The homes of rich people in Kensington could be seized for Grenfell Tower residents made homeless by fire, Jeremy Corbyn said today.

Mr Corbyn said the London borough was a ‘tale of two cities’ between a wealthy south and a poor north.

He suggested that 'requisitioning' vacant properties would be a solution to the shortage of available accommodation for those displaced.

‘Properties must be found – requisitioned if necessary – in order to make sure that residents do get rehoused locally,' Mr Corbyn told a meeting of MPs.

‘How is it acceptable that in London you have luxury buildings and luxury flats kept empty as land banking for that future while homeless people look for somewhere to live?'

The call came as Theresa May announced a full public inquiry into the deadly Grenfell Tower blaze.

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Jeremy Corbyn comforted a local resident at St Clement's Church after he visited the scene

Amid fears that the death toll could rise above 100, the PM spoke to firefighters and surveyed the charred remains of the Grenfell building

The Labour leader met staff and volunteers who have provided shelter for those affected by the deadly inferno

Labour MP for Tottenham MP David Lammy backed the call for properties to be seized

The Prime Minister insisted the government would get answers as she was rebuked for limiting her visit to police and firefighters sifting through the wreckage.

By contrast Mr Corbyn met survivors an hour later.

With fears the death toll could reach 100, Mrs May said the country 'owed it to the families' to uncover the truth about what happened.

Ministers are facing mounting demands to explain why they did not do more to avert the horror.

PM'S RATINGS SLUMP AS CORBYN SURGES The latest YouGov research underlines the stark turnaround in the leaders' fortunes Theresa May personal ratings have plummeted while Jeremy Corbyn's popularity has surged since the election, according to a poll. The Prime Minister's net favourability score has sunk from +10 in April to -34 this week. In a stark reversal of fortunes, Mrs May's rating is now at the level the Labour leader was on in November last year. The latest YouGov research show Mr Corbyn has secured his highest score to date after his popularity ratings surged from -42 in late April to +0. Advertisement

A series of blunders are being blamed for the disaster, with speculation that cladding installed last year helped the blaze spread, and residents claiming there were no working fire alarms and no sprinklers.

Mrs May's chief of staff Gavin Barwell, who was housing minister until he lost his Commons seat last week, promised to respond to a major coroner's report which demanded safety improvements following a previous fatal blaze.

But little progress appears to have been made on an overhaul of building fire safety regulations.

It has also emerged that another former housing minister, Brandon Lewis, had suggested it was not the Government's 'responsibility' to ensure buildings have sprinklers - although the Home Office tonight insisted he was referring only to industrial warehouses.

As Chancellor Philip Hammond cancelled his keynote Mansion House speech in the wake of the tragedy, Mrs May said today: 'We need to know what happened, we need to know an explanation.

'We owe that to the families, to the people who have lost loved ones and the homes in which they lived.

'That is why I am ordering a full public inquiry so that we can get to the answers, we can find out exactly what happened.'

Mrs May was shown around the scene of the tragedy as emergency services were still picking through the wreckage

Mrs May carried out her visit in private without being accompanied by journalists

Some Twitter users compared Mrs May's visit to that of President George Bush to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina - when he was criticised for avoiding victims

The Prime Minister added: 'When I went to the scene and spoke to the emergency services, they told me that the way this fire had spread and took hold of the building was rapid, it was ferocious, it was unexpected.

'So it is right that, in addition to the immediate fire report that will be produced and any potential police investigation, that we do have a full public inquiry to get to the bottom of this.

'People deserve answers. The inquiry will give them.'

Asked why she had not met local residents, Mrs May replied: 'Well, I visited the scene of this terrible fire this morning.

Mr Corbyn met the Bishop of Kensington Graham Tomlin outside St Clementís Church as he thanked the community for rallying round in the aftermath of the fire

The Labour leader offered a hug to councillor Mushtaq Lasharie who represents a community close to the scene of the fire

Mr Corbyn met survivors and families of those cause up in the tragedy during his visit this afternoon

The Labour leader travelled to the scene with shadow housing minister John Healey and the newly elected Labour MP for Kensington Emma Dent-Coad

A TALE OF NORTH AND SOUTH: THE DEEPLY DIVIDED BOROUGH OF KENSINGTON The 2015 index of deprivation revealed the gulf in wealth between the north and south of Kensington. The dark red and orange areas are among the poorest wards in Britain Kensington is among the most deeply divided parts of Britain. Overall, the borough has the highest average salary of any patch in the country at almost £100,000. But the headline figure hides that several wards in the borough are among the most deprived. The 2015 Index of Deprivation ranker 11 out of the borough's 103 neighbourhoods among the 10 per cent of Britain's poorest. The child poverty rate in the borough runs at 28 per cent and almost one in five residents has a low paid job - more than the rest of London as a whole. In March 2015 it also had the fourth fastest rising rate of households in temporary accommodation. Despite the crushing poverty in the north of the borough, the leafy southern end counts the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Kylie Minogue, Nigella Lawson and Jeremy Paxman among its residents. Advertisement

'I wanted a briefing from the emergency services.

'They've been working tirelessly in horrific conditions and I have been overwhelmed by their professionalism and their bravery.

'I heard stories of firefighters running into the building being protected from the falling debris by police officers using their riot shields.

'And we thank all our emergency services for the incredible work that they have done.'

Speaking to locals in a walkabout of the area, the Labour leader said the 'truth has got to come out'.

Addressing a resident who said the investigation must not be kicked onto the long grass, Mr Corbyn said: 'I will speak up for you because we have got to get to the bottom of this.

'The truth has got to come out and it will.'

MPs gathered in Westminster Hall later for an ad-hoc sessions of questions to Fire Minister Nick Hurd about the blaze.

Normally there would be a ministerial statement in the Commons on a disaster of this scale, but as parliament has not officially resumed after the election yet that is not possible.

Mr Hurd described it as a 'national tragedy' and said a full search of the tower block was 'unlikely to be feasible for some time'.

Mr Corbyn told the MPs that hundreds of thousands of people living in tower blocks will be 'frightened, traumatised and very, very worried' following the fire.

He branded Kensington & Chelsea a 'tale of two cities' with poverty next to huge wealth - and suggested that housing should be 'requisitioned' to provide homes for those displaced by the fire.

The Labour leader said he 'feels very angry' that so many people have lost their lives in a tower block where the fire precautions did not work. He welcomed the Government's decision to establish a public inquiry but insisted it must be speedy and allow residents to fully take part, with legal aid provided if needed.

The tragedy means Mrs May is again scrambling to deal with a major crisis, after the election campaign was overshadowed by two terrorist attacks.

MPs gathered in Westminster Hall this afternoon for an ad-hoc sessions of questions to Fire Minister Nick Hurd about the blaze

At least twelve people are feared to have died in the blaze at Grenfell Tower overnight

Fire crews are still trying to establish how many casualties there are from the deadly fire

Critics are demanding answers on why expert advice that sprinklers should be made compulsory in tall buildings has not been followed. It is thought 4,000 tower blocks across the country do not have sprinkler systems.

He said 'searching questions' need to be asked about what happened at the west London tower block, adding: 'If you deny local authorities the funding they need, then there is a price that's paid.'

Mr Corbyn said calls for sprinklers to be installed in high-rise buildings after a fatal fire at Lakanal House in south London in 2009 had not been heeded.

'I think there needs to be some very searching questions asked as quickly as possible in the aftermath of this fire,' he added.

Harriet Harman, the Labour MP for Camberwell and Peckham which covers Lakanal House, also questioned the impact of austerity on the safety of housing.

Mr Corbyn, pictured at the scene today, told residents 'the truth has got to come out' as he went on a walkabout of the area around the tower block in west London today

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also visited the scene of the inferno this morning

Jeremy Corbyn (pictured today speaking about the disaster in Westminster Hall) said the London borough was a ‘tale of two cities’ between a wealthy south and a rich north

She told BBC Radio 4's World At One: 'Councils want to fit sprinklers in their tower blocks, but it comes down to money.

'The Government has been cutting the money to councils. If you cut money to councils you can't put in sprinklers.

'If you cut money to councils you can't supervise contractors properly.

'I'm afraid the Government has got to say we have responsibility overall in public buildings to make sure of the safety of these tenants and we can't penny-pinch where it will cost lives.'

But Downing Street insisted that many improvements had been made following the Lakanal House fire, which killed six people.

In this image taken by eyewitness Gurbuz Binici, a huge fire engulfs the 27-storey Grenfell Tower in Latimer Road, White City

Tory former minister and ex-firefighter Mike Penning admitted that people had been 'calling, I think probably rightly, for sprinklers to be installed for many, many years under many different governments'.

'At the end of the day, what we have got to check is that the existing regulations have been adhered to,' he said,

He dismissed the suggestion that the squeeze on local authority funding could have been an issue. The building - in a Tory-run borough with sharp contrasts between very wealthy and deprived areas - is managed by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO).

Mr Penning said: 'I don't think cuts come into consideration when you have residents that have been saying 'we are frightened, we are worried'.'

The fire resulted in the 'cladding and windows clearly burning', suggesting that the external cladding may have been a factor, Mr Penning said.

Many residents who gathered outside the smouldering ruins of the building said the fire had been caused by a faulty fridge in one of the flats, but the fire service told MailOnline it could not confirm the reports at this stage

'I have never seen a tower block fire move so fast in that sort of way, and from a very low vantage point as well. So the source of the fire will be very interesting when the investigators do that and what was the cause of the initial fire, whether it was electrical or, sadly, even criminal activity,' he added.

The All-Party Parliamentary Fire and Rescue Group has been demanding changes to building regulations on fire safety since 2013.

Ronnie King, a former fire chief in Wales who is an adviser to the All-Party Group, told MailOnline that it issued a series of warnings that were not heeded.

Mr King said the type of cladding installed on Grenfell Tower did not appear to have been resistant to the fire spreading.

That was one of the issues with the regulations that were raised by the APPG with three successive ministers from 2013, he said.

'The building regulations relating to the fire safety were last reviewed in 2006,' Mr King said.

Last year, when Mr Barwell was housing minister, the APPG 'pressed him for a review of the building regulations, stressing of course Lakanal House'.

'He said he was still looking at it,' Mr King said.

Mr Barwell told the Commons in October last year: 'We have not set out any formal plans to review the building regulations as a whole, but we have publicly committed ourselves to reviewing part B following the Lakanal House fire.'

But he did not give any date of when the review might start or how it would be conducted.

Mr King said: 'The APPG has sought a review since the Lakanal House fire. In our view that was sufficient evidence that things are not right and things need to change.'

Mr King pointed out that the building had been refurbished in 2016, at which point it should have been compliant with the regulations in force.

Former housing ministers Gavin Barwell and Brandon Lewis are facing scrutiny over claims they failed to act over fire safety warnings on high rise blocks

He said: 'I think that there are obvious questions to be asked...

'If they updated the regulations and this change had been part of the update ... I think the fire would not have spread up the outside of the building.

'I would think if this had been done in this case and it had been refurbished externally it might not have happened.'

Mr King raised questions about whether Grenfell Tower had fire suppression measures such as sprinklers.

He said there were 4,000 tower blocks that did not have sprinkler systems around the country, and that needed to be tackled urgently.

In 2013, a coroner's report into the Lakanal House fire ruled that that all high-rise building should be retro-fitted with sprinklers.

They also asked whether residents in tower blocks should be advised to 'stay put' or 'get out and stay out' in the case of a fire.

MPs gathered in Westminster Hall this afternoon for an ad-hoc sessions of questions to Fire Minister Nick Hurd about the blaze

Asked about the issue in February 2014, Mr Barwell's predecessor as Housing Minister, Brandon Lewis, said: 'We believe that it is the responsibility of the fire industry, rather than the Government, to market fire sprinkler systems effectively and to encourage their wider installation.'

Mr Lewis – who was promoted by the Prime Minister at the weekend and now attends Cabinet – said regulations should be changed only as a 'last resort'.

Last night fire minister Nick Hurd said emergency checks are to be carried out on tower blocks going through the same process of refurbishment as the Grenfell building destroyed in yesterday's blaze.

Last night members of the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety said ministers had been warned that building regulations were out of date.

Its secretary, Labour MP and former fireman Jim Fitzpatrick, told LBC: 'We've been pressing for fire sprinkler systems in buildings where we think it's appropriate... and government has been resisting that for some time.' Referring to the coroner's report, he added: 'You'd have to ask them why they've sat on it for four years.'

Mrs May summoned a meeting of the government's Civil Contingencies Secretariat today to co-ordinate the response to the Grenfell Tower blaze.

A Number 10 spokesman said: 'The Prime Minister is deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life in the Grenfell Tower and is being kept constantly updated on the situation.

'She has asked for a cross-Government meeting at the Civil Contingencies Secretariat to take place to co-ordinate the response and ensure the Government is ready to assist the emergency services and local authorities as necessary.

'The PM's thoughts are with all of those affected by this terrible incident and the emergency services, who are working tirelessly in very difficult circumstances.'