In September 2014, then-minister Stephen Williams responded to a string of letters to tell the group he had “neither seen nor heard anything that would suggest consideration of these specific potential changes is urgent” and said he was “not willing to disrupt the work of this department by asking that these matters be brought forward”.

The group’s chair, Sir David Amess MP, responded on 28 October, writing that he was “at a loss to understand how you had concluded that credible and independent evidence which had life safety implications was not considered to be urgent”.

He added: “As a consequence, the group wishes to point out to you that should a major fire tragedy with loss of life occur between now and 2017 in, for example, a residential care facility or a purpose-built block of flats, where the matters raised here were found to be contributory to the outcome, then the group would be bound to bring this to others’ attention.”

“These warnings are yet another smoking gun in a man-made, preventable tragedy that took the lives of 72 at Grenfell Tower.” David Lammy MP

Mr Barwell himself was first contacted him on 12 September 2016, with an invite to lunch and note saying that the post-Lakanal review of regulations had still not taken place.

These are the letters sent by MPs to Gavin Barwell in 2016 and 2017 warning him to act on fire safety in high rises.



To set the scene, this was sent to his predecessor in 2014 - saying the fire safety group was ’at a loss’ to understand why the govt was not acting pic.twitter.com/daS2mJzPP6 — Peter Apps (@PeteApps) These are the letters sent by MPs to Gavin Barwell in 2016 and 2017 warning him to act on fire safety in high rises.



To set the scene, this was sent to his predecessor in 2014 - saying the fire safety group was 'at a loss' to understand why the govt was not acting pic.twitter.com/daS2mJzPP6 — Peter Apps (@PeteApps) June 13, 2019

“Regrettably, we have yet to receive any announcement on this, which is of such importance to the fire and construction sector,” the letter read. It also referred to a death of a pregnant woman in a tower block fire in Essex in May 2016 – which was in Sir David’s constituency.

But Mr Barwell did not reply and also ignored a follow-up letter on 17 October. He finally replied on 14 November, saying a “statement would be made in due course” and declining the invite to lunch.

The group chased him again on 22 November, urging him to make an early statement on the review, but again received no response. They chased again on 20 February expressing “extreme concern” that the minister had not yet written to the residents of the block where the pregnant woman died.