Thread by @PeteApps

Right, short afternoon break coming up at the inquiry so a quick summary of some interesting bits of evidence this afternoon:

Arconic told sales people in France to push more fire safe product from 2016 onwards, but continued to sell deadly product in England

So this afternoon, we've been hearing from Vince Meakins who took over as Arconic's UK sales manager in late 2014. He had little involvement in Grenfell Tower, but has been asked about the company's approach to the market and fire safety questions.

He said that he was told to focus more on winning sales for the 'FR' (a more fire resistant version with less of the petrol-like polyethylene), at a sales meeting which he says was early in his time at Arconic

But we see from this table, that sales of 'PE' (the more dangerous) continued right into 2017. Mr Meakins said some of this was for CID - which I think refers to interiors (incidentally, also shows 650,000 sqm of the dangerous stuff sold to the UK market)

Then we saw this email, sent to sales people in France in May 2016 (translated, hence highlighting). It tells them, in bold, to confirm in writing that FR should be used in all projects 'regardless of the nature and size' as it is 'by far the safest'.

Bare in mind, this is a year before Grenfell. Meakins asked if same instruction was ever given to him. Says nothing was ever said on these lines, until the product was withdrawn after the fire.

We then saw that in late 2016, Arconic developed an even safer A2 cladding panel (this is basically non-combustible). It then published a guidance document (quite infamous since the fire) very firmly warning against using PE on tall buildings.

Meakins says he hasn't seen this brochure, despite apparently citing it as an exhibit in his witness statement. Says he thinks the one he saw was a different version without the clear warning. But fact that it's in English suggests it was designed for English audience.

A couple more interesting bits: we saw the witness statement of senior Arconic technical guy Claude Wehrle, which says he came to the UK in May 2017 to look at cladding on the Chalcots estate in Camden, which had an issue with splitting.

He was by this time aware of the risks associated with PE and the testing showing it was dangerous. He says he expressed surprise at its use on high rises, and was told by Rydon representatives 'UK regulations allow the use of ACM PE'. Meakins doesn't recall this conversation.

About eight weeks later of course, Grenfell would have burned and the Chalcots estate would be the first in the country to be evacuated due to fire safety concerns. Rydon witnesses not asked about this meeting and Wehrle refusing to give evidence.

Finally, we saw a report into more delamination issues, this time at a tower in Media City, Salford in August 2015. This specified that the cladding on the residential high rise was PE, bent into a cassette form and was seen - apparently - by Mr Wehrle

Wehrle was aware by this stage of the horrific performance of this product in fire tests and had warned about it internally. Meakins was asked if Wehrle had raised any concerns about the product being used on the building. He says he did not.

That's (almost) it for Meakins, and then we will hear from Claude Schmidt, a senior figure in Arconic's French organisation and the only witness from there who has agreed to attend.