The innocent victims and survivors of the Grenfell Tower are becoming sadly used to hearing of how they were let down, calamitously by those supposed to keep them safe,

Profits put before safety, cladding warnings ignored, Manufacturer’s doctored testing and decades of failure by the government and  parts of the construction industry led directly to the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire disaster that killed 72 people, according to a damning final 1700-page report of a public enquiry.

The fire started in a fridge in a fourth floor kitchen of the recently refurbished high-rise apartment block with new cladding  in West London, before spreading through the external cladding up the building. The report found successive governments failed to properly regulate the construction industry.

Inquiry chair Sir Martin Moore- Bick accused the housing department of repeatedly failing over many years to heed warnings over the serious risks to life posed by some cladding systems. The report said  the “complacent” and “poorly run” department had presided over a woefully deficient regulatory regime and under the former Tory government  of David Cameron had prioritised deregulation over safety.  “Even matters affecting the safety of life were ignored, delayed or disregarded” the report said.

The housing department allowed unscrupulous manufacturers of products used on the outside of high-rise buildings to engage  in “deliberate and sustained strategies  to manipulate the testing process, misrepresent the data and mislead  the market”. The report especially named the US company  Arconic, which supplied the main cladding, as well as UK-based Celotex and Ireland-based Kingspan, which provided fire insulation for the building.

Sir Keir Starmer, prime minister, said the government would write to all companies involved to stop them from receiving any public sector contracts, and was looking into criminal sanctions against businesses that fail to replace dangerous cladding in other buildings fast enough. Yesterday’s report accused Arconic of pursuing “ a deliberate strategy to continue selling  the cladding material in the UK-based on a statement about its fire performance  it knew to be false”. Coltex, which manufactured a “combustible” foam  insulation used at Grenfell embarked on a dishonest scheme to mislead its customers and the wider market on the safety of its product. Kingspan provided misleading information on the fire safety of its insulation products, according to the report. And “cynically exploited the industry’s lack of knowledge about them.

Arconic said it “acknowledged its role as one of the material suppliers involved in the refurbishment of Grenfell”, Celotex said it had “ reviewed and improved process controls” since the fire “ to meet industry best practice”, Kingspan said it “ long acknowledged the wholly  unacceptable historical failings.. in part of our UK insulation business”  but added these were “ not found to be causative of the tragedy. How could all these there companies survive when there is clearly blood in their hands of killing 72 innocent poor victims.

 The inquiry also laid blame for the disaster at the local level, The Royal Borough of Kensington  and Chelsea showed persistent indifference to fire safety. The report also said residents of Grenfell Tower regarded the Tenant Management Organisation  as an uncaring and bullying overlord that belittled and marginalised them”. The London Fire Brigade  was also criticised for “chronic lack of effective management”.

Last week’s fire at a block in Dagenham, where work was under way to remove cladding. Remediation work has yet to start  on half of the 4, 630 residential buildings over 11m high identified with unsafe cladding.  Many leasehold flat owners  are saying that they continue to face “ life-changing costs” from safety work, the government should look again at 2022 legislation that was supposed to protect them, and which also excluded leaseholders  in a low-rise blocks below 11m.

The report call for sweeping change to practices and culture across the construction industry, as well as setting out a list of specific recommendations including creation of a new regulator “ to oversee all aspects of the construction industry”

Other recommendations include making all aspects of fire Safety the responsibility of a single government department, as well as introducing a licensing scheme for contractors and mandatory fire safety strategies for high risk buildings.

Grenfell United, which speaks for some survivors and the bereaved, said “justice has not been delivered”.