Gove’s ad threat to F1 team in Grenfell f irm deal
Hamilton’s F1 team in deal with Grenfell building firm
MICHAEL Gove last night threatened an advertising ban after Mercedes F1 stood by a controversial sponsorship deal with a firm that made combustible insulation used on Grenfell Tower.
The champion Formula One team, whose star driver is Lewis Hamilton, is embroiled in a furious row over its partnership with Kingspan.
The firm is at the centre of a public inquiry into the cause of the Grenfell fire, which claimed 72 lives in June 2017.
Lawyers for the bereaved and survivors have said Kingspan sold flammable materials they knew ‘were dangerous to life’.
On Thursday, Mercedes named the firm as its official partner, with its branding set to appear on Hamilton’s car at this weekend’s Saudi Arabia Grand Prix.
It sparked fury from campaigners, with survivors group Grenfell United describing the deal as ‘truly shocking’ and demanding it be scrapped immediately.
In response, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff wrote to survivors group Grenfell United yesterday to apologise for ‘additional hurt’ caused by the announcement, but seemed to stand by the deal and Kingspan.
Mr Gove has now hinted he could enforce advertising curbs at the British Grand Prix if Mercedes refused to ditch the deal.
In a letter to Mr Wolff, the Housing Secretary said his department could review rules to bring advertising in ‘sporting arenas and on vehicles’ under Government control to ensure it ‘reflects the public interest’. He added: ‘I am conscious that there are very real questions about whether Parliament would support a statutory regime that enabled a core participant in a public inquiry into how 72 people lost their lives to advertise its products publicly to millions of families across the country.’ Mr Gove also savaged Mr Wolff’s defence of Kingspan, which parroted the firm’s line that it was not involved in designing or constructing cladding used on Grenfell Tower and that only ‘a small part’ of its insulation product was used ‘without their knowledge in part of the system which was not compliant with building regulations and was unsafe’.
Mr Gove noted that the Grenfell Inquiry had heard ‘Kingspan employees knew their products were more combustible than they were advertising them to be’ and that the firm had accepted their approach to certification was ‘fundamentally misleading’. He also highlighted that one employee admitted that he had been ‘embroiled in a deliberate and calculated deceit by Kingspan’ in relation to fire safety tests.
Aluminium cladding panels made by Arconic were the main cause of the rapid spread of the Grenfell fire, but a small quantity of insulation made by Kingspan exacerbated it, the inquiry found.
Mr Gove’s intervention came after Labour’s levelling-up spokesman Lisa Nandy said she hopes Hamilton is making his views on the deal ‘clearly known’ to his team. Conservative Party Chairman Oliver Dowden also warned Mercedes to ‘think carefully about its sponsors’.
Tory MP and Father of the House Sir Peter Bottomley called the deal ‘a commercial and moral mistake’.
Meanwhile Grenfell United has called on Mercedes to ‘immediately sever’ ties with Kingspan, which has said it supports ‘the vitally important work of the [Grenfell] Inquiry to determine what went wrong and why’.