Housing ministry started rebuttal operation two days after Grenfell fire

Grenfell inquiry hears that official put together script' to counter media claims that building rules allowed flammable cladding

Two days after the Grenfell Tower fire the UK government mounted a rebuttal operation to counter potentially damaging reports that building regulations had allowed the use of combustible cladding, the public inquiry has heard.

As families searched frantically for missing loved ones, Brian Martin, the official in charge of fire safety building regulations at the ministry of housing, local government and communities, circulated a pre-written rebuttal of press claims that the plastic-filled panels that fuelled the inferno were in fact allowed in the UK but not abroad.