Thread by @PeteApps

Lunchtime update from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry:

- Claire Williams reduced to tears as she is shown email from morning of the fire
- Stopped public meetings because of resident complaints in Dec 2013
- Admits 'cursory' review of fire strategy document

On the first point, Ms Williams has been pressed repeatedly over a claim that Rydon provided an assurance that the cladding wouldn't burn. Rydon firmly deny this and there is no documentation of it, despite her claim that it was minuted.

Today, she was shown an email from the morning of the fire where she was asked to provide all the relevant documents for the refurbishment and made no reference at all to this assurance. But as questioning began, she was overcome by tears, necessitating a 30 minute break.

Later, in an extremely awkward passage, she was asked about a claim in her statement that consultation meetings were difficult due to "disruptive conduct from a small number of residents", and as a result TMO consulted on its approach and switched to newsletters and drop ins

Asked to name the residents she was referring to she provided one name and then said tearfully the others are "no longer with us".

I've decided not to repeat that name, as the resident won't have a chance to respond until module 3.

We didn't go into detail about the concerns raised, but it goes without saying that most of the issues residents had have since proved to be entirely valid. The question is why did the TMO not listen and did the restructure of the consulting process serve to quiten dissent?

Ms Williams said more people turned up to drop ins (65% of tower) but accepted news letters were "telling not listening". She referenced other residents who were "good people who knew what we wanted to try and do". Is that really consulting/listening to concerns?

On the fire strategy, Ms Williams saw it shortly after joining the TMO in 2013, but said that amid a lot of new documents, her reading of it was "cursory". She did not pick up that it was incomplete, and said more work needed to be done to review the risk of external fire spread

Millett said that as it was a document relevant to "life safety", "why didn't you read it thoroughly and acquaint yourself precisely with what it said?"

"I was new to the organisation and I had a lot to get to grips with," she replies

Later also saw a spreadsheet where Ms Williams had annotated 'need more fire strategy work' alongside the budget for Exova in November 2015. But none was ever done. Her explanation was that this might have been added earlier and not removed.

Ms Williams continues after lunch.