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Hello and welcome to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry podcast with me, Kate Lamble.

This week, the inquiry heard the first evidence from the manufacturers of the products used on Grenfell Tower.

Staff from Sellatex, which made the insulation, said they were under pressure to raise the company's profits

by bringing new products to the market. Sales staff admitted that the marketing material

used to promote the insulation placed on Grenfell was potentially misleading. First, though,

last week the inquiry started examining a new issue, how the materials used during the refurbishment

were tested, approved, advertised and sold. So much of this week was taking up with opening

statements from some of the core participants. Due to COVID restrictions, legal representatives

delivered their remarks via video link, which might help explain the quality of some of the audio you're about to hear.

First up, this week were Adrian Williamson and Sam Steen, who both represent a group of bereaved survivors and residents, BSRs.

You and the panel may well come to the conclusion that the manufacturers, Arconic, Kingspan and Cellitex,

are little more than crooks and killers.

These companies knew their materials were dangerous to life.

They knew their materials would burn with lethal speed,

and yet they marketed their products into an uncaring and under-regulated building industry,

which spread them around residential buildings like a disease.

We'll start with their comments on Arconic, the manufacturer which produced the cladding panels

used on the tower.

These panels were filled with combustible polyethylene and the inquiry has

already found them to be the main cause of the spread of the fire. In 2004, Arconic put their

polyethylene panels through fire tests for the first time, hoping to achieve high European

...