a survey of

00:24:25 we've recently commissioned a survey of part b users with a view to feeding into the next revision in the first instance it might help if you put your views into that please and then you provide the link to the raba website

00:24:36 raba website there is a meeting of the cwct group to talk about cladding and fire safety it's run by bath university maybe you could ask them if you can get involved brenda apter details below is organizing things

00:24:47 apter details below is organizing things and then you provide him with brenner aptid's email address

00:24:53 now when you say the top of the screen there i'm not sure the text is really all that ambiguous what did you mean

00:25:01 um in i think if you include the whole sentence it's the the challenge that um this is a paragraph that's trying to address

00:25:11 address a wide range of different forms of construction different products and systems

00:25:17 and so given that the objectives are really clear

00:25:22 clear if somebody somebody gives the question due consideration and understands the construction they're using

00:25:33 it's quite difficult to justify why you would adopt the use of a polyethylene cord panel

00:25:41 that was that was my view then is i think it is still to some extent now is if you you're looking at the three classifications of acm panel that are on the market um

00:25:53 you've got to consciously decide to use the one that isn't fire retardant

00:25:59 i've

00:26:02 to me it seems quite difficult to justify that decision if you've read that guidance and and looked into the issue

00:26:09 issue when you say not all that ambiguous were you accepting that adb was not free from ambiguity

00:26:19 um i i i think in terms of it doesn't clearly say you don't use polyethylene called atm um so i i recognized that there wasn't a black and white these are the rules

00:26:30 the rules um

00:26:31 um and at that time we'd already been trying to

00:26:34 trying to progress um the next next full review of approved document b so i was expecting to try and address this um in the changes to the approved document

00:26:47 in the changes to the approved document yes i see

00:26:49 yes i see that's that's why i asked him to feed into the um into the

00:26:54 into the survey um

00:26:57 survey um because it would mark the issue in in the system um which would make it it would ensure that that's looked at properly when we're working our way through the um

00:27:08 through the um further through the project yeah

00:27:11 and you don't tell him that his interpretation is correct and that the requirements are indeed cumulative and not alternative which was the question he'd asked you do you

00:27:24 um i guess not directly no why is that um

00:27:32 i don't know probably to some extent is is what we always tried to say to people asking us these questions is um don't treat the approved document like a prescriptive set of rules it's

00:27:43 like a prescriptive set of rules it's um

00:27:46 you should be you know if you're an engineer you should be addressing these questions in your own mind um as well as just

00:27:55 just looking at the rules did it not occur to you that whatever element of ambiguity there was in 12.7

00:28:05 in 12.7 it was nonetheless significantly present so as to have the result that there was widespread use of aluminium composite material panels with a polyethylene core in the uk built

00:28:17 a polyethylene core in the uk built environment and that is what nick jenkins was bringing to your attention

00:28:27 i think that's a fair question again i i was just looking at this from the point of view of how can we improve the improve the guidance in the approved document

00:28:35 document and

00:28:39 i've encouraged mr jenkins to get involved in the cwct group um

00:28:47 i guess to ensure that um they're

00:28:51 they're they're aware of his opinion um and to test the point that he's making amongst a group of people that know about cladding

00:28:58 cladding and know about fire why not at this stage go out with a circular or interim measure such as an faq and tell the public particularly the

00:29:09 faq and tell the public particularly the building control public what nick jenkins had told you

00:29:15 and clarify in unambiguous terms 12.7 yeah i think at this time um we'd really struggled to get

00:29:23 get anything done within the within the department it had been difficult um

00:29:30 um now following the coalition government taking over after the um after the financial crisis um

00:29:37 there was a lot of pressure on the team um

00:29:40 um in relation to deregulation and so on um and that had continued to magnify um over

00:29:51 um over the

00:29:52 the following period um once we got past

00:29:57 past the 2015 election um we had a combination of an even greater ambition towards deregulation regulation was a dirty word

00:30:09 deregulation regulation was a dirty word and and there was so much political disruption it was very difficult to get any kind of traction and any any document

00:30:17 document that would have gone out from the department would have need needed to have had political approval so i think at that stage um

00:30:28 it would have been incredibly difficult to do that are you saying that an faq even posting an faq on the department's website would have needed ministerial approval oh yes

00:30:39 approval oh yes really absolutely yeah um yeah it's a it's a it's a document published by the department they're always anything like that is is politically cleared but did you raise that question it's with mr

00:30:50 you raise that question it's with mr harold or mr leadsome at this time did you ask them well it's now apparent that there's been widespread misunderstanding

00:31:01 widespread misunderstanding of 12.7

00:31:02 of 12.7 i've now discovered that there in fact are

00:31:05 are at least according to mr jenkins uh widespread use of acm panels with the pe call just like in dubai uh we need to do something about it

00:31:19 uh we need to do something about it um

00:31:20 um i wish i had um i think i probably should have done um i

00:31:27 i think it it's a combination of factors um i think it was a

00:31:34 and it's difficult to know what was going on in my head at the time um

00:31:39 um it was certainly an extremely frustrating period um and i think

00:31:47 i think that had affected me in some way um which i find difficult to explain um but i think i'd got to the point where i was just focused on let's let's get this next

00:31:58 focused on let's let's get this next review

00:31:59 review going and then we can we can look at this properly um

00:32:04 that was clearly the wrong decision that was the wrong position to be in but that that i think that's what was going on in my head at the time

00:32:25 um when you say here

00:32:29 here that you're not entirely sure that even the acm products with flame retardant cause would meet the rules of thumb in the approved document what did you mean there

00:32:38 there i'm not sure i've looked at this email um in preparation for speaking to the inquiry and i'm wondering where i got that idea from um

00:32:50 it might be just my general understanding of the term flame retardant is is often

00:32:59 is often banded around by manufacturers and

00:33:03 and it's not a very precise term and some products have flame retardant treatment and flame retardant treatments which actually if you investigate them

00:33:15 which actually if you investigate them in more detail you find that that treatment has very little impact on their behavior in in a real fire and there are others that are the the treatment's very effective um it that might be what i was thinking i'm

00:33:27 it that might be what i was thinking i'm not i'm not really sure where i got that from

00:33:31 did you understand at the time that to meet the rules of thumb external cladding panels had to be of limited combustibility therefore acm products of any rating

00:33:43 therefore acm products of any rating below a2

00:33:45 below a2 would not meet those rules and that might be what i was thinking i'm not sure how did you square that with class naught

00:33:53 naught which of course referred to class b

00:33:57 class b um

00:33:59 um that was a reference to the surface and and

00:34:02 and as i was concerned that the core of an acm panel um would need to be a material limited combustibility um as i've said in my email and

00:34:15 as i've said in my email and jenkins it's it's the kind of thing that we were trying to address when we drafted that text in

00:34:22 text in 2005-2006

00:34:24 2005-2006 and when you say uh it'll be interesting to see if any of them get through an 8414 test i think you're referring there to

00:34:32 to acm panels with a pe core with flame retardancy treatment as you say

00:34:41 can you take can we take it that you agreed with mr jenkins understanding that as of february 2016 no such panels had passed such a test um well i wouldn't have known um but um

00:34:52 um well i wouldn't have known um but um i had no reason to doubt mr jenkins or believe him i mean that's that's that that's the challenge is this is an email that's come from somebody i have no knowledge

00:35:00 knowledge of um

00:35:01 of um but he was inviting a meeting and given what he was telling you did you not think well it might be worth just picking up the phone to him and having a discussion or or inviting him up to eland house for a chat

00:35:12 eland house for a chat um well that's why i was encouraging him to go to the cwct meeting is um my problem is i'm an official in a government department sitting in

00:35:23 department sitting in a government building i don't know what's going on whereas the people that are attending the cwc team meeting will be a cross-section of people from industry and will be able to either agree

00:35:35 and will be able to either agree challenge disagree whatever so it's a way of seeing how much of what you're saying is true or not um

00:35:43 um and to get their opinion and because they'll be more knowledgeable than me about the issues that are being raised well maybe not more knowledgeable about the technical issues but what surely what

00:35:54 technical issues but what surely what you needed to know was the was first of all whether and to what extent there was truth in what mr jenkins was telling you and and secondly if it was true

00:36:07 and and secondly if it was true how extensive the problem was and surely that was something you could have done no

00:36:15 i'm not sure i could have tested how true it was in a reliable way and i thought the meeting with the cwct group was a way of doing that

00:36:29 why not just ask him uh you're gravely concerned about the presence of acmpe in the uk built environment you say there are only two projects in 15 years where you've provided a1 or a2

00:36:42 15 years where you've provided a1 or a2 can you give me an idea of the number of projects and their location [Music]

00:36:47 [Music] where you've provided acm with a pe core which is not a1 or a2 in the last 15 years just to get a list at least an idea of the scale

00:36:59 at least an idea of the scale i could have done but at the time i thought

00:37:01 thought um

00:37:02 um let's

00:37:05 let's get into the cwct meeting amongst his peers if you like other people with expertise in cladding and

00:37:13 get a clearer picture of what's going on now the survey of part b users to which you directed mr jenkins in your response was was that the riba work

00:37:24 was was that the riba work that's right yes i mean the advantage so at that time um we had no um budget for research um

00:37:34 um which is one of the reasons i know you've asked me several times why we only commissioned one piece of that seven work stream piece of work for the adb review um and that was essentially because it was the last time

00:37:45 essentially because it was the last time that we had a budget to do any research after that um any research would have needed to be referenced back to a particular project and we didn't have a

00:37:55 have a clearance to to do that at the time the arrangement the department had with reba as its publishers um was um that the

00:38:06 um was um that the um

00:38:07 um there was a certain amount of royalties that came from um the sale of the approved documents um

00:38:13 um and

00:38:14 and the contract the department had with reba we could if you like use some of that um money to fund particular additional pieces of work most of that was editorial work but reba has a small

00:38:27 editorial work but reba has a small research team as well and so i was able to and get them to do the work i'm looking at doing a user survey of part b because our objective was to improve the quality

00:38:39 our objective was to improve the quality of the approved document um and so that was a way again of getting ahead of the game despite the fact that we were in the the problems that we had in terms of getting this project off the ground

00:38:50 of getting this project off the ground but the riba work i think you'd accept it it was not intended to address any of the technical matters in approved document b so how would feeding adult directing mr jenkins to feed in

00:39:03 adult directing mr jenkins to feed in his response into that survey help in any way with the situation he was asking you about well i think in terms of the approved document um

00:39:15 whatever we whatever else we were going to do at that stage in the next review of adb um a major exercise in improving its clarity um

00:39:26 its clarity um was was a key part of that and that was both a recommendation of the coroner following the lack of house inquest um and was our policy anyway i think um

00:39:38 think um as a team we recognised that the approved documents could and should be better

00:39:43 better and had done a lot of work to try and come up with a better way of presenting approved documents so at that time i was mostly think i was thinking the issue here with external wall

00:39:55 issue here with external wall construction is not one where there's extensive technical research required it's about taking the knowledge that did exist

00:40:07 and improving the quality of the guidance so the kind of problem that we're talking about here wouldn't wouldn't occur

00:40:18 you say when you say improving the quality of the guidance do you mean it's readability it's clarity as a matter of language plain english english

00:40:29 matter of language plain english english simplification what do you actually mean making it crystal clear that

00:40:35 that combustible cause of cladding panels were effectively banned um well i wasn't just thinking about combustible coils or cladding panels i was thinking about all the other issues that crop up with external wall

00:40:46 that crop up with external wall construction and it you know i i hadn't gone i was i was aware that that that that paragraph was not as not as useful as it could be um and we

00:40:58 not as useful as it could be um and we would want to look at that but we wouldn't just be looking at it from the point of view of acm panels we'd need to be thinking about all the other forms of construction that the industry was using i was planning to use some of which i might

00:41:10 planning to use some of which i might not even know exists and that's the sort of thing that we would have picked up on once we started that project now and let's look at the final emails

00:41:21 now and let's look at the final emails in this exchange from the 17th of february please can we go to page one in this email run and you can see mr jenkins writes in the second email in the chain there on the 17th of february hi brian yes i think you're probably

00:41:32 hi brian yes i think you're probably right in that people are claiming ambiguity to suit their needs what i can't get my head around however is how buildings that clearly include products that neither one meet the rules are set

00:41:43 that neither one meet the rules are set out in adb-2 or two have been the subject of a full-scale 8414 test are achieving building regulation compliance completion certification question mark

00:41:54 completion certification question mark is it a the certification has been wrongly awarded thus pointing to a requirement for better informed stroke educated certifying officers or b have they not achieved certification are

00:42:06 have they not achieved certification are they subject to indemnity policies to cover the risk i've completed the survey and also spoken to david metcalf of the cwct reformed inclusion in the cwct group to talk about cladding and fire safety and

00:42:18 talk about cladding and fire safety and it goes on

00:42:21 in that vein for a while um just on the questions i've read to you uh from this email do you see that what he was asking you to consider

00:42:33 he was asking you to consider even if it were true that ambiguity were being claimed to suit people's needs was how could it be that these acn panels were making their way onto high-rise buildings that was his

00:42:45 high-rise buildings that was his question wasn't it

00:42:50 yeah i guess you could summarize it that way yes no you didn't respond to that question

00:42:54 question at least we haven't seen a response did you

00:42:57 did you not that i'm aware of why did you not

00:43:03 i guess ultimately i wouldn't have known that the answer to that question um did you consider the answer to that question

00:43:19 i think i i i don't really know what i was thinking at the time i suspect i was waiting for the cwc team meeting to think about it then

00:43:33 why not go back to nhbc and ask them what their building control officers were doing to try to get a feel for how their building control officers were answering the question

00:43:55 that's a reasonable question now but at the time i think i looked at this and thought

00:44:01 thought um

00:44:02 um let's wait for the cwc team meeting

00:44:14 if we go to your reply

00:44:17 at the top of the email chain the following day 18th of february 2016 you say that sounds like a good plan to

00:44:28 you say that sounds like a good plan to me i'd be happy to help where i can you're right of course constructions complying with the rules of thumb may well fail an 8414 test in an ideal world we'd make the test mandatory but that would be too costly to justify

00:44:44 please keep you posted what did you want nick jenkins to keep you posted about

00:44:58 i think he was proposing to draft some guidance for his clients i think um that might be what i was referring to i'm not sure now did you forward this correspondence to any other official

00:45:10 correspondence to any other official within the department or at the home office for that matter i don't think so now no we've not seen uh uh that and uh

00:45:22 uh uh that and uh neither

00:45:23 neither rich no neither bob ledson nor richard harrell had seen this correspondence why is that why did you not escalate it to them as i say i think at the time i

00:45:34 to them as i say i think at the time i i placed the the question about um external cladding alongside the

00:45:42 range of issues we had about compliance and a range of issues that we wanted to work on to improve the approved document i didn't

00:45:51 i didn't recognize this as being a more significant risk which i think i should have done so so i i i we the the topic of compliance was

00:46:02 the the topic of compliance was something that we regularly debated as a team

00:46:06 team um so

00:46:07 um so i i didn't i guess i just didn't recognize that this was probably something i should treat differently why is that given that only the previous month on the 4th of january

00:46:20 month on the 4th of january 2016

00:46:21 2016 a few days after the address fire bob ledson had asked you the very question is this something that we should be worrying about given that question why didn't and given

00:46:34 given that question why didn't and given what you'll be you've been told in this lengthy email exchange in mid february only six weeks later did you not go back to bob ledson and answer his question and say

00:46:44 and say something like bob there is actually something we now need to worry about because i've been told by an industry player that acm with a 100 pe core is

00:46:54 is in use in this country as it is in dubai

00:47:03 i'm i'm really not sure why i didn't do that i wish i had um

00:47:12 it

00:47:16 as i say at that time things were very frustrating in the department i don't know if that affected my mindset i'm not sure

00:47:22 sure um

00:47:25 um it's clear looking at this i should have done and i think it's a perfectly reasonable question and i i i've

00:47:31 i've struggled to come to terms with why i didn't do that i mean did you deliberately not do it or did it just fall between the cracks because you didn't give it the priority that

00:47:42 didn't give it the priority that perhaps it deserved i thought it wasn't it wasn't a deliberate attempt to conceal something there would have been no reason to do that

00:47:56 now this morning you told us early on that

00:48:02 that as part of your thinking when looking at the dubai fires there had been no fatalities and you said then on last thursday and this morning that you underestimated the

00:48:13 this morning that you underestimated the scale and hazard of the issue

00:48:18 did you recognize that any fires on the scale of those demonstrated by the dubai fires would pose a real and immediate risk to life for occupants no matter how

00:48:29 risk to life for occupants no matter how well engineered fire engineered the interior of those buildings uh was um i i recognized it uh clearly i recognized there was a risk um

00:48:42 recognized there was a risk um but i could have pointed to a dozen other issues and and probably had said the same thing i think in as i say

00:48:53 as i say knowing what i know now um

00:48:57 acm does seem to present a you know it's in it's in a different league and and i didn't recognize that um

00:49:06 um i was focused on what i saw was a policy project about to start and this was one of a range of things that we'd try and improve as part of that um

00:49:17 um were you influenced and i this may be a repetition of the question i asked you slightly differently this morning but were you influenced in your actions or inactions by

00:49:27 by the fact

00:49:28 the fact that in those fires there were no reports of people dying

00:49:36 i think that might be a component of my thinking yes can we look at swe 701 please

00:49:46 now what i'm showing you here is a witness statement from sam webb who has provided this statement to the inquiry

00:49:56 inquiry dated the 4th of march this year 2022 and just so you know sam webb is an architect and a long-standing member of the riba council from 1973

00:50:07 the riba council from 1973 to 2012 and he's currently a member of the riba's professional conduct committee

00:50:13 committee and he tells us in his statement at greater length that i'm going to that he's had a long career in the health and safety field and produced a report following the latino house fire and had been involved in the drafting of

00:50:25 and had been involved in the drafting of the 2007

00:50:27 the 2007 cdm regulations that is a potted summary of his of his background i want to show you page 90 of this

00:50:35 this statement please page 90.

00:50:39 page 90. and here in page 90 he's covering uh various individuals that he came across in the context of uh

00:50:49 uh lachenal and the appg and here he deals with you

00:50:53 with you and he says this at 2310 brian martin he says i sat next to brian martin at lunch in the chumley room in the palace of westminster at an appg event on the 9th

00:51:05 westminster at an appg event on the 9th of february 2016. now just pause there the 9th of february 2016 is a week before

00:51:13 before you get the email run from

00:51:16 from nick jenkins that we've spent time looking at he goes on i put the following to him if adb wasn't rewritten in clear language as the latin coroner had recommended to the minister in her rule

00:51:28 recommended to the minister in her rule 43 letter then another fight lacking is inevitable if it happened in the middle of the night when people were asleep then the death toll was likely to be 10 to 12 times the six people who died in the

00:51:39 times the six people who died in the latino fire brian martin's reply to me was where's the evidence show me the bodies

00:51:46 bodies this was over a year before the grenfell tower fire at that time i'd never heard the name grenfell tower the impression i gained from brian martin was if it hasn't happened then it wouldn't happen it was as if he needed a disaster before

00:51:59 it was as if he needed a disaster before he or the government would act now first some factual questions here first do you remember having dinner at an appg event in the chumley room at

00:52:10 an appg event in the chumley room at westminster on the 9th of february 2016. i i remember the event and i do remember meeting mr webb here right do you remember discussing with him the coroner's recommendations from the national inquest um i

00:52:23 national inquest um i i do have some recollection of that conversation do you remember saying do you remember him saying to you that if adb wasn't rewritten in clear language as the coroner had recommended that another fire like latino was

00:52:35 that another fire like latino was inevitable and many more might die if the fire occurred at night um

00:52:41 um he probably said something along those lines he seems to have a very accurate memory of exactly what words he used um well that's a comment on his statement but i'm just asking you for your recollection

00:52:53 recollection um

00:52:54 um i remember having a general discussion about

00:52:58 about the issues and um

00:53:02 roughly along the lines of what he's saying here um i i very i don't think that's exactly what i said in that in that sentence i think i was explaining to him that the problem i had is that i was working um

00:53:19 in a situation where in order to raise standards um

00:53:24 um or

00:53:26 or justify imposing higher standards um then there was a very high bar to

00:53:33 to address

00:53:35 address um

00:53:36 um we would need to demonstrate that any changes were not only cost cut as a minimum cost effective um but also meet the one in i think was one

00:53:48 but also meet the one in i think was one in three out by then um rules

00:53:51 um rules so what i was trying to explain to him is

00:53:55 is it would be difficult to justify raising standards um given that what we're actually experiencing was a you know a regular reduction in the

00:54:07 you know a regular reduction in the number of fire deaths i think

00:54:10 i think i

00:54:17 i think the way he's described the conversation is not exactly as i recall it

00:54:23 recall it and i

00:54:24 and i say i was explaining the challenge that we had as as looking at these looking at the policy area was raising standards was going to be incredibly difficult under that

00:54:37 incredibly difficult under that um under the regime we were working under

00:54:40 under um

00:54:43 did you say to him where's the evidence show me the bodies i wouldn't have said that did you use words to that effect no i think i would have used words to the effect that i've just given you um i

00:54:55 the effect that i've just given you um i can see he may well have read that because he's thinking the government won't act unless there's clear evidence of a

00:55:03 of a of a risk

00:55:04 of a risk and

00:55:06 and and to some extent that was true i mean government policy was um

00:55:12 had progressively hardened over quite quite an extensive period the one in one out thing i think the um i think the prime minister described

00:55:23 i think the prime minister described people like me as an enemy of enterprise um so

00:55:31 that's that's the kind of conversation i would have had with him is

00:55:36 safety campaigners like mr webb have have a view on how the world should be but the government was in a very different place at the time

00:55:50 have you ever used words to to anybody along the lines of where's the evidence show me the bodies by reference to

00:56:01 by reference to adb

00:56:03 adb i certainly would have talked about evidence a lot that that's that's that's the the key challenge that we always have um i don't think i would have said show me the bodies if we continue with paragraph 23.11

00:56:16 sam webb goes on my colleague arnold tarling frics from tower blocks uk had mentioned two occasions to me when he was invited to speak at an event while he did not mention brian martin by

00:56:27 while he did not mention brian martin by name he referred to him as a government an advisor to government who would state quotes the number of people dying in fires is falling show me the bodies one event was on the 7th or 8th of february

00:56:39 event was on the 7th or 8th of february 2019 fire safety conference organized by the northern ireland fire safety liaison panel

00:56:45 panel after he spoke four people came up and named brian martin including the next speaker who worked for the labc the previous year on the 27th of july 2018 he spoke at building safety futures

00:56:56 2018 he spoke at building safety futures at the west midlands fire headquarters and made the same comment without naming anyone several people came up and mentioned brian martin by name including members of the fire and rescue service

00:57:07 members of the fire and rescue service now i i'm not asking you to comment on

00:57:12 conversations that she will not party to mr martin of course but my question is did you say at those events or any of those events the number of people dying in fires is

00:57:24 the number of people dying in fires is falling show me the bodies was the expression show me the bodies one that you used at the time or might have used at the time given the way you

00:57:35 given the way you would speak i don't think so that doesn't sound like me um as i say um mr tarling and mr webb um i will probably have um shared a similar

00:57:48 will probably have um shared a similar opinion in terms of the desire to raise standards

00:57:51 standards and so and

00:57:56 the [Music]

00:57:58 [Music] government position was um that

00:58:02 committing more resources to fight fire protection or any other regulation was um the opposite of where the government wanted to go so you would need a very strong evidence

00:58:15 so you would need a very strong evidence base

00:58:16 base to justify

00:58:20 an increase in requirements but isn't that the point that you're you by using these expressions show me the bodies you were seeking to drive home in

00:58:31 you were seeking to drive home in perhaps garish terms to mr webb and perhaps mr tarling also and others who spoke to you that without fatalities the government would never

00:58:42 would never agree to tighten up fire safety um i i

00:58:48 i'm known for using plain english um or speaking plainly i think that's a bit plainer than i would have said that though

00:58:58 i think i would have said show me the bodies that just doesn't sound like me um but i would have definitely said it's very difficult to justify raising standards um given that

00:59:09 given that you know

00:59:11 you know the the main findings of fire statistics over many

00:59:15 over many decades had been that number of fires were falling and the number of fire deaths were falling did you at least discuss statistics with mr webb at that that dinner probably

00:59:27 probably what about mr tarling do you remember discussing statistics with him or just to talking about falling fast statistics of public events such as those to which mr webb refers it's conceivable um i

00:59:38 mr webb refers it's conceivable um i probably haven't spoken to mr turning that many times i remember having a

00:59:44 so i think mr webb and i sat next to each other over lunch so we would have had a

00:59:50 had a a reasonable conversation yeah just help me with this statistics were what these were what numbers of fatalities in high-rise buildings were

01:00:01 fatalities in high-rise buildings were they

01:00:03 they was that are those the statistics that you discussed well as i can't remember the the data but that's the sort of thing that that we would have talked about um and

01:00:14 we would have talked about um and for many decades the number of fires have been reducing and the number of fire deaths associated with those fires has been generally reducing yeah so the focus is this right your focus on

01:00:25 on uh statistics as a good thing that the trend is a good thing was on numbers in other words frequency frequency of fires frequency of

01:00:36 frequency of fires frequency of fatalities um not entirely you can't just rely on statistics um because they're only telling you about a

01:00:44 a historic

01:00:45 historic um situation um when you look at domestic fires there are a lot of them i think flat fires it's in the order of seven to eight thousand fires every year

01:00:56 thousand fires every year so

01:00:58 so because there are so many the statistics do give you an indication of of where the problems might be

01:01:07 but statistics in isolation don't tell you everything about the risk no and that's the point isn't it did you ever temper your own thinking and what you said to people about statistics by

01:01:19 you said to people about statistics by saying to them or by thinking to yourself well the frequency figures only give you one side of the equation you've got to consider severity of risk as well and that was something i was very conscious of

01:01:31 conscious of but

01:01:32 but on the

01:01:36 but there's we weren't getting lots of cladding fires um and and and given that you were getting so many domestic fires um that's a you know i guess that's a

01:01:47 that's a you know i guess that's a factor in in my thinking i i guess is um and and certainly when you're trying to argue or present a case to um

01:02:00 or present a case to um through the sort of government process and the policy process that there are things we need to do here you can't ignore those statistics they're

01:02:12 those statistics they're obviously a key indicator now in making the assessment of the risk or the value of the statistics in assisting you to assess the risk did you

01:02:23 assisting you to assess the risk did you ever think back to the recommendation of the 1999

01:02:26 the 1999 parliamentary select committee and its recommendation where it said and we saw this last week of paragraph 19 notwithstanding what we have said in paragraph 18 above and i'm quoting we do

01:02:38 paragraph 18 above and i'm quoting we do not believe it should take a serious fire in which many people are killed before all reasonable steps are taken towards minimizing the risks you remember that warning

01:02:50 you remember that warning yes

01:02:51 yes why was that warning not uppermost in your mind as the lead civil servant in charge of the building regulations when you heard what mr jenkins had to say to

01:03:00 say to you because i'm not sure if i'm not sure if i was splitting hairs when i was thinking about this but it's all reasonable steps it's what is what is the the proportionate response to these these

01:03:13 proportionate response to these these issues

01:03:16 issues well can you explain why it took grenfell tower in which 71 people were killed on the night for the for the hazards posed by acmpe to be fully appreciated

01:03:31 uh that's quite a complex question i think that's i'm not sure if it's for me to answer that in in full well for whom else is it to answer then if not you

01:03:47 well i can answer a bit it's a long answer

01:03:50 answer um i i i think

01:03:58 the progressive decay in the construction industry the press progressive decay that went alongside it in the building control world um the

01:04:10 impact of government policy on on regulation um and the resources available to to trying to try and address these risks

01:04:23 some people might think that that was a description of what one might call someone else's problem but mr martin you were the person in the department to whom everybody turned to identify what was happening

01:04:36 turned to identify what was happening out there in the construction industry identify the risks and bring them to your seniors attention with a view at least to trying to do something about them

01:04:47 something about them do you accept that not entirely um i i i accept that there are

01:04:54 are there were opportunities that i missed to try and address this and that's something i regret um in a way i find difficult to describe um

01:05:08 as a team we focused on individual policy projects and and

01:05:16 so at various points during this time i was focusing on whichever project i was working on at the time um that was our main focus we

01:05:30 we didn't see us the team didn't act as a

01:05:33 a in this kind of policing role um it was more what's the next project it's a review of part e or it's a review of part c or it's the review of what whatever tasks we're given that was

01:05:45 whatever tasks we're given that was that was the way the team focused um and so i didn't entirely see myself as the the the solver of all problems um and i think

01:05:58 you would have neither needed a [Music]

01:06:02 [Music] a more significant team of people if that's what you wanted us to do um why would you need a more significant team to take mr jenkins's uh

01:06:13 uh observations uh and

01:06:16 uh and concerns

01:06:17 concerns seriously

01:06:19 seriously what would what would be needed beyond an a properly managed escalation starting with you telling mr harold about it

01:06:34 um perhaps it was because i was the only i was working in isolation and perhaps if i'd had a colleague that also had um

01:06:42 um some background in fire protection there would have been two of us and we would have between the terms perhaps um questioned each other um

01:06:55 so progressively the the the number of people focusing on these issues had reduced to essentially it was just me

01:07:03 just me um and

01:07:05 um and i don't think that's an absolute defense and the more over the last few months where i've been looking back through all these documents i think i've recognized that

01:07:17 i think i've recognized that there were things that i could and should have done and i struggled to understand why i didn't do them and

01:07:25 and i think that that's part of it um there's been a progressive um

01:07:35 reduction in resource there and i think it

01:07:39 it it meant that if i didn't pick up on something there was no one else to question me

01:07:48 and i think that's a component of what's happened here

01:07:53 now i'm going to turn to a short email exchange also in february 2016 between you and

01:07:59 you and alistair sohn you may remember him he was a structural engineer who at that time was the director of structural safety which was a

01:08:06 a specialist a panel of experts dealing with aspects of structural safety yes buildings in the uk now he's provided a statement to us cuk 702

01:08:19 and

01:08:21 this that's the first page of his statement if we go to page two of the statement he what he's done is he's

01:08:27 he's taken an email and downloaded it or dropped it into the body of the um of the witness statement and if you go towards the bottom of page two you can see that there is an email

01:08:39 two you can see that there is an email but from him to you on the 24th of february uh 2016 at 8 45 in the morning uh copy to somebody called nick price uh recladding fires and he says this

01:08:51 uh recladding fires and he says this i'm good to hear from you brian as it is sometimes since we met on brack my job these days is with structural safety where we produce information for industry on lessons that can be learned we are interested to read about the

01:09:02 we are interested to read about the recent fire in dubai which seems to have involved the cladding panels do we have any similar panels in the uk and is there

01:09:09 there and is there is risk of anything like this happening here depending on the level of possibility of risk we could produce an alert

01:09:21 you see that yeah now um this is as you can see from the date exactly a week after the um communications that you've had with nick jenkins and

01:09:32 and uh the the fire that he's referring to is clearly the address downtown hotel in dubai

01:09:39 dubai yes yes and that's the fire that you had reassured bob ledson and louise upton about on the 4th of january yes yes and they'd ask you whether there's any risk of anything like that happening here now do you accept this that the honest

01:09:51 now do you accept this that the honest answer

01:09:53 answer to the question posed by alistair sohn on the 24th of february 2016 after your correspondence with nick jenkins a few days earlier

01:10:04 jenkins a few days earlier was yes there is a risk of happening it happening here yes i think you're right yes now let's see your response if we go down please to

01:10:16 down please to the next email down it's page three it's the 24th of february 2016 at 0.908 and that's 25 minutes later and you say this hi alastair if people

01:10:29 and you say this hi alastair if people are getting things right then we shouldn't see a similar incident here as i understand it the problems in dubai relate to panels of aluminium composite material

01:10:38 material essentially thin layers of aluminium sandwiching a polymer core there are a number of products available some with fire retardance in their core some without

01:10:46 without adb gives guidance on this by saying that the external walls should not provide a medium for fire spread in tall buildings it then offers two approaches a set of rules or a full-scale test in

01:10:57 a set of rules or a full-scale test in the rules we deliberately added the word filler to address things that form parts of the cladding system that are not insulation but could provide a medium for fire spread i think the core of an acp panel could reasonably be considered to be a filler so unless the core

01:11:09 to be a filler so unless the core material meets the rules then the ad suggests a full-scale test now the last section of that email do you accept is identical in wording to the view that you'd offered nick jenkins

01:11:20 the view that you'd offered nick jenkins on the 16th of february 2016. in the email because for our reference clg three zero three one zero nine three page four yes yes it is did you copy and paste that section from your email to mr

01:11:31 paste that section from your email to mr jenkins into your email to mr same i might have done

01:11:38 i can't remember why did you not simply say as you had done to bob ledson and louise upton the previous month january 2016 about this very same fire event that i quote the polyethylene core of

01:11:50 that i quote the polyethylene core of the offending product would be considered as a filler material so should not be used over 18 meters that's what you told that simon upton why didn't you say that to alistair saying

01:12:01 to alistair saying um

01:12:03 um i don't think i consciously use different language i think i was just writing different writing to different people at different times did you not wonder how your less than emphatic answer could possibly assist him

01:12:27 i think at the time i thought it was an appropriate answer how could you think that given what you'd learned from nick jenkins the previous week to which the honest answer was yes it could happen here or might might happen here because i'm learning

01:12:39 might happen here because i'm learning that we do have similar panels in the uk i think that's a fair question i'm not sure i thought like that at the time um i think i was perhaps i was waiting for the cwc team

01:12:51 perhaps i was waiting for the cwc team meeting i'm not sure why not tell him that

01:12:53 that why didn't you tell him that in all candor

01:12:56 candor um

01:12:58 um i don't know i mean as you as you say it looks like i've given him a very similar answer to the one that i'd used previously i mean how could you in all conscience tell mr sohn as you say quotes if people

01:13:09 tell mr sohn as you say quotes if people are getting things right then we shouldn't see a similar incident here given that a fabricator of acm panels have told you only a week before that people were not getting it right and that the matter was of grave concern

01:13:26 i'm not sure i can answer that at the time that seemed like the the right answer to give mr sane but it wasn't a candid answer was it given what you had now been told i don't think i was deliberately hiding information um

01:13:40 well how could you not have been surely you hadn't forgotten the exchange that you'd had with nick jenkins over a couple of days the previous week

01:13:51 i'm really not sure what i was thinking at the time

01:13:57 now you knew that 12.7 had been called out by the industry back in july 2014 as unclear and requiring clarification and again by the nhbc in june 2015 and again by nick jenkins the previous

01:14:09 and again by nick jenkins the previous week we know that nothing had been done to clarify it and is it right that you just decided instead to pick off individual queries one by one with this line well at the time i mean the building control alliance guidance note i thought

01:14:21 control alliance guidance note i thought it

01:14:23 answered the question um

01:14:29 in a way which i thought was effective um

01:14:34 and at that time i was

01:14:40 about to start work on on changing all of that text well if you were being honest surely you would have added or put somewhere in this message that the meaning of the rule was controversial it

01:14:52 meaning of the rule was controversial it wasn't universally shared and there was indeed a risk of dubai happening here because of the presence of acm with a pe core on buildings above 18 meters i think that's a fair point and and

01:15:04 i think that's a fair point and and i

01:15:04 i wish i'd done something along those lines um

01:15:08 lines um i still struggle to understand what what i was thinking at the time it when you look back through all the the the documents as as i have over the last few months and as we have um

01:15:20 as we have um i would ask me the same question and i don't

01:15:24 don't i struggled to understand what what was in my head at the time other than to say this was one of a range of issues and i hadn't

01:15:38 i hadn't recognized it for what it was now mr sames provided a statement to the inquiry cuk 702

01:15:49 702 page 17

01:15:51 page 17 paragraph 45 this is this is his evidence about what he thought at the time and he says brian martin's response indicated to me

01:16:02 brian martin's response indicated to me that it was unlikely that such panels were being used in the uk so there was unlikely to be a risk to the structural integrity of buildings i therefore believed that this had satisfactorily be uh answered the matter that i had raised

01:16:14 uh answered the matter that i had raised with him

01:16:15 with him now

01:16:17 if he's right that he believed you do you accept that you succeeded in misleading him to believe that dubai couldn't happen here when you knew it could because you knew that your reasonable view of filler in 12.7 was

01:16:30 reasonable view of filler in 12.7 was not universally shared by the industry i've never deliberately set out to mislead anybody um

01:16:37 um uh

01:16:38 uh perhaps part of that what i was thinking is

01:16:41 is the work that mr sohn did um was focused on structural safety as he says here he's interested in the structural integrity of the building

01:16:53 perhaps that's why i approached the question in the way i did well it wasn't a deliberate choice not to mislead him why didn't you simply say to him i can't tell you whether there is or isn't a risk at the moment it's something that i

01:17:05 risk at the moment it's something that i need to explore further and i'll come back to you in a month's time

01:17:09 time after a meeting i'm having with cwct or worse to that effect

01:17:16 think that would have been a better thing to do at the time would it not have been a benefit to public safety to answer him in that way it may have done um the um

01:17:28 the um the way that the organization that mr sohn was working with works is that it issues advice um principally to structural engineers um about

01:17:40 problems that had occurred so it wouldn't have been the perfect readership um for raising this concern but it it may have helped

01:17:52 this concern but it it may have helped and i think it's um i think it was a mistake not to say to him

01:17:59 him yes please draft something up but i haven't actively told him not to

01:18:05 nor did i say that's a good idea it would be helpful which i think in hindsight would have been the right thing to do mr chairman is that a convenient moment yes thank you mr william i think it is

01:18:17 yes thank you mr william i think it is mr martin we'll have a break at this point

01:18:20 point we'll come back please at 25 to 12 and as i've said to you every time now please don't talk to anyone about your evidence or anything related to it while you're out of the room yes sir all right thank you very much would you go with

01:18:31 thank you very much would you go with the usher please

01:18:41 thank you very much 25 to 12. yes

01:36:33 would you ask mr martin to come back in please

01:36:46 all right mr martin ready to carry on yes sir thank you very much yes just a minute thank you mr chairman mr martin i'd like to turn next please to the second of the cwct meet fire group meetings this one now on

01:36:58 meet fire group meetings this one now on the 17th of march 2016. uh you may recall this meeting do you remember were you present for the whole of that meeting i think i was yes now you deal with this

01:37:09 i think i was yes now you deal with this in your statement uh can we please go to your statement at clg3019469 page 49 paragraph 138.

01:37:23 and you say

01:37:26 on 17th march 2016 i attended the second meeting of the cwct technical group at the meeting a draft roadmap to summarize the measures needed to ensure a facade complies with the prescriptive

01:37:38 a facade complies with the prescriptive rules of adb was presented i recall being satisfied that the roadmap adequately set out how compliance with the functional requirements could be achieved the minutes go on to note that the 2015 bca

01:37:51 minutes go on to note that the 2015 bca guidance note 18 had extended the limited combustibility requirement to all material in the wall of a tall building this was not an objectionable clarification indeed at the meeting it

01:38:02 clarification indeed at the meeting it was accepted as is recorded the paragraph 12.7 of adb was open to interpretation acting on behalf of the department i undertook to change this misleading clause in the next revision

01:38:14 misleading clause in the next revision of adb

01:38:15 of adb the conclusions of that section of the discussion were that and then you quote the cladding should not contribute to the spread of fire and that the combustibility clause is intended to include and then embold all materials in

01:38:28 include and then embold all materials in the external wall an exception may be made for small isolated components that would not contribute to fire spread now we've already dealt in some detail

01:38:39 now we've already dealt in some detail you and i with the effect of the bca technical guidance note 18. and

01:38:45 and you confirmed earlier in your evidence that

01:38:48 that the technical guidance note 18 from 2014

01:38:53 from 2014 um did extend the limited combustibility requirement beyond 12.7 to all material in the external wall of at all building including external facings

01:39:04 including external facings yes yes yes

01:39:07 now looking towards the last part of paragraph 138 on your screen there which we've just read you say

01:39:16 you say indeed at the meeting it was accepted you see that yes four lines up from the quotation indeed at the meeting it was accepted as

01:39:27 indeed at the meeting it was accepted as is recorded the paragraph 12.7 was open to interpretation now do you mean here in this statement that it was accepted by you but 12.7 was open to interpretation

01:39:46 um i think what i mean here is that was the view of the meeting but i think i recognized that there were different ways of interpreting that guidance

01:39:59 interpreting that guidance so you accepted it in line with the other attendees at that meeting yes i think yes and you then say uh i undertook to change this misleading

01:40:11 uh i undertook to change this misleading clause

01:40:13 clause does this tell us that you accepted at the meeting that the clause was misleading

01:40:24 it was certainly potentially misleading i i i don't think that was something i would have disputed and something that i did want to to improve on

01:40:32 on when had you first come to the conclusion that paragraph 12.7 of approved document b was open to interpretation and misleading or potentially misleading

01:40:46 i guess it was a progressive thing um

01:40:54 it was it was around 2014 i think when i recognized that um

01:40:59 um it wasn't

01:41:02 it wasn't necessarily understood in the way we'd intended it um i think that

01:41:08 it was probably more around this time that i

01:41:14 perhaps raised that problem kind of rate escalated in my own head that perhaps this is

01:41:21 this is a bigger issue and again at that time

01:41:27 we were i thought we were about to crack on with um updating the approved document this was clearly a piece of text that would need to be improved as a

01:41:38 text that would need to be improved as a and i'd probably overstep the mark slightly in undertaking to change the clause because i didn't have an absolute authority to do that um but um

01:41:49 we would definitely be working on that clause as part of the um clarification work

01:41:55 work um if not necessarily going all as far as the bca guidance note was concerned um and and the and the then cwct draft

01:42:07 cwct draft i think that

01:42:12 in a way the bca guidance no and the changes that have been made to um the relevant um and pretty standard triple nine one had all

01:42:23 had all taken a more onerous approach in an attempt to address um

01:42:31 um the uncertainty and and quite it's all problems with interpretation of that clause and and that's something that i'd recognize we'd need to take into account when we amended the approved document

01:42:43 when we amended the approved document adb was intended to act as a benchmark wasn't it

01:42:47 wasn't it you said that yourself in your statement yes

01:42:49 yes and and as such being open to interpretation and misleading do you accept that it had failed in its purpose

01:43:00 yes i think to some extent um i i don't think that's entirely because of the text in the approved document i think it refers back to the question you asked me earlier is

01:43:11 question you asked me earlier is the construction industry in in my career

01:43:16 across the construction industry in all the jobs i've had the industry's changed considerably um from one where it was the design professionals that

01:43:27 it was the design professionals that would lead most projects um

01:43:30 um and um i certainly recall when i first um

01:43:34 um joined the industry it was usually an architect that took the absolute responsibility for the design of a building and that was inherent in the way the contracts were drafted

01:43:45 drafted um

01:43:47 um and at some point probably about halfway through the period i guess maybe earlier um the shift to um

01:43:56 um design and build approach um became more prevalent in the industry and i think that's similar to the the way that the the work at grenfell had been managed

01:44:08 the work at grenfell had been managed and that

01:44:10 and that that changed the

01:44:12 the attitude of the industry i think to some extent

01:44:17 so there was that and and also the attitude of building control bodies had changed um

01:44:24 um when i first started working as a building control officer um i think we had a

01:44:32 more combative approach to the way i'm not sure if that's the right word um but we would look to challenge the designers and the builders um whereas i

01:44:43 designers and the builders um whereas i think over time building control bodies both in the public and private sector um had shifted to treating the applicant as a client

01:44:55 treating the applicant as a client and

01:44:58 sometimes it would i remember somebody saying to me once um that they accepted something if they thought other building control bodies would accept it um and i remember that the contrary

01:45:10 um and i remember that the contrary attitude when i first started working as a building control officer um i think that's part of what's what happened here is um

01:45:23 perhaps the industry that i first started working in would have looked at that guidance and took it taken a a more cautious approach

01:45:33 and perhaps we'd failed to take account of that in the way that we drafted our guidance

01:45:38 guidance that

01:45:40 over time people looked you know looked for loopholes rather than looking for a a good solution um i think that's the

01:45:53 that's so to say that the approved document failed in its objective i think is an incomplete point sorry that's a very long answer now can we look at the minutes of the

01:46:04 now can we look at the minutes of the meeting at clg 3019440 page two

01:46:12 and you'll see there but perhaps i should show you page one in fairness to you um which gives you the time of the meeting and the place of the meeting uh and uh the the attendees there and you could see sarah colwell was there

01:46:23 you could see sarah colwell was there nick jenkins was there you having invited him david metcalf there and other familiar names brian martin knew adrian pogita was there and

01:46:34 and chris moore from cider eyes stewart taylor again from wintec um and david white from nhbc now um if we go back to page two please we'll look at the heading combustibility of

01:46:46 at the heading combustibility of material

01:46:48 material at the foot of your screen and it says this combustibility of material approved document b clause 12.7 requires insulation and filler material in the external walls of full buildings

01:46:59 in the external walls of full buildings to be of limited combustibility bca guidance note 18 extends this requirement to all material in the wall it was accepted that clause 12.7 was

01:47:10 it was accepted that clause 12.7 was poorly written and open to interpretation the title of the clause is also misleading insulation materials stroke products and this will be changed in the next revision of adb now just

01:47:22 in the next revision of adb now just pausing there who at the meeting actually said that clause 12.7 was poorly written oh i couldn't say did you openly agree at the time

01:47:33 did you openly agree at the time i probably wouldn't have used those exact words but i think i acknowledged that there was a problem um that

01:47:41 there was a problem with the drafting of that that text and it it gave people the opportunity to read it in the way that suited them right

01:47:51 why didn't you tell the meeting as you told nick jenkins the previous month that adb wasn't as you put it to him not really all that ambiguous and say

01:48:02 and say what it clearly meant when you what you told bob led some it meant i imagine that was the conversation this minute's a

01:48:09 a note of a

01:48:10 note of a quite a long meeting i think

01:48:14 when had you come to the conclusion that paragraph 12.7 was poorly written

01:48:22 i think as i said before i think this is a progressive thing i mean so when we first drafted it we weren't entirely happy

01:48:29 happy um happy with it but felt that it went far enough at that time do you remember who actually said that the title of clause 12.7 was misleading

01:48:41 the title of clause 12.7 was misleading i couldn't say presumably you agreed at the time or at least did not object i think i i was aware that some people in the past had said

01:48:52 in the past had said look at that it's only about insulation and and i think i i remember being frustrated that that wasn't the intention

01:49:00 intention why had you not indicated to anybody before this meeting that you accepted or thought that the clause was misleading and poorly written it and

01:49:11 it and we we've seen you've had correspondence with louise upton peter holland in february 2015. steve evans in june 2016 bob led some and louise upton in early january 2016. nick jenkins in the

01:49:23 early january 2016. nick jenkins in the middle of

01:49:24 middle of february 2016 and aleister sone on the 24th of february 2016. my question again why had you not indicated to any of those individuals that you accepted that or thought that

01:49:36 that you accepted that or thought that the clause was misleading and poorly written

01:49:43 i don't remember a particular point which i've changed view i think it's just the way that the discussion has been recorded here um

01:49:54 i think for some time i'd recognize that it's a clause that we ought to revisit why not say that in terms to any of the individuals i've

01:50:05 in terms to any of the individuals i've just listed in the long history of the correspondence from february 2015 to march 2016. it's a mixture of some of those people wouldn't have had been directly

01:50:17 wouldn't have had been directly involved in the that particular conversation um

01:50:27 or i just misjudged the situation i think um

01:50:32 um and

01:50:33 and i think as i've said already today there are there's clearly some points where

01:50:40 i should have recognized that there was a larger problem than the perhaps i'd first appreciated and should have shared that with

01:50:50 other people in the department and i'm still not sure why i didn't do that now let's then go back to the minute on page three next top of page three and

01:51:01 and it says this

01:51:06 the term filler material was intended to be a catch-all as it was not possible to list all the materials that should be covered by the clause in addition there were people arguing

01:51:17 in addition there were people arguing that certain materials used in a facade buildup such as expanded polystyrene in some instances were not there for their insulating properties but to quotes pad out close quotes for facade and were

01:51:30 out close quotes for facade and were therefore excluded from the claws now just pausing there to the best of your recollection who said that

01:51:43 i can't say for certain i think probably a number of us were talking about that issue well just just looking at it closely who other than you and perhaps sarah

01:51:54 who other than you and perhaps sarah colwell present at the meeting were able to speak to what the word filler was intended to capture as you can see in the first sentence of that paragraph

01:52:05 paragraph oh in terms of the intention yeah that must have been me yeah right okay

01:52:18 now let's just i'll come back to that in a moment but let's just look at the penultimate paragraph of that section on page three where it says

01:52:28 conclusion of the discussions the cladding should not contribute to the spread of fire and that the combustibility clause is intended to include all materials in the

01:52:39 intended to include all materials in the external wall an exception may be made for small isolated components that would not contribute to fire spread i'll show you that can i show you next what david metcalfe

01:52:51 what david metcalfe of the cwct has told the inquiry in his statement it's at

01:52:57 one cwct40115 five i'll show you the first page to identify the document and then let's go to page 18 page 18 next paragraph 65 and he says

01:53:10 this uh and he refers in the first sentence there to the minute uh and he says i do not think the minutes we have are accurate in this instance insofar as i do not think that the final paragraph

01:53:21 i do not think that the final paragraph of the section on combustibility of material is entirely accurate it refers to the intention of clause 12.7 being to apply to all materials i think a more accurate description would be that it

01:53:33 accurate description would be that it was concluded that clause 12.7 should apply to all materials this is discussed further elsewhere in this statement i believe brian martin was present at the home of this meeting

01:53:44 home of this meeting now i want to focus on the word should do you agree with what david metcalf says there may be that 12.7 should apply to all materials but didn't

01:53:59 i don't remember anyone saying that but i i don't remember this part of the meeting particularly contentious um mr metcraft seems to be implying that

01:54:10 mr metcraft seems to be implying that there was a dispute or something at that point in the meeting

01:54:16 well i think when i can read what he says i'm not going to debate what he means there we've had him give evidence about this already but from the best of to the best of your recollection

01:54:27 recollection was the discussion along the lines of the intention of 12.7 is that it applies to all materials or that the intention behind 12.7 is

01:54:38 or that the intention behind 12.7 is that it doesn't but it should be changed now so that it should

01:54:45 i think the first um that's that's what i would have said um if people had been arguing with me um i would have remembered that and i set out what the intention was um

01:54:56 intention was um and the minutes looked like an accurate record of the discussion so do you accept therefore that the term filler material

01:55:09 that the term filler material did not on any view catch as the words used as catch the external facings of cladding panels

01:55:20 um well i i still took the view that um that the the surface of the panel itself would

01:55:27 would could be treated differently to um the core of something like a a sandwich panel or a composite panel um

01:55:38 um but

01:55:39 but the bca guidance note and the ct wct guidance was taking a less nuanced approach um which

01:55:49 which given the debates we'd had i still thought was um was useful um and

01:55:55 um and less confusing if you like yes and you've told us yourself that it was the bca technical guidance note 18 issue not from june 2014 that lib extended the limited combustibility requirement in 12.7 to all elements

01:56:09 requirement in 12.7 to all elements or key elements in the external wall construction yeah and particularly this question of whether it's addressing the surface or not yes now let's

01:56:18 now let's in the light of that answer i think we could take this next question quite quickly but let's let me show it to you anyway can we please look at page 21 of this statement three pages on paragraph 71 and

01:56:29 and here mr metcalf says brian martin was also

01:56:32 also present during this part of the meeting that's the bit of the meeting i've just read to you from the minute it was the consensus of the group the bca guidance note 18 extended in bold the requirement as described i

01:56:43 in bold the requirement as described i agreed with this consensus because as noted above bca technical guidance note 18 interpreted insulation products and filler materials to apply to all materials in the external wall this went

01:56:54 materials in the external wall this went significantly beyond the previous interpretation which was that clause 0.7 only principally applied to insulation materials the group consensus was that clause 12.7 was poorly written and if

01:57:05 clause 12.7 was poorly written and if intended to include all materials that that then that title was also misleading i do not recall brian martin's exact response to this now do you accept that um it

01:57:17 now do you accept that um it it's certainly a reading the all elements reading was was one that you'd never adopted in any answer to any question you'd ever been asked about 12.7 to date that's right nor was it an

01:57:28 that's right nor was it an interpretation of 12.7 that you'd ever given to harold or ledson that's right so why did you agree with it

01:57:35 it and the same reasons as i was happy with the bca guidance note addressing it is the the debate that's going on in this meeting

01:57:44 meeting and and the one two years previous um

01:57:50 was because of the nuanced nature of that paragraph um and the bca guidance note and the cwct sort of approach was to take a

01:58:03 of approach was to take a less

01:58:03 less nuanced

01:58:05 nuanced line um

01:58:08 line um which was a safer option and less open to interpretation so that that would be a good starting point for any design i think the issue

01:58:20 the issue probably the point here is that um

01:58:24 a lot of the certainly the people reading the cwct guidance probably wouldn't be thinking about the structure of the wall they'd be thinking about cladding systems which tend to sit in front

01:58:35 front of most structural frames so

01:58:39 so the issue we were concerned about in 2005 2006 which was that do we want this requirement to extend to the structure um wasn't

01:58:48 um wasn't wasn't relevant so i think in practice people would have read that and put

01:58:55 had a timber frame building with a material with a limited combustibility cladding system on the front of it well can we just go back to the minute of the meeting see that clg three zero is one nine four four zero top of page

01:59:07 is one nine four four zero top of page three there where you say the term you see it says that the term filler material was intended to be a catch-all as it was not possible to list all the materials that should be covered by the claws

01:59:20 yes

01:59:24 and you you accept i think that it was you who said that i don't know if i said those words but i would have that would have been the implication yes right

01:59:33 right but that had it been the true intention to catch all elements of the cladding system as materials of limited combustibility do you accept that there would have been no need to list all the materials that

01:59:44 no need to list all the materials that should be covered by the clause you would just say all elements of the external wall build up yes yes

01:59:52 yes it wasn't true was it that the phrase filler materials etc uh not including gaskets of course and and sealants had originally been

02:00:03 and and sealants had originally been intended to be a catch-all in the way now suggested i'm not sure if i used the term catch-all um i doubt it i it's not a phrase i've ever used frequently but i might have done but i

02:00:14 might have done but i the the intent as i think i've said uh

02:00:18 uh several times and i think you've acknowledged that i've not changed what i've been saying is is that it was to catch relevant things but we couldn't find a good way of referring to them um

02:00:30 them um so i may have said catch all but i don't remember i i doubt it i probably said something along those lines which is why it's been summarized in the minute that way

02:00:43 at this point when saying or agreeing that 12.7 was a catch-all

02:00:50 catch-all or whatever it was it certainly included external facings of external panels did you consider how that left diagram 40.

02:01:07 and i don't think so because because of the

02:01:10 the that's the difference between

02:01:15 the the kind of nuanced approach that we'd set in the approved document which was to treat the surface differently to subject

02:01:21 subject layers underneath and um and the point that was trying to make in this meeting um again the key point here is is think about the objective um which is really

02:01:32 about the objective um which is really what

02:01:35 we started out with the intent of trying to get people to do but if you look at the conclusion of the discussions that

02:01:42 that uh the combustibility clause was intended

02:01:47 intended as you can see is intended to include all materials in the external wall if that was right how did it leave diagram 40 i i

02:01:58 i i i think this is a minute that's summarizing a conversation and i probably looked at it at the minute and thought well that that's where the building control

02:02:09 that's where the building control alliance guidance note is and it's it's a good place to be we may have talked about diagram 40 in the meeting i don't remember but was it not obvious to you by this point if not

02:02:20 not obvious to you by this point if not before that if all materials in the external wall had to be materials of limited combustibility and that was the intention of

02:02:30 of the use of the word filler material etc then 12.6 and diagram 40 didn't work because neither class nor nor class b euro class were standards of limited combustibility they were lower standards

02:02:42 combustibility they were lower standards of reaction to fire yes that's something um which

02:02:49 which is is fairly clear as i say um

02:02:55 that's the approach i took was that they'd taken a less nuanced approach to the question but it delivered the objective um

02:03:03 um so i didn't see that as a problem but if it delivered the objective do you agree that as steve evans and john lewis each have told us in their evidence it created an anomaly because it meant

02:03:14 it created an anomaly because it meant that 12.6 and diagram 40 were basically a dead letter they were unnecessary um

02:03:25 to some extent of the diagram faulty addresses things other than vertical fire spread it also addresses fire spread between buildings but leave that on one side we know it does we know there are two

02:03:36 we know it does we know there are two elements to that and we may come back to that in due course but just in relation to fire spread over the surface of the walls rather than from one building to another which is the first element of b41 as you know

02:03:48 first element of b41 as you know um as we've discussed do you accept that if the intention was to uh require all materials in the external wall to be of limited

02:03:59 external wall to be of limited combustibility that meant the 12.6 and diagram 40 were

02:04:06 were meaningless if that was the intention yes

02:04:09 yes but that's what this me this note suggests it's the conclusion of the discussion that the combustibility clause is intended to include all materials in the external wall

02:04:20 materials in the external wall and if that's right that leaves diagram 40 and 12.6 as empty of content doesn't it

02:04:30 must do yeah i can say yes yes and did it occur to you that that that that would therefore mean that some people in the in the industry when faced with this anomaly might have a problem

02:04:41 might have a problem because they would say to themselves well i've got this class b panel here which diagram 40 says i can use but i'm also being told the 12.7

02:04:53 also being told the 12.7 is to is intended to include all materials in the external wall so what do i do

02:05:01 i think i looked upon that as as

02:05:05 as there might be situations where that occurred um and the designers would talk to the building control body and they find a solution that they both considered met the objective of the

02:05:16 considered met the objective of the regulation that's the point i'm trying to make is that you start with the objective

02:05:22 objective if you're coming up with something which um you're not sure about you step back you do your research and you think about the objectives of the regulations but what does did it occur to you that the following

02:05:33 to you that the following question might be posed by a building owner or person carrying out the work i'm i'm told by diagram 40 that i can comply

02:05:42 comply uh in relat with diet with b4 at least presumptively by using this panel here which has got class naught

02:05:52 that's what it says in the in the regulation in the in the approved document

02:05:57 document so why

02:05:58 so why do we have to have a conversation about it i think because if you've got a a panel which has got things inside it that

02:06:07 that um might affect its fire behavior that's that's the point we've been trying to make because i as we've discussed already diagram 40

02:06:18 diagram 40 uh

02:06:20 uh doesn't

02:06:21 doesn't distinguish when it comes to composite products

02:06:24 products between the surface and the and the core does it

02:06:27 does it i mean it just talks about surfaces it doesn't talk about cladding panels at all it talks about surfaces and and i um recognized that it would have been

02:06:38 um recognized that it would have been better if we'd made specific um comment about um

02:06:45 cladding panels whether they be sandwich panels or

02:06:49 panels or composite panels or any other cladding material that might have multiple layers in it at the time of drafting we thought the text we put in 12.7 did the job but even

02:07:02 text we put in 12.7 did the job but even just ignoring the core for the moment just ignore just focusing on the surface the surface didn't have to be of limited combustibility so what does a person carrying out the work to do he's being told by diagram 40 that

02:07:15 to do he's being told by diagram 40 that the surface needn't be of combust of limited combustibility but he's being told by

02:07:21 told by 12.7

02:07:23 12.7 that all elements all materials in the external wall must be of limited combustibility what does he do he

02:07:31 he takes responsibility as an engineer to think through the issues he discusses it with the building control body and fire safety engineer and anybody else that's involved in the design takes advice from the manufacture looks at the manufacturer's literature

02:07:43 manufacturer's literature um and sees that there are multiple different products and thinks himself why am i going to use this one that that's those are the kind of decisions that specifiers make what is the answer to the question

02:07:56 what is the answer to the question diagram 40 or 12.7 which trumps which the functional requirement and the objective no that's not answering my question that's because it's the wrong question

02:08:07 question that i mean that's that's the point that i think is is is fundamental to the way the building regulations are designed to work i understand they didn't work in that respect that's that's there's no

02:08:19 respect that's that's there's no disputing that but that's how

02:08:23 how i was taught to approach the the building regulations is when in doubt look at the functional requirement look at the objectives of the regulations and ask yourself am i doing something here which

02:08:35 am i doing something here which which is

02:08:36 which is meeting those objectives mr martin we've tried this last week you are answering the question by reference to the answer what i'm trying to do is to work towards the answer by using the guidance that

02:08:47 the answer by using the guidance that the secretary of state put in place to enable people to do so let's try that i would like to be able to achieve b4 that's the functional requirement i'd like to be able to achieve it now then

02:08:58 like to be able to achieve it now then i've got a panel which i'm told is class b

02:09:03 b but i'm also looking at what you now say about 12.7 can i use my class b panel or can't i as the root

02:09:11 the root the linear route to compliance

02:09:16 can i use it or can't i um i think i'd read that paragraph and say it depends is it a homogenous panel is it solid all the way through is it made of one material is it could you reasonably treat it as a surface

02:09:29 reasonably treat it as a surface or not i i can't give you a black and white answer to a question to that question

02:09:37 so in in answer to the simple question can i use it or kante there are at least five further questions that arise

02:09:48 further questions that arise um i've not counted them but that sounds that's the number of questions you posed does that not or did that not at the time tell you that there was something fundamentally

02:09:59 that there was something fundamentally wrong

02:10:00 wrong with approved document b in in and specifically 12.7 if class naught was to remain a standard for surface spread of flame

02:10:11 a standard for surface spread of flame that's not how i saw it at the time i saw it as this is that the nature of the building regulations and and the system that we're working in is that designers and building control bodies needed to make a judgment

02:10:23 bodies needed to make a judgment mr martin just help me with this you've been

02:10:26 been answering these questions on the assumption that it was your intention that the words filler material would extend to the core of an acm panel

02:10:39 although i think you accept that the way in which 12.7 was worded did not make that entirely clear is that right i think that's fair so yes right well would do you think it's

02:10:50 right well would do you think it's possible then that someone looking at adb

02:10:54 adb would say to himself i've got a class naught panel here i see what the words are in 12.7 they don't refer to a cladding panel or the

02:11:06 don't refer to a cladding panel or the core of a cladding panel because the two are inconsistent i'm entitled to assume that 12.7 does not apply to the core of a cloning panel

02:11:17 apply to the core of a cloning panel um then you're making a decision as a designer based on the words in the book rather than thinking about your design

02:11:28 your design but you can see that's a possibility i understand that so absolutely yes and

02:11:35 and from 2014

02:11:37 from 2014 building control alliance no had alerted all the building control bodies i thought

02:11:41 thought to

02:11:42 to to be more cautious about that point and i'd hoped that that was um effective which evidently it wasn't um

02:11:53 um but

02:11:54 but i think that's the fundamental point here is is that i would hope that i would have hoped that the designer thought about it in a way

02:12:03 way if it had been an insulated sandwich panel

02:12:07 panel then you would say well it's insulation it needs to be material limited combustibility um

02:12:13 um the main difference between the core of a

02:12:18 composite panel and the insulation in an insulated panel is the fact that there are air bubbles in it it's essentially the same stuff so

02:12:27 so if you stop to think about it you'd have to ask yourself why am i imposing a rule on the

02:12:32 on the foamed plastics but not the unfoamed plastics and i would hope anyone stopping to think about that would recognize that that makes no sense but in the end i think you accept that the only way around the

02:12:45 you accept that the only way around the construction that i've suggested to you is to go back to b41 and use that as your guide yes

02:12:54 yes all right thanks so much thank you yes

02:13:14 looking at the note the minute

02:13:19 in the second sentence it says at the top of your screen in addition there were people arguing that certain materials used in a facade build up such as expanded polystyrene in some instances were not there for their

02:13:30 instances were not there for their insulating properties but to pad out the facade and were therefore excluded from the claws

02:13:35 the claws who were

02:13:37 who were the people arguing that i i think i'm reading this as being i i probably explained the the background to the the claws and the fire at the edge i i think but i can't remember i see

02:13:52 was there any discussion at the meeting about

02:13:55 about the meaning of the word filler and how people generally understood it i don't remember being particularly challenged at that meeting people just acknowledged

02:14:07 at that meeting people just acknowledged understood that was that was the intention um i think the as i say the building control alliance guidance note had addressed this a couple of years

02:14:18 addressed this a couple of years beforehand um

02:14:26 i don't remember it being a particularly contentious component of this of this meeting

02:14:31 meeting um

02:14:33 um did you

02:14:34 did you explain that filler could be a can applied expanding foam like polly filler um i know that's something that uh i think um

02:14:44 think um has been suggested i said that i i wouldn't have said that it's an illogical thing to say um

02:14:52 um why is it illogical

02:14:58 the sort of can applied foam is something you'd use in small isolated spot i mean it's bad practice to use it generally anyway um but it would have been used in

02:15:09 but it would have been used in you wouldn't cover a whole building and can apply

02:15:13 can apply spray foam that would be um

02:15:16 um just a

02:15:18 just a thing you just wouldn't do um

02:15:20 um but it might fall into your list of things which you couldn't precisely identify potentially i suppose um i mean the the most likely use of something like that would probably be somewhere where you'd use it as a

02:15:31 somewhere where you'd use it as a sealant or a gasket or something in which case it specifically excludes that

02:15:39 so i i don't remember saying that i i don't believe i said that now i'd like to show you uh the department's opening statement to the inquiry in this module can we go please

02:15:50 inquiry in this module can we go please to clg 3036387

02:15:56 i'd like to go in that please to page 8 paragraph 23 line 2. now mr martin i can i ask you first did you have any input

02:16:08 input or into this document no i was specifically excluded from it right

02:16:14 right now if we go to paragraph 23 line two it says this the department's view is and this i should say is at the start of this module the

02:16:26 at the start of this module the department's view is that the meaning of the regulations and of adb read together with the regulations was sufficiently clear at the time of the refurbishment of grenfell tower such that no competent

02:16:37 of grenfell tower such that no competent professional acting in good faith should have misunderstood or misapplied the statutory requirements a competent professional would have taken appropriate advice in case of

02:16:48 appropriate advice in case of uncertainty not least where the issue involved fire safety

02:16:54 now at the time of the refurbishment of the grenfell tower project

02:16:59 project uh that was early 2012 to july 2016 right

02:17:04 right you may not know that but that's when it was

02:17:07 was so that's the period in respect of which the department is making the statement i've just read to you now given all the questions that i've been through with you over the past few days

02:17:18 through with you over the past few days on 12.7

02:17:24 do you accept that the statement that no competent professional acting in good faith should have misunderstood or misapplied the statutory requirements it is a fair and reasonable one

02:17:44 i think a competent professional acting in good faith yeah yeah i think i agree with the point the departments make you agree with it so is it your evidence that despite the lack of clarity the

02:17:56 that despite the lack of clarity the need for clarification and the misleading nature of both the title and the text of 12.7 you still say that no competent professional acting in

02:18:07 that no competent professional acting in good faith should have misunderstood or misapplied the statutory requirements is that your evidence

02:18:20 i think it is yeah i i think i i've tried to put myself in the place of somebody um selecting a cladding panel um a competent professional would be aware

02:18:32 a competent professional would be aware of the requirements of the building regulations would be aware that um external fire spread is a um an issue that they need to consider um i would have looked at the materials

02:18:43 um i would have looked at the materials i'm choosing if you looked at the um

02:18:48 um the options for acm you'd see that there are three materials available um

02:18:54 um and you would need to consciously decide to use

02:18:58 to use the one that has no fire retardant properties you've got the choice of polyethylene cord you'd have the choice of um the fire retardant type or or the or the

02:19:09 the fire retardant type or or the or the a2 type and so you'd need to consciously decide to use the least fire retardant material

02:19:15 material and

02:19:21 surely you would you would discuss that with

02:19:25 with um

02:19:26 um the building control body or the if you were going to do that you would discuss that with somebody you'd do some more research you'd see that there are more fire retardant materials available so you're consciously deciding to use

02:19:38 so you're consciously deciding to use the least fire retardant one

02:19:43 is it your evidence that no competent professional acting in a good faith would have understood the word filler as applying

02:19:53 applying uh to

02:19:55 uh to or as not as not applying to the core of an acm panel i think if they're a competent professional they're thinking about the objectives and so they wouldn't think well carefully no i'm asking you about

02:20:06 well carefully no i'm asking you about how 12.7 would be read by the competent professional are you saying are you saying that that the competent the competent professional

02:20:18 the competent professional acting in good faith would have understood the word filler material to have applied to the core of a polyethylene panel and that if they didn't then they fell

02:20:29 and that if they didn't then they fell below the standards of reasonable confident competence

02:20:34 is that what you're saying

02:20:42 i think i am um i i i recognize that the drafting would

02:20:50 potentially result in some doubt

02:20:56 and that's something i tried to address by working with cwct and and the building control alliance are you also saying [Music]

02:21:06 [Music] that no competent professional acting in good faith would have understood approved document b

02:21:13 b paragraph 12.7 as not applying to the external facings

02:21:21 of a rain screen panel

02:21:25 i think if they've stopped to consider it i i think they they that's right i think i think probably the problem is that no one did which goes back to the

02:21:36 which goes back to the the point i was trying to say about the way the industry had changed mr martin i what i understand you to be telling us and this follows from the questions that you that i asked you a moment ago is that

02:21:49 that i asked you a moment ago is that the competent professional would uh

02:21:54 would uh in the end have to be guided not by adb but by b4 one of the building regulations of the functional requirements because that would be his final

02:22:07 because that would be his final source of information is is that what you're saying

02:22:12 i think that's what a competent professional should be doing they should be thinking about the objectives in the way that i mean that's the approach that a designer should approach any designers you think through what the objectives of your design are

02:22:25 objectives of your design are and

02:22:26 and you shouldn't be working through and just

02:22:31 and just blindly following a set of rules

02:22:36 i i'm i'm not disputing that we could have drafted better text in 2005 and 2006 um at the time we thought we

02:22:46 we we had it right but i don't think we did um

02:22:51 um and

02:22:53 and i think i should have put recognized this as a more significant issue and tried to perhaps raise the alarm i'll raise awareness more directly um

02:23:07 but i think if a competent professional is asking themselves is this product suitable for this building

02:23:18 suitable for this building then those are the things i should be thinking about thank you

02:23:22 thank you i'm asking you a different question i'm asking you how you say a competent professional should have read

02:23:30 12.7 what's the answer to that question

02:23:36 i think they should have read it recognizing that it's

02:23:41 it's it's it's it's broad in its nature and and and to some extent imprecise and therefore i need to stop and think um i know um the evidence from

02:23:53 um i know um the evidence from the engineers at wintec is that's exactly what they did do so it would be negligent with it for a professional not to spot the 12.7 was imprecise

02:24:06 have i got that right

02:24:19 in the context if you've read all of the guidance i think that's i think that's that's an argument i'm not whether something's legally negligence or not is i'm probably not the right person to answer that question that's

02:24:30 person to answer that question that's that's fair enough but i think the answer to my question is i think you've answered my question but um

02:24:38 but um did it occur to you in march 2016 that what you said about the meaning and intended

02:24:43 intended ambit of 12.7 of approved document b was the first

02:24:47 the first official if i can put that put it that way

02:24:49 way of confirmation or interpretation of that guidance which had been offered the first time you'd come out in public

02:24:58 public and confirmed what 12.7 meant or was intended to mean

02:25:14 i'm not sure it's something we talked about at various points with different actors i suppose um

02:25:22 why were you not prepared to offer that interpretation to mr evans in june 2015 or even nick jenkins in the previous month february 2016. i think i'd said roughly the same thing to

02:25:33 think i'd said roughly the same thing to all of them in terms of the objective of the guidance and the and and the way it should be approached were you aware that there were attendees at

02:25:43 at this meeting the cwct fire group meeting in march 2016 to whom your interpretation of the meaning and scope of paragraph 12.7 came as a surprise

02:25:54 as a surprise no

02:25:58 my recollection of that meeting is this wasn't a particularly contentious point i wish it had been perhaps

02:26:06 i think rather like the previous meeting where i wasn't there at that section is

02:26:14 i'm not sure anyone in the room really recognized the significance of the of the the problem um

02:26:22 perhaps that's one of the reasons why i didn't

02:26:25 didn't register it is

02:26:29 we were all looking at this as this was a debate over the

02:26:34 the the guidance how best to apply it what guidance we could give to industry and how it could be improved in the future rather than a recognition that there was a serious risk

02:26:43 risk um

02:26:45 um that was a that was present at the time i i don't understand why none of us came to that conclusion well is that really right we know that mr jenkins had written to you with precisely those concerns

02:26:59 you with precisely those concerns precisely a month before and he was in the room he brought it to you and then he came along to the meeting so is it really right to say that

02:27:11 so is it really right to say that you're not sure that anyone in the room really recognized the significance of the problem that was

02:27:18 that was i didn't walk out of that room having felt that people were seriously concerned about this um i

02:27:30 and and there was you know what a white cross section of people there um

02:27:37 i don't i don't know i wish i could understand better

02:27:44 better why my understanding was what it was then and and why we didn't react

02:27:51 in the way that we clearly should have done i don't really know can we go back to your statement please page 50 paragraph 139 when you say there

02:28:02 when you say there i was content that the industry as a whole

02:28:05 whole considering the list of attendees at the cwc meeting were considering such an issue it had clearly been demonstrated that this was something that should be revised in the in the next full

02:28:16 revised in the in the next full technical review of adb

02:28:24 now dealing with the second part of that paragraph first please did you take the decision during the meeting [Music]

02:28:32 [Music] that the text should be revised in the next review of approved document d

02:28:38 um i think i'd come to that conclusion sometime before that that it it needed to be improved can you remember when i think this is a repeat of a question right

02:28:48 right probably post 2014 i imagine right

02:28:53 and what was it that had clearly demonstrated to you that the text needed to be revised you say it had clearly been demonstrated what was it that had

02:29:04 what was it that had clearly demonstrated to you that the text i guess it's a cumulative effect of the various conversations i've had as i say it's important to understand there are this is one of lots of different parts of the approved document which i

02:29:15 parts of the approved document which i would have thought this needs to be better or people aren't reading it the way we intended it and that's

02:29:22 that's now looking at the first part of that's a paragraph you say i was content that the industry as a whole considering the list of attendees at the cwct meeting were considering such an issue

02:29:32 issue do you mean that the attendees at this meeting represented a reliable reasonable cross-section of the industry

02:29:41 yes i i think i'm just recognizing the fact that it's a positive thing that the cladding industry are looking at these issues and trying again like so so many other trade bodies right across the industry um

02:29:53 right across the industry um they're looking at um the practice in their industry and seeing what they can do to improve it did they not also do that in july 2014

02:30:04 did they not also do that in july 2014 at the previous meeting yes yes

02:30:08 yes yes but after that we've seen you took no action in respect of the concerns raised there

02:30:12 there about the ambiguity and lack of clarity of 12.7 the question i have is why were those concerns not acted upon two years earlier but acted on

02:30:21 acted on now

02:30:22 now well i think i was thinking they were act that they were acted on if you like in the short term via the building control alliance guidance note um and that

02:30:34 um and that i would be acting upon those issues once we're allowed to start work on a brief document b

02:30:44 did it occur to you at any time that a far wider group than those 15 people present at this meeting

02:30:50 meeting in march 2016 ought to have been alerted now to the fact that you acting on behalf of the department had accepted

02:30:58 accepted that the guidance in 12.7 was misleading and unclear and should be revised i think that i mean that's the reason for having those conversations with trade bodies is that they said they they keep their membership informed and

02:31:11 they keep their membership informed and updated and and that's that was the way we communicated with the construction industry was working through the trade bodies so i i saw that as

02:31:22 so i i saw that as um

02:31:23 um a continuation of what had been started in in 2014

02:31:30 what consideration did you give to alerting others outside this particular group to the to your decision

02:31:38 decision to

02:31:39 to change 12.7 in light of the fact that it was misleading and needed to be revised

02:31:46 um i i saw the cwct were issuing more up more guidance to their members and so that has been the the way that information would be disseminated

02:31:58 disseminated i mean not the fact that i thought it ought to be revised um that was just my opinion my opinion holds no particular sway

02:32:08 but cwct were circulating um important information to their membership did you go back to the office and tell richard harrell or bob ledson that you had

02:32:20 harrell or bob ledson that you had undertaken to change this misleading clause in the next revision of adb as you say in your statement no but i had spent weeks trying to talk to them about the fact that the whole approved document needed to be revised

02:32:32 document needed to be revised and that would have been included in there

02:32:34 there and i would have been having similar conversations like this with a whole range of different stakeholders yeah but i want to focus on this one here you go to a specific meeting with a specific group and the specific problem arises

02:32:45 group and the specific problem arises and you've already had specific questions raised by members of the industry such as nick jenkins after this meeting

02:32:56 did you go back to bob ledson or richard harrell and tell them what had happened at the meeting and what you had promised to do not specifically no why is that because it was one of a wide range of different issues that needed to be

02:33:08 different issues that needed to be addressed in approved document b

02:33:13 but this one was particularly important and particularly sensitive to life safety issues wasn't it

02:33:23 it um i didn't see it at that time i saw it on the same level as all the other issues that were dealing with all of which

02:33:29 which had potential for life safety implications

02:33:36 there's potential and there's potential isn't there and at the time i didn't identify this as being i think i was wrong um but at that time i treated this like

02:33:48 like some of the other issues we were dealing with i suppose the cavity barrier issue um i

02:33:56 i i imagine had some impact on on the way the fire spread and grenfell as well as the way it's impacted on some other buildings

02:34:03 buildings now you say in paragraph 138 we can just get back please to the previous page that you undertook to change this misleading clause in the next revision of adb you can see that from

02:34:14 of adb you can see that from the bottom of the paragraph just before the quotation did you have authority to undertake to make that revision um no i'm not sure how precisely i phrased it at the time um

02:34:30 but i would certainly have said something along the lines we we need to look at it whether whether i am whether i said it in those exact terms i can't remember um it seems a bit direct um and

02:34:41 remember um it seems a bit direct um and um

02:34:43 um as a well no official has absolute authority to say that something will or won't change ultimately it's for the secretary of state but i think um i would have definitely said that i was planning to

02:34:55 was planning to change it right did you have any discussion with any other officials about the possibility of revising the text of adb on this point before this meeting

02:35:06 on this there would have been anyone to speak to about it well richard harrell for example um i spoke to him at length about amending the whole approved document um i didn't isolate this

02:35:17 document um i didn't isolate this particular paragraph now at this time when was the next revision of adb then scheduled for um

02:35:26 um that was kind of the problem really um well when was it what did you have in mind

02:35:32 mind the next revision then would that be so we would at that time at that time we were still on paper at least intending to

02:35:43 on paper at least intending to um

02:35:44 um meet the objective that we that the timetable that was from the um lack of house coroners that the the secretary of state's response to the lack of house coroner

02:35:55 response to the lack of house coroner which was 2016-17 so at some point in 2017 was how i i read that um but that really depended on

02:36:06 that um but that really depended on the ultimate scope of what we were going to be doing then um which was very uncertain at the time yes and indeed the discussion document was

02:36:18 discussion document was being discussed wasn't it

02:36:20 wasn't it constantly yes yes and in fact hadn't been submitted uh to ministers and wasn't in the end submitted until the 23rd of march 2017 precisely a year later

02:36:31 precisely a year later yes um yeah i can talk i imagine we're coming back to the to that issue i can remember my intention was to was to

02:36:42 remember my intention was to was to publish a discussion document as soon as the new government was in post um

02:36:47 um but um i wasn't allowed to do that

02:36:52 well at this stage this is march 2016 and

02:36:56 and the

02:36:57 the conservative majority government had been

02:37:00 been imposed since the previous [Music]

02:37:08 at this stage there was no prospect was there of a yet another government coming along

02:37:15 along this is

02:37:16 this is march 2016. um

02:37:20 um it's i can't remember the detail of the timeline but there was an awful lot of uncertainty um through that period um as i think um mr leadsome explained in in some detail you know and and that made

02:37:33 detail you know and and that made planning anything almost impossible at that time well that that

02:37:37 that that gives rise to the question why did you undertake to change this misleading clause

02:37:41 clause in a revision of adb whose timing was in your own mind essentially open-ended and uncertain

02:37:51 i think i believed it was still imminent um

02:37:55 um you can't believe it was imminent if you were still discussing discussing the scope

02:38:01 scope the one thing was definitely in the scope would have been the the clarification part of the project the level of work that we'd be doing in respect of technical policy was the bit

02:38:13 respect of technical policy was the bit that was most uncertain did you give any consideration to acting on the need for the revision more urgently

02:38:25 i'd say at that time i didn't recognize this as being more urgent than any other problems that that um that i was aware of but what led you to be satisfied that it needn't be dealt

02:38:37 be satisfied that it needn't be dealt with as a matter of urgency and was as you put it no more urgent than any other problem that you were aware of

02:38:50 i'm not sure um i think as i say there were a range of issues that needed work um i'd be talking to um

02:39:01 um a number of different um industry operators and other bodies about all sorts of problems with building regulations um

02:39:10 um i i

02:39:12 i i put this on the to-do list with the others um but all the others weren't all to do with life safety were they and we knew that no i was worried about other things as well i was worried about sound insulation um one of the other areas of responsibility

02:39:23 one of the other areas of responsibility i had was

02:39:25 i had was sound insulation and there was a long running concern we had with the way that sound sound transmission was measured

02:39:37 sound transmission was measured and that had the potential that you could

02:39:41 could pass a test for sound insulation which actually didn't deliver a very very unacceptable um outcome for the people living there and i was very concerned about that

02:39:53 i was very concerned about that um

02:39:54 um so that there were lots of things that we needed to progress yes but some people listening to this might wonder why you allowed something as obviously

02:40:05 you allowed something as obviously relevant to fire safety life safety difference between life and death to sink into the morass of other issues including things like sound insulation where

02:40:15 where which poses no threat to life

02:40:21 um because that was my job my job was to cover a wide range of different subject matters um and um

02:40:29 if i'd have recognized how severe the issue was with cladding and then i think i may have pushed harder and said we need to do more on this subject but at the time i didn't recognize it as such as severe

02:40:41 didn't recognize it as such as severe risk

02:40:42 risk now coming back to your statement we looked at this i think last week i think at least twice but it's paragraph 18 on page six final five lines up from the bottom of that paragraph

02:40:53 that paragraph you say

02:40:55 you say as such one of the roles of the technical policy officials within the department can involve working with trade bodies insurers building controlled bodies etc to find interim solutions to issues with the re with the regulations until such time as a formal

02:41:07 regulations until such time as a formal review of the part of the regulations or approved document is completed uh now uh

02:41:16 uh now uh the conclusion that you arrived at the march meeting march 16 meeting that the guidance in 12.7 was misleading poorly worded and open to interpretation did you give any thought to putting in place any interim measure

02:41:27 any interim measure uh or interim solutions such as you referred to here um until such time as the formal review could take place i think the interim solution i was thinking there was the building control alliance guidance note

02:41:38 building control alliance guidance note which had been in place since 2014 um and the guidance that cwct were producing that that's that's the kind of thing that i'm referring to in this paragraph but we covered this last week

02:41:49 paragraph but we covered this last week why not therefore simply put something on your website to say that the bca guidance technical note guidance 18 option one should be read as

02:42:01 the route to linear compliance um i didn't think of it at the time um

02:42:08 it could have been an option i i i i honestly thought that the the bca guidance note would have um a lot of effect

02:42:23 did you give any consideration at or after the meeting to the possibility of publishing an faq to clarify the guidance in paragraph 12.7 an idea which you can see from the minute of the second of july 2014 cwct meeting had

02:42:36 second of july 2014 cwct meeting had been proposed

02:42:43 i'm not sure i did consider it at the time it would have been incredibly difficult to get the thing to get it through um the system we were struggling to get any as i say

02:42:55 struggling to get any as i say any publication on the department's website requires um some kind of political clearance um and we were struggling to get anything through the system at the time well i

02:43:06 through the system at the time well i wonder i'm not sure if i thought about specifically but that that right that might have been what put me off it um is things were very difficult at the time right

02:43:18 okay but let's look at some examples just in case clg one six zeros three please

02:43:24 please what i'm showing you here is an mhclg publication approved document b frequently asked questions and this is dated as you can see from the bottom right hand part of your screen march 2016. so the

02:43:35 part of your screen march 2016. so the same month as the cwct meeting

02:43:40 and if we look at page three we can see that in that month page three

02:43:47 the the department published faqs on a range of subjects from

02:43:53 from fire precautions in self-catering holiday homes down to

02:43:58 down to access and facilities for the fire service you see that yes yes

02:44:03 yes yes uh faqs here on b1 b3

02:44:06 b3 and b5 no faqs here on any aspect of b4

02:44:13 now standing back from the detail of this document how were matters which are addressed in documents like this

02:44:20 this selected for inclusion um

02:44:23 um quite a lot of the faqs you see here we first produced when the approved document was published um and they were to some extent sort of informative

02:44:36 extent sort of informative notes um

02:44:38 notes um i think the one on fire doors was in response to a request from the building control alliance for some help um

02:44:48 certainly i'd need to double check but most of these are considerably older than the date that's on the front cover it must have been reformatted at some point well reformatted but presumably somebody looked at it again and thought these

02:45:00 looked at it again and thought these were these were questions still worth asking

02:45:03 asking or referring to as a as asked frequently i i can't remember but certainly um these are

02:45:12 these are all

02:45:14 all they would have been around for some time

02:45:16 time these particular faqs well how often were you asked to look at the faqs and update them not very regularly um it wasn't a thing that you did periodically it was more a case of

02:45:28 periodically it was more a case of if

02:45:29 if you identified a

02:45:33 a thing where an faq might be helpful um

02:45:38 um then you'd work your way through the system and and try and um produce one and

02:45:45 and which would take some time because of the process you'd need to work through and but there wasn't a routine it wasn't a routine thing right let's look at some examples in this document

02:45:58 page four

02:46:01 this deals with a bca technical guidance note fire doors can i use a 30 minute rated fire door without intubation seals where adb asks for a 20 minute fire door

02:46:14 adb asks for a 20 minute fire door and you can see that there's an answer this is something you should check with building control body many do accept this arrangement where they're satisfied that it will provide a sufficient level of protection to escape routes within dwellings

02:46:24 dwellings and then there's a reference to technical guidance note nine and then if you go on to um page seven last three paragraphs there there's clarification of an existing provision

02:46:40 and the question is should a fire alarm be provided throughout a block of flats you see that yes and the guidance in b1 section 1 of the approved document fire alarm and fire detection systems is not intended to be applied to the

02:46:52 is not intended to be applied to the common parts of blocks of flats and does not include a provision to interconnect installations in separate flats so there's

02:46:58 there's a clear statement of the intention underlying a part of the approved document yes yes page eight in the in the middle section of the page again a clarification of the

02:47:10 of the page again a clarification of the intention of an existing provision why do we say one bed and not one person for care homes and then there's an answer para 3.49 in volume 2 of adb states bedrooms should

02:47:21 volume 2 of adb states bedrooms should not contain more than one bed this includes a double bed this is for a design without sprinklers relying on fire resistant construction to protect occupants that are remote from the seat of fire

02:47:34 of fire and then

02:47:37 it goes on uh in the last paragraph there it is not the intention of the approved document to separate couples who happen to live in a care home by insisting that they sleep in separate beds

02:47:49 sleep in separate beds and again it's guidance isn't about isn't it here about the underlying intention behind the language in approved document be yes to say most of these were drafted at the time we published the approved document yes now why could paragraphs

02:48:02 document yes now why could paragraphs 12.6 and 12.7 particularly 12.7 not have been the subject of an faq um in the march edition of this document explaining or

02:48:13 of this document explaining or clarifying 12.7 in the same way that the department had seen fit to do for fire alarms lift doors and beds in care homes um well let's say this most of these if not all of them were

02:48:25 most of these if not all of them were drafted several years before um the date that's on the front cover um it would have been an option um and there was no specific policy to say that we couldn't do that

02:48:37 that we couldn't do that um

02:48:38 um at the time it didn't occur to me as being something that was necessary um it would have been a challenge because of the political issues at the time

02:48:49 of the political issues at the time but it's not something that i pursued and and

02:48:52 and and it's definitely an option i should have considered i don't remember thinking about it at the time i think in my mind at the time the industry guidance was doing the job right why didn't you think about it at

02:49:03 right why didn't you think about it at the time given that it was specifically spelt out on the face of the fourth of the second of july 2014 cwct minute

02:49:20 i think at that time i thought that might be an option um but

02:49:24 but um my recollection is that is that that um

02:49:30 um someone was going to propose a draft and so

02:49:34 and so um i waited for that in the meantime the building control alliance guidance note was produced which i thought was probably more effective

02:49:46 we will come to see what happens with the building control alliance note and nhbc particularly shortly but was your decision that the revision of the clause that you

02:49:57 that the revision of the clause that you described as misleading or accepted was misleading could wait until the next review of the approved document a matter on which you or any other official consulted brac

02:50:09 or any other official consulted brac no why not um

02:50:19 the majority of the work we did with brac were where we were um talking to brac brack about proposed changes to the regulations or proposed changes to the guidance

02:50:30 changes to the guidance and so

02:50:31 and so that would have been something we'd have discussed with um brac or a brac working party once we'd

02:50:40 started work on the the project that would have been the the next edition of a proof document b was your decision that the revision of the clause you described or accepted as misleading

02:50:51 misleading could wait till the next review of the approved document a decision that you cleared with any senior official in the department at the time no why not um at the time i considered it to be one of a range of

02:51:03 i considered it to be one of a range of things that i needed to do we were working hard to try and start the next part b review um project in into in full um

02:51:14 um and

02:51:15 and there were numerous aspects of the approved document that needed work um and at that time i didn't recognize this one as being

02:51:23 being more of a problem than any other does that explain why this was never raised with any minister at the time and why there was no ministerial submission which put options on this decision could

02:51:34 which put options on this decision could it wait should it be dealt with now before any minister at any time i think if i'd recognized the severity of the risk

02:51:45 the severity of the risk i would have escalated it through

02:51:49 through mr harrell and mr ledson and ultimately that would have worked its way up probably at least to direct a general level if they all agreed this was something

02:52:00 if they all agreed this was something that we needed to act on then the next stop would have been advice to ministers to say

02:52:05 to say um

02:52:06 um we're we're concerned about this issue there are a number of things we could do um

02:52:11 um i i

02:52:12 i i because i didn't recognize it as being such a significant issue those other steps couldn't happen

02:52:22 so i think we can take it that

02:52:26 you didn't after march 16 make any senior official or minister aware that you had accepted that an important section of the statutory guidance in place for almost a decade was misleading

02:52:38 place for almost a decade was misleading and had been the subject of a difference across the industry for some time not specifically i certainly expressed a lot of frustrations that an approved document which was now um

02:52:50 um well past the point at which it ought to have been reviewed and still needed to be reviewed but i didn't focus on this particular issue

02:53:04 did anybody at the meeting ask you well when is this next revision of approved document going to be

02:53:15 if they did i don't remember

02:53:18 did you indicate to anybody the meeting when this next revision of approved document b was likely to be

02:53:29 i can't be sure i said that but i i certainly at that time i i would have been talking to various industry stakeholders and saying you know it's something that we're hoping to

02:53:40 know it's something that we're hoping to get started soon um

02:53:43 um and i'd have needed to be cautious um it's not appropriate for an official to express frustration about the fact that the department or the government's um

02:53:55 slowing things down that i think should be buried up but um i i would have said something long as you know we're we're working on developing a plan that would be the kind of thing i would have had to say to

02:54:06 of thing i would have had to say to stakeholders so that they would have known that there was something in the pipeline but there wouldn't have been a fixed date can we go then to cev 708

02:54:17 708 [Music]

02:54:22 now this is a board meeting of cwct on the 6th of april 2016. so some three weeks after the 17th of march 2016 fire group meeting minute uh

02:54:34 march 2016 fire group meeting minute uh and you can see who was present there particularly david metcalf and brenda aptid at the bottom of the list uh with apologies from various others

02:54:45 uh with apologies from various others you see that yes and if you go to page two please

02:54:54 uh this is within paragraph five four paragraphs done from the top of the page

02:54:59 page it says this there are still concerns on the issue of fire and these will be addressed in the afternoon technical group meeting brian martin dclg who wrote most of the government document and sits on the cwct fired group has

02:55:12 and sits on the cwct fired group has indicated that there may be consultation on a revised approved document starting soon

02:55:18 soon had you told the cwct that there would be a consultation on a revised approved document starting soon

02:55:27 i can't remember exactly what i said i would have as i just said i would have intimated that that we were planning to start work and that there would be a consultation um i guess it depends on your definition of

02:55:38 i guess it depends on your definition of soon

02:55:39 soon well

02:55:42 the first question is did you say what is recorded here as you you saying that it would start soon i don't know i mean if you did say it it was quite untrue wasn't it there was no

02:55:53 there was no revised document big document to consult on

02:56:01 i would have said there was a consultation due at some point but i i don't know what i said i doubt i i doubt i would have said soon as in in

02:56:12 i doubt i would have said soon as in in the next couple of months it would have been something that was in the pipeline um

02:56:17 um i guess i would have summarized something and someone summarizing what i said in this note so exactly what i said i don't know for sure think you would accept that the discussion document to agree the scope

02:56:28 discussion document to agree the scope of any future consultation haven't even haven't

02:56:31 haven't even been finalized at this stage um i i agree yes my plan was to publish the thing um immediately that the new government came in um

02:56:42 in um but that was um i wasn't allowed to do that um and so the project was um the timetable was drifting

02:56:54 the timetable was drifting did you give any consideration to investigating the potential impact of having left in place for almost a decade guidance on external fire spread within

02:57:07 guidance on external fire spread within a within approved document b which by 2016 you could come to accept was misleading unclear and open to interpretation

02:57:18 no i don't think i did consider that why is that

02:57:26 i say i don't think i recognize it as being any different to a range of different points in the approved document where people were taking different approaches or other practices that i i'd i felt we needed to look at

02:57:37 that i i'd i felt we needed to look at um

02:57:41 so i didn't recognize it that would have been an unusual thing to do um

02:57:48 um the the nature of the work we did is that we focused on policy projects um

02:57:54 um if you like starting with uh um we're now reviewing this part of the building regulations we start by deciding you know working out what the

02:58:05 deciding you know working out what the scope of that project would be which would be

02:58:07 would be um a combination of asking the industry where the issues are um and other groups um and and looking at the political situation and then we

02:58:18 and then we turn the handle on the machine from there um

02:58:22 there um so to do something like that and go back and look and say you know is there an issue in the existing stock um would be unusual um i think in hindsight if i'd recognized

02:58:34 hindsight if i'd recognized how

02:58:36 how serious this was that would have been a thing we could have done

02:58:41 have done um

02:58:44 again i would have needed to go through the process of raising it escalating it through the department trying to convince um various

02:58:53 various um

02:58:54 um people in the department and and eventually ministers that the potential was such that um it was worth investing some time and resources in in investigating that

02:59:05 in in investigating that um

02:59:09 perhaps the the environment we're working in at the time put me off doing something like that i'm not sure what was going through my head i don't remember

02:59:15 remember seeing this as being a a bigger issue than any of the others we were thinking about well i wonder mr chairman i've got one document that'll take about three minutes to cover but it is closely relevant to that last answer all right

02:59:27 relevant to that last answer all right well

02:59:28 well you you continue for the moment if that's all right thank you um

02:59:32 um let's go back from the 6th of april 2016 just a little under a week to the 29th of march 2016. clg one triple zero eight one one one

02:59:48 um now this isn't terribly clear we can if we can expand this so that it's legible you see that at the bottom of page one uh in the chain an email dated the 29th

03:00:01 uh in the chain an email dated the 29th of march 2016 from martin shipp of the bre to you david crowder and kira holland about a fire at in ajman in dubai

03:00:15 about a fire at in ajman in dubai you see yes and the first thing he does thank you very much the first thing he does is to give you the bbc news uh website um article and then it says this the the

03:00:28 um article and then it says this the the fire

03:00:29 fire on the side the subject of the email is ajman fire huge blaze hits uae residential towers and then he goes on the fire strike one tower in ajman emirate north of dubai before spreading to an

03:00:41 north of dubai before spreading to an adjacent block my emphasis is this a first

03:00:45 first um now he sends his email email at 908. if you look above that at 936 you respond to martin ship great fire of london question mark moving up the chain to the next email mr

03:00:57 moving up the chain to the next email mr ship responds to you a few minutes later oh yes i'd forgotten about the tower blocks in

03:01:01 blocks in 1666 london i'm not suggesting this is a world first of fire spread between buildings just occupied modern tower blocks and you reply at 9 43

03:01:12 and you reply at 9 43 only kidding smiley face yes it's a first so far as i'm aware looks like it's the same stuff as dubai now when you say the same stuff as dubai did you mean aluminium composite material with a polyethylene core i

03:01:24 material with a polyethylene core i think so yes did that fire or your correspondence about it with mr ship and dr crowder give you any pause for thought about the use of this material here in the uk

03:01:48 not that i remember did it not um

03:01:53 um trigger in your mind the nick jenkins correspondence

03:02:00 from the previous month

03:02:06 it's the same stuff being installed on high-rise buildings in london and around the country

03:02:22 i can't really remember what i was thinking at the time

03:02:26 can you explain the disconnect between your thinking at the time uh uh

03:02:33 uh uh 12 days after the cwct meeting and yet another uae fire featuring yet again acm with a pe corps

03:02:47 i think a part of me was thinking that this seems to be a an issue which is peculiar to that that part of the world because they've had so many fires but what about peculiar to the use of

03:02:58 but what about peculiar to the use of aluminium composite material with a polyethylene call the presence of which you'd been told by mr jenkins was widespread in the uk built environment

03:03:17 so

03:03:28 i'm not sure i made the connection and i don't know why all right that's a good point mr millet thank you mr chairman yes well i think it's time we all had a break mr martin we'll

03:03:38 we'll stop there we'll resume please at five past two

03:03:42 past two all right

03:03:43 all right and as before please don't talk to anyone about your evidence while you're out of the room yes sir thank you very much

03:03:54 thank you fine foster

03:04:10 you