Angela Rayner has revealed she took advice from NHS trauma specialists over informing the Grenfell bereaved and survivors about the decision to dismantle the tower.
The Deputy Prime Minister met with members of the Grenfell community who escaped or lost their loved ones in the tragic fire privately at the Museum of the Brands last week to explain the tower block would be demolished.
Ms Rayner is understood to have been met with gasps from a shocked room of mostly bereaved people who felt there had not been enough consultation, with one attendee comparing the meeting to a “car crash” and saying that the politician had to be escorted out of the room.
Ms Rayner had previously defended her behaviour during the private meeting in which she announced the west London block’s future, denying she had been “aggressive”.
Asked if she had been worried about delivering the news, Ms Rayner told LBC’s Tonight With Andrew Marr: “I knew it was going to be a really difficult meeting.
“Secretary of states before me have not made decisions on the tower, and I think some of that is because it’s really difficult, and I knew it was going to be very traumatic to the people.
“I took advice from trauma specialists at the NHS there with me to try and give the clear information and to do it in a way that was as less traumatic as it could be, but it was always going to be difficult.
“I knew that there was not a consensus because I’d consulted and spoke to many different people, the bereaved, I spoke to survivors, I spoke to the local head teachers of the schools where the children are still traumatised every day as they’re walking around the tower, I spoke to the community, and I knew there wasn’t a consensus.
“I knew it was going to be really difficult, but I also knew that I had the engineering advice as well and on top of the views that I got and the engineering advice, I knew that the only decision to make really was that the tower had to come down.”
I was really angered by the fact that some of those leaks were happening
Ms Rayner also told of her anger over the decision being leaked to the press before families were informed.
She said she tried to ensure she spoke to bereaved and survivors first, adding: “What really upsets me about this is these people have been through the most horrendous, horrific experience, lost their loved ones, gone through huge trauma, and the last thing they need is media reports and speculation before they’ve had the opportunity (to be informed).
“So I was really angered by the fact that some of those leaks were happening.”
The Deputy Prime Minister also told LBC she feels a sense of responsibility “to do everything I can” to help those affected and to have a memorial on the site.
Emma O’Connor, who survived the Grenfell fire and was in the meeting with Rayner, previously told the Standard: “Most of the people were really hurt by her decision. She didn’t actually say how she had come to her decision either.”
The Grenfell survivor has warned “we will become invisible again” if the tower block is demolished and vowed to chain herself up outside the building if the Government presses ahead with plans to demolish the site.
What is left of the tower has stood in place in the years since the fire, with a covering on the building featuring a large green heart accompanied by the words “forever in our hearts”.
The June 2017 disaster claimed the lives of 72 people.
It is expected a planning application for a memorial could be submitted in late 2026.
