New fire panel chair Sir Ken Knight advised against retrofitting sprinklers

The panel appointed to "make all public and private buildings safe as quickly as possible" following the Grenfell Tower fire is to be chaired by a former chief fire and rescue officer who advised against retrospective fitting of sprinklers.

Sir Ken Knight, who wrote a report on the 2009 Lakanal House fire, in which six people died, stated: "It is not considered practical or economically viable to make a requirement for the retrospective fitting of fire suppression systems to all current high-rise residential buildings."

The lack of sprinklers at Grenfell Tower is expected to be addressed by the forthcoming public inquiry.

:: May wants ‘major national investigation’ after Grenfell

Also on the independent panel appointed by the Government is the Chief Executive of BRE, the company which has a contract worth hundreds of thousands of pounds with the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) to carry out fire investigations and influence building regulations.

As Sky News exclusively revealed, the same company told the Government last year that building regulations were adequate.

The crisis has now spread to the Scottish Parliament – MSPs were told last week Scotland’s more stringent building controls banned plastic-filled cladding on high-rise accommodation.

Now Edinburgh Napier university has admitted that its Bainfield student accommodation block has to have its cladding removed.

Tests ordered by the Government on cladding from high-rise blocks around the country are shrouded in secrecy – DCLG refuse to say what standard of combustibility test is being conducted, but the Prime Minister says they have convinced her of the need for a national investigation.

Meanwhile, Sky News has uncovered research that questions the European safety certification of widely used insulation panels containing the same PIR plastic used behind the cladding at Grenfell Tower.

Insurers IF, who conducted tests with Lancashire Fire and Rescue in 2014, say in the real world they burned more fiercely than they did in testing laboratories.

IF’s report concluded: "The performance of PIR panels was not as would have been expected given their classification."

DCLG has not asked any local authorities for insulation samples, despite the manufacturer of the insulation at Grenfell Tower withdrawing the specific product from sale and a Sky News report showed that it released deadly hydrogen cyanide gas.

The Government’s independent panel will have its first meeting this week.

(c) Sky News 2017: New fire panel chair Sir Ken Knight advised against retrofitting sprinklers