Former Homes England chair Simon Dudley said fire was a ‘tragedy’ but more people die while driving
Reform UK’s new housing spokesperson has been sacked after he described the Grenfell Tower fire as a “failure” of building safety but “everyone dies in the end”.
Simon Dudley said in a media round last week that the west London fire, which killed 72 people in June 2017, was a “tragedy” but had resulted in overly stringent regulations which were “stifling development”.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said at a press conference this morning that the former Homes England chair had “gone” as a result of his “deeply shocking” comments.
Farage said of Dudley: “While he has a track record in building new towns and houses and all of that [he] clearly acted yesterday in a pretty hurtful and insulting way to an awful lot of people.”
Keir Starmer had called on Farage to “do the decent thing” and sack Dudley, who was only appointed to lead Reform’s housing brief in February in what was seen as a significant coup for the party.
Asked if the Grenfell fire was a warning, Dudley said: “That was a tragedy. It was a failure”, but added: “Sadly, you know, everyone dies in the end. It’s just how you go, right?”
“Extracting Grenfell from the statistics, actually people dying in house fires is rare. Many, many more people die on the roads driving cars – but we’re not making cars illegal, so why are we stopping houses being built?”
The comments, made in an interview with Inside Housing published yesterday, have provoked condemnation from Grenfell community groups and other Westminster parties.
Grenfell United, which represents the bereaved and survivors of the tragedy, described Dudley’s language as “not just insensitive, it is deeply dehumanising”.
“Our loved ones did not simply ‘die’. They were failed. They were trapped in their homes, in a building that should have been safe, in a fire that should never have happened. Reducing their deaths to an inevitability strips away the truth: this was preventable,” the group said.
It added: “To speak about Grenfell in this way is to erase responsibility. It suggests this was just fate, just ‘how it goes’, rather than the result of years of ignored warnings, poor decisions, and a failure to value the lives of residents and is deeply offensive and ill-informed.
“Everyone deserves the right to a safe home. But this attitude clearly shows Simon Dudley is not the man to ensure that happens.”
Green Party MP Sian Berry, a former co-leader of the party, said Reform had “sunk to a new low and shown a real disrespect to the victims of Grenfell”.
“Anyone who has any awareness of what Grenfell residents went through, in fact anyone with any empathy or humanity, will find these comments truly abhorrent,” Berry said in a statement this morning calling on Farage to sack Dudley.
Berry also criticised Dudley’s opposition to the level of building safety reforms introduced since the fire, which he argued were putting too much viability pressure on the housing market.
“That Reform would want to scrap key safety regulations brought in after the horrific Grenfell fire tells you everything you need to know about the party. Nearly a decade on, people living in high-rise buildings need more action, not less. Safe, warm and affordable houses are at the heart of what our communities need. Don’t trust anyone who says we cannot have that,” she added.
In an interview with Housing Today published today, Dudley said the “pendulum has swung too far” on building safety regulations since the Grenfell fire and indicated Reform’s willingness to reassess the system introduced in its aftermath.
“People die on the roads because people drive cars, but we’re not stopping people driving cars,” he said. “So why are we stopping houses being built because of previous tragic deaths?”
A Reform UK spokesman said prior to Dudley’s sacking: “Homes must, of course, be built safely. However, overly burdensome building safety regulations can stifle housebuilding, meaning targets are missed and the waiting list for homes grows longer at a time when we need more.
“Simon’s comments on Grenfell reflected his broader point that the regulatory pendulum has swung too far in response to the tragedy. As he explained, there is a fine balance between overregulation - which can slow the delivery of new homes - and ensuring that more homes are built safely without too much red tape.”
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