Britain's Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn visits to the scene of the massive fire in Grenfell Tower, in rear, in London. Photo / AP
The homes of rich people in Kensington could be seized for Grenfell Tower residents made homeless by fire, Jeremy Corbyn said today.
Corbyn said the London borough was a "tale of two cities" between a wealthy south and a poor north, the Daily Mail reported.
He suggested that "requisitioning" vacant properties would be a solution to the shortage of available accommodation for those displaced.
"Properties must be found - requisitioned if necessary - in order to make sure that residents do get rehoused locally," Corbyn told a meeting of MPs.
"How is it acceptable that in London you have luxury buildings and luxury flats kept empty as land banking for that future while homeless people look for somewhere to live?"
The call came as Theresa May announced a full public inquiry into the deadly Grenfell Tower blaze.
The Prime Minister insisted the government would get answers as she was rebuked for limiting her visit to police and firefighters sifting through the wreckage.
By contrast Corbyn met survivors an hour later.
With fears the death toll could reach 100, May said the country "owed it to the families" to uncover the truth about what happened.
Ministers are facing mounting demands to explain why they did not do more to avert the horror.
A series of blunders are being blamed for the disaster, with speculation that cladding installed last year helped the blaze spread, and residents claiming there were no working fire alarms and no sprinklers.
May's chief of staff Gavin Barwell, who was housing minister until he lost his Commons seat last week, promised to respond to a major coroner's report which demanded safety improvements following a previous fatal blaze.
But little progress appears to have been made on an overhaul of building fire safety regulations.
It has also emerged that another former housing minister, Brandon Lewis, had suggested it was not the Government's "responsibility" to ensure buildings have sprinklers - although the Home Office tonight insisted he was referring only to industrial warehouses.
As Chancellor Philip Hammond cancelled his keynote Mansion House speech in the wake of the tragedy, May said today: "We need to know what happened, we need to know an explanation.
"We owe that to the families, to the people who have lost loved ones and the homes in which they lived.
"That is why I am ordering a full public inquiry so that we can get to the answers, we can find out exactly what happened."
The Prime Minister added: "When I went to the scene and spoke to the emergency services, they told me that the way this fire had spread and took hold of the building was rapid, it was ferocious, it was unexpected.
"So it is right that, in addition to the immediate fire report that will be produced and any potential police investigation, that we do have a full public inquiry to get to the bottom of this.
"People deserve answers. The inquiry will give them."
Asked why she had not met local residents, May replied: "Well, I visited the scene of this terrible fire this morning.
"I wanted a briefing from the emergency services.
"They've been working tirelessly in horrific conditions and I have been overwhelmed by their professionalism and their bravery.
"I heard stories of firefighters running into the building being protected from the falling debris by police officers using their riot shields.
"And we thank all our emergency services for the incredible work that they have done."
Speaking to locals in a walkabout of the area, the Labour leader said the "truth has got to come out".
Addressing a resident who said the investigation must not be kicked onto the long grass, Corbyn said: "I will speak up for you because we have got to get to the bottom of this.
"The truth has got to come out and it will."
MPs gathered in Westminster Hall later for an ad-hoc sessions of questions to Fire Minister Nick Hurd about the blaze.
Normally there would be a ministerial statement in the Commons on a disaster of this scale, but as parliament has not officially resumed after the election yet that is not possible.
Hurd described it as a "national tragedy" and said a full search of the tower block was "unlikely to be feasible for some time".
Corbyn told the MPs that hundreds of thousands of people living in tower blocks will be "frightened, traumatised and very, very worried" following the fire.
He branded Kensington & Chelsea a "tale of two cities" with poverty next to huge wealth - and suggested that housing should be 'requisitioned' to provide homes for those displaced by the fire.
The Labour leader said he "feels very angry" that so many people have lost their lives in a tower block where the fire precautions did not work. He welcomed the Government's decision to establish a public inquiry but insisted it must be speedy and allow residents to fully take part, with legal aid provided if needed.
The tragedy means May is again scrambling to deal with a major crisis, after the election campaign was overshadowed by two terrorist attacks.
Critics are demanding answers on why expert advice that sprinklers should be made compulsory in tall buildings has not been followed. It is thought 4,000 tower blocks across the country do not have sprinkler systems.
He said "searching questions" need to be asked about what happened at the west London tower block, adding: "If you deny local authorities the funding they need, then there is a price that's paid."
Corbyn said calls for sprinklers to be installed in high-rise buildings after a fatal fire at Lakanal House in south London in 2009 had not been heeded.
"I think there needs to be some very searching questions asked as quickly as possible in the aftermath of this fire," he added.
Harriet Harman, the Labour MP for Camberwell and Peckham which covers Lakanal House, also questioned the impact of austerity on the safety of housing.
She told BBC Radio 4's World At One: "Councils want to fit sprinklers in their tower blocks, but it comes down to money.
"The Government has been cutting the money to councils. If you cut money to councils you can't put in sprinklers.
"If you cut money to councils you can't supervise contractors properly.
"I'm afraid the Government has got to say we have responsibility overall in public buildings to make sure of the safety of these tenants and we can't penny-pinch where it will cost lives."
But Downing Street insisted that many improvements had been made following the Lakanal House fire, which killed six people.
Tory former minister and ex-firefighter Mike Penning admitted that people had been "calling, I think probably rightly, for sprinklers to be installed for many, many years under many different governments".
"At the end of the day, what we have got to check is that the existing regulations have been adhered to," he said.
He dismissed the suggestion that the squeeze on local authority funding could have been an issue. The building - in a Tory-run borough with sharp contrasts between very wealthy and deprived areas - is managed by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO).
Penning said: "I don't think cuts come into consideration when you have residents that have been saying 'we are frightened, we are worried'."
The fire resulted in the "cladding and windows clearly burning", suggesting that the external cladding may have been a factor, Penning said.
"I have never seen a tower block fire move so fast in that sort of way, and from a very low vantage point as well. So the source of the fire will be very interesting when the investigators do that and what was the cause of the initial fire, whether it was electrical or, sadly, even criminal activity," he added.
The All-Party Parliamentary Fire and Rescue Group has been demanding changes to building regulations on fire safety since 2013.
Ronnie King, a former fire chief in Wales who is an adviser to the All-Party Group, told MailOnline that it issued a series of warnings that were not heeded.
King said the type of cladding installed on Grenfell Tower did not appear to have been resistant to the fire spreading.
That was one of the issues with the regulations that were raised by the APPG with three successive ministers from 2013, he said.
"The building regulations relating to the fire safety were last reviewed in 2006," King said.
Last year, when Mr Barwell was housing minister, the APPG "pressed him for a review of the building regulations, stressing of course Lakanal House".
"He said he was still looking at it," King said.
Barwell told the Commons in October last year: "We have not set out any formal plans to review the building regulations as a whole, but we have publicly committed ourselves to reviewing part B following the Lakanal House fire."
But he did not give any date of when the review might start or how it would be conducted.
King said: "The APPG has sought a review since the Lakanal House fire. In our view that was sufficient evidence that things are not right and things need to change."
King pointed out that the building had been refurbished in 2016, at which point it should have been compliant with the regulations in force.
He said: "I think that there are obvious questions to be asked...
"If they updated the regulations and this change had been part of the update ... I think the fire would not have spread up the outside of the building.
"I would think if this had been done in this case and it had been refurbished externally it might not have happened."
King raised questions about whether Grenfell Tower had fire suppression measures such as sprinklers.
He said there were 4,000 tower blocks that did not have sprinkler systems around the country, and that needed to be tackled urgently.
In 2013, a coroner's report into the Lakanal House fire ruled that all high-rise buildings should be retro-fitted with sprinklers.
They also asked whether residents in tower blocks should be advised to "stay put" or "get out and stay out" in the case of a fire.
Asked about the issue in February 2014, Mr Barwell's predecessor as Housing Minister, Brandon Lewis, said: "We believe that it is the responsibility of the fire industry, rather than the Government, to market fire sprinkler systems effectively and to encourage their wider installation."
Lewis - who was promoted by the Prime Minister at the weekend and now attends Cabinet - said regulations should be changed only as a "last resort".
Last night fire minister Nick Hurd said emergency checks are to be carried out on tower blocks going through the same process of refurbishment as the Grenfell building destroyed in yesterday's blaze.
Last night members of the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety said ministers had been warned that building regulations were out of date.
Its secretary, Labour MP and former fireman Jim Fitzpatrick, told LBC: "We've been pressing for fire sprinkler systems in buildings where we think it's appropriate... and government has been resisting that for some time."
Referring to the coroner's report, he added: "You'd have to ask them why they've sat on it for four years."
May summoned a meeting of the government's Civil Contingencies Secretariat today to co-ordinate the response to the Grenfell Tower blaze.
A Number 10 spokesman said: "The Prime Minister is deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life in the Grenfell Tower and is being kept constantly updated on the situation.
"She has asked for a cross-Government meeting at the Civil Contingencies Secretariat to take place to co-ordinate the response and ensure the Government is ready to assist the emergency services and local authorities as necessary.
"The PM's thoughts are with all of those affected by this terrible incident and the emergency services, who are working tirelessly in very difficult circumstances."
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