Tragedies like the Grenfell Tower fire cannot be completely avoided, Sir Tony Blair has said.
The former prime minister said “mistakes” were inevitable when he was asked whether the 2017 tragedy and the infected blood and Post Office scandals proved there was a “failure of leadership” in government.
His remarks came a day after the inquiry into the 2017 tragedy delivered its final report, finding that the 72 deaths were all “avoidable”.
“This is a difficult thing to say but it’s the honest truth,” Sir Tony told Sky News on Thursday. “However good your system is and however well-intentioned it is, and however hard people work, they’re going to make mistakes.
“It’s important that you hold people accountable for those mistakes, of course.
“But I don’t think you’re ever going to get a situation where decisions are perfectly taken in perfect circumstances and there aren’t accidents or tragedies that occur.
“It’s just important every time they do occur, to try and learn the lessons of them.”
The final Grenfell Inquiry report, which stretches to more than a million words, placed the blame for the disaster on “decades of failure” by government ministers and officials who ignored a series of warnings over the risk of cladding fires.
Sir Keir Starmer issued an apology on behalf of the British state on Wednesday for the myriad failures identified by the public inquiry.
“It should never have happened,” the Prime Minister said in a Commons statement watched by Grenfell survivors and bereaved.
“The country failed to discharge its most fundamental duty, to protect you and your loved ones, the people that we are here to serve, and I am deeply sorry.”
The seven-year public inquiry also concluded that the fire was caused by the “systematic dishonesty” of the companies that manufactured cladding for the tower’s botched refurbishment.
Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the inquiry chairman, said regulators had put “commercial interests” above building safety and had been “complicit” in allowing manufacturers to “manipulate” fire testing data.
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Also criticised heavily were the London Fire Brigade, the architects involved in the refurbishment and the local authority.
“The simple truth is that the deaths that occurred were all avoidable and that those who lived in the tower were badly failed over a number of years and in a number of different ways by those who were responsible for ensuring the safety of the building and its occupants,” Sir Martin said.
Families demanding manslaughter prosecutions have spoken of their outrage after Scotland Yard said it would take between a year and 18 months to go through the inquiry report “line by line”.
It means any charges are unlikely to be brought until almost a full decade after the fire.