John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn say government should consider pushing through legislation to allow requisition of properties

Labour has urged the government to consider emergency legislation to ensure property can be requisitioned to house the families made homeless by the Grenfell Tower fire.

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said councils already had the power to requisition property, using compulsory purchase orders, to find places for people to live.

Last week Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, suggested these powers should be used in Kensington following the fire tragedy.

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In an interview on Sky’s Ridge on Sunday, when it was put to McDonnell that this process could take time, he said parliament could legislate to speed things up.

“In emergency measures, as we saw in wartime periods as well, you can requisition properties. You will need powers to do it. We have got those powers,” McDonnell said.

“I would have convened parliament immediately to push more legislation through within 24 hours, if that was necessary. We cannot be in a situation where we have people who have lost their homes struggling to find alternative accommodation and we have properties standing empty.”

McDonnell said that putting the families made homeless into hotels was not always suitable and he said that, in at least one case, a Grenfell Tower resident had been put into an old people’s home, which was “completely inappropriate”.

Corbyn made the same point in an interview on ITV’s Peston on Sunday. “Occupy it, compulsory purchase it, requisition it – there’s a lot of things you can do,” he said.

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“But can’t we as a society just think, all of us, it’s all very well putting our arms around people during the crisis but homelessness is rising, the housing crisis is getting worse and my point was quite a simple one. In an emergency, you have to bring all assets to the table in order to deal with that crisis and that’s what I think we should be doing in this case.”

Meanwhile, the Labour MP David Lammy, who lost a friend in the fire, urged the police to ensure that all records relating to the building were seized straight away to prevent them being destroyed.



“Within the community, trust in the authorities is falling through the floor and a suspicion of a cover-up is rising,” he said.



“The prime minister needs to act immediately to ensure that all evidence is protected so that everyone culpable for what happened at Grenfell Tower is held to account and feels the full force of the law.”

He said it was particularly important to seize records relating to the refurbishment and management of the building. “When the truth comes out about this tragedy we may find that there is blood on the hands of a number of organisations,” he said.

“At this stage, it is my grave concern that the families of Grenfell Tower will not get justice if documents are being quietly destroyed and shredded and emails are being deleted.”

The police have powers to seize all documents, but section 35 of the Public Inquiry Act, which makes the destruction of any documents a criminal offence, does not apply until a chairman is appointed and the terms of reference set.