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

This week, the inquiry heard from three witnesses from three different organisations,

but running through them all was a story of how the government received repeated warnings

about the use of combustible materials on high-rise buildings

and the regulations which govern them. And we learnt the government closed down an investigation

into the 2009 Lacknell Housefire weeks after the incident. At the time, the investigation was

described as fundamentally incomplete. An expert from the building research establishment agreed investigations

into incidents were hobbled by the atmosphere around fire safety and building regulations.

And a senior civil servant was overheard at a cladding industry meeting three years before Grenfell

saying there's going to be a major fire.

Let's start then with David Crowder.

He worked in fire safety at the Testing House, the Building Research Establishment, or BRE, between 2006 and 2019.

In 2014, he became the head of fire investigation.

David Crowder told the inquiry that for many years, the government had been actively looking to reduce its involvement in fire investigation. David Crowder told the inquiry that for many years

the government had been actively looking

to reduce its involvement in fire safety.

There had been, I think it was around 2010,

the Fire Futures Review,

which was about decentralising fire safety,

government having less of a presence in fire safety

and encouraging industry to take the lead.

And that probably coloured, affected everything that followed. One of the projects David Crowder started working on

...