Angela Rayner has defended her handling of a meeting with bereaved families and survivors of the Grenfell disaster after some said they felt ignored by her decision to tear down the tower.
The deputy prime minister did not feel she had been “aggressive” during the meeting on the future of the site, she said, despite criticism from some of those present. “If anyone felt that way, then I would be sincerely upset about that,” she added.
Rayner told the meeting last week that the 24-storey tower in west London would be gradually dismantled, nearly eight years after the fire that killed 72 people, receiving a mixed reaction from those affected by the disaster. She later announced the decision in parliament.
Rayner told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show that she had taken part in meetings with different families and community groups during the consultation phase, after years of debate over the tower’s future.
“I felt, weighing up all of the different conversations that I had, and the engineering report, that actually the only way forward really was to sensitively make sure that we start taking the tower to ground level, but that we have a lasting memorial on that site,” she said.
Some people wanted the tower to remain standing as a lasting reminder of the tragedy, while others called for it to be removed completely. Rayner said she was determined to work with the families to develop a lasting memorial to “do justice to what is a sacred place”.
However, the housing secretary acknowledged that “there isn’t a consensus” over the building’s future after being accused by some of failing to properly consult survivors.
“I think what I tried to do is take a really difficult meeting, and explain to people … knowing full well that whatever I said in that room that night was going to be very traumatic for people, and people would be upset,” she said.
Grenfell United, which represents some of the families, has said it appeared from the meeting that “no one supported” the government’s decision. “Ignoring the voices of the bereaved on the future of our loved ones’ grave site is disgraceful and unforgivable,” they said.
A spokesperson for Grenfell Next of Kin, a separate group representing some bereaved families, said that while the decision was “obviously a very sensitive and difficult” one, families “understand the hard facts around safety”. Kimia Zabihyan from the group described the meeting as “charged”, but said Rayner appeared to have attended with the “best of intentions”.
What is left of the high-rise block has stood in place since the fire on 14 June 2017, with a covering on the building that features a large green heart accompanied by the words “forever in our hearts”.
Also in the interview, Rayner denied that her decision last week to postpone local elections in nine councils across England as part of her devolution plans was a “stitch-up”, after criticism from Reform UK that the rightwing party would have otherwise taken swathes of seats.
The move to combine some authorities and introduce six elected mayors affects elections scheduled in May for seven county councils – Essex, East Sussex, Hampshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey and West Sussex – and two unitary councils, Thurrock and the Isle of Wight.
Rayner said it would have been pointless to go ahead with May elections to bodies “that are not going to exist”. She added: “It would not be a stitch-up … I don’t take the voters as idiots. What we’re trying to do is reorganise so the taxpayer gets the best value for money from local government, and they get to unlock powers from Whitehall, pushed down to local areas through the mayoral model.”
The deputy prime minister was also pressed over claims that she had once joked that Keir Starmer “couldn’t run a bath”, amid criticism over his leadership skills. She dismissed the reports, which appear in a new book, Get In: The Inside Story of Labour Under Starmer, as “tittle-tattle”.
She did not deny that she had called Prince Andrew a “nonce” and tried to block the royal from ever standing in for King Charles, as the book claims.
