Thread by @PeteApps

Had a 10-odd tweet thread giving a customary lunchtime update from the inquiry, but had my six-month-old on my lap and he leaned over and clicked the mouse and it all disappeared

Realise this is the lockdown equivalent of "the dog ate my homework" but there we go.

Anyway - very brief version of what I was going to say is that this morning we've been hearing from this Tony Millichap, head of technical at Kingspan from 2010-2015

He's been grilled on his knowledge of K15, its testing and certificates and advice Kingspan gave to the market about its suitability for high rises. Built towards the QC suggesting that this advice was "entirely misleading" which he denied

In particular, we saw this proposed letter, which he edited and signed off which told architects working for Bellway that a tower it was planning to build with zinc cladding could incorporate K15

Note the use of the phrase "should be accepted by your Local Authority Building Control". He had previously said Kingspan wouldn't give specific advice about whether or not systems complied, as this was a matter for the project team

"Aren't you giving advice here on the compliance of the construction system proposed on this building?" asks Kate Grange.

"We are offering an opinion," he replies. He had early said Kingspan could "influence" these decisions due to "absence of knowledge" in the industry

(He later swapped the word influence for inform).

Problem with this advice was that it was based on test of a cement fibre system and the zinc cladding proposed was entirely different. "The advice was utterly misleading given the test evidence you actually had," said Ms Grange

"I don't believe it was, I believe we were drawing parallels between the test evidence we had and offered opportunities for professionals to make that judgement".

Anyway, lots of other things were discussed, which you'll simply have to believe me on as they have fallen victim to the little one's intervention. Millichap carrying on after lunch.