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

This was the second and final week of politicians' evidence.

A former housing secretary said he couldn't understand

how the government's policy of deregulation

discourage civil servants from tightening fire safety standards.

I find it utterly inexplicable.

And a minister supposed to oversee the implementation of a coroner's recommendations

never read the letter in which they were contained.

Let's start then with how politicians saw their relationship with civil servants.

Conservative MP Eric Pickles, now Lord Pickles, became Secretary of State for the Department

for Communities and Local Government in May 2010 under the Coalition Conservative Liberal Democrat

Government. He had overall responsibility for the leadership of the department.

During that work, Eric Pickles said he depended heavily on officials and his private secretary.

You relied on their judgment. You would test their judgment. You would ask them questions.

But by and large, if you, well, I have seen departments or I have seen ministers that were just simply

at war with the civil service. Eric Pickles wasn't one of those ministers. He said there had to be a

high degree of trust in civil servants. A minister who thinks they know about something is actually

sometimes quite dangerous.

Officials decided which information or documents were given to him.

They would know the general direction of where we were going.

They had a pretty good, I'd tenor for knowing when things were going wrong,

...