A senior government official failed to clarify “confusing” Building Regulations in the years before Grenfell despite telling a group of cladding experts “there is going to be a major fire”, the inquiry has heard.

Brian Martin, the civil servant responsible for official guidance on fire safety, is alleged to have made the comments at a July 2014 meeting with the Centre for Window and Cladding Technology (CWCT), an industry body which provides guidance on facades, to discuss concerns over an ambiguous passage in the government’s official fire safety guidance.

The passage appeared to imply that the requirement for the standard of “limited combustibility” only applied to “filler” materials. This was misunderstood by some in the industry to refer only to materials used to fill gaps between insulation panels rather than the core of cladding panels.

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