This is what ex-Tory MP Eric Pickles is doing now after the Grenfell Tower tragedy

Netflix’s new documentary about the Grenfell Tower fire has captured the world, and it puts a lot of heat on Eric Pickles.

Grenfell: Uncovered tells the story of the tragic fire that engulfed the London tower block through survivors, witnesses and experts, and explains the investigation that followed.

Pickles has been heavily criticised for not changing fire safety regulations earlier, but who is he and what is he doing now?

Credit: Netflix

Eric Pickles was the housing minister before Grenfell

Eric Pickles is a British politician who was the MP for Brentwood and Ongar from 1992 to 2017. He served as Secretary of State for Housing from 2010 to 2015, which was two years before the Grenfell disaster. However, the tower’s renovation using flammable cladding was agreed while he was housing minister, so he was called to give evidence.

This is when he asked the court to “use their time wisely” because he had a busy schedule before getting the death toll wrong, as shown in the documentary. He later apologised in an email obtained by the BBC, saying: “In my final remarks I misspoke and referenced the 96 people that died in and immediately after Hillsborough.”

“I apologise to the family and friends of the 72 people who died at Grenfell for this unintended mistake, which was unscripted. The dead are remembered not as a statistic but with dignity by their families, survivors and all of us.”

He was recently promoted to the House of Lords

In 2023, Eric was promoted from an MP to a member of the House of Lords, where he now serves as chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel.

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The 73-year-old lives in Essex, Brentwood and is also a trustee for some charitable organisations there, such as Brentwood Foyer and Brentwood Theatre.

Credit: Netflix

There are calls for him to step down

In September 2024, Emma Dent Coad, who was Kensington MP at the time of the Grenfell fire, called for Pickles to “have the grace to resign” from the House of Lords. This came after the final Grenfell report found that he didn’t act on a coroner’s 2013 recommendation to change fire safety regulations after the cladding fire at Lakanal House in 2009 that killed six people.

However, Pickles told The Guardian he made the coroner’s recommendation a “serious matter” and spoke about it to fellow MP Bob Kerslake, who was overseeing the Lakanal House fire.

“During the inquiry, evidence emerged that middle-ranking officials did not share Bob’s deep-seated sense of public duty. Their attitude shocked and appalled me. I feel they let down Bob, the government, and, more importantly, the public,” he said.

Matt Wrack, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, also said Pickles should have his peerage removed. However, right now, he remains a member of the House of Lords.

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Featured image by: Netflix