RED TAPE SAVES LIVES
EVERY new home in Wales is built with sprinklers since January 2016 and no owner or tenant is doomed to die from fire.
The life-saving protection was championed by Ann Jones, Labour’s Vale of Clwyd member in the Welsh Assembly, against toxic opposition.
Tory obstructionists including Eric Pickles, David Jones and a Brandon Lewis, now at Immigration, inflated the cost. It’s typically £2,000-£3,000 per property, not their pretend £13,000. And Ann endured sexist “my love” mockery from house-building barons whining about bureaucracy.
London’s Grenfell Tower was built in 1974 and ignited as a 24-storey deathtrap with no sprinklers or inflammable cladding.
The lessons are not just for high-rise blocks. The rest of Britain must follow Wales when most of the 303 killed in 2015-16 by fires in England alone perished in their homes.
Health and safety laws the Tories and industry lobbyists dismiss dangerously as red tape actually save lives.