I'm not a technical expert but have a lot of experience of the UK's Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations; and would appreciate your views on what I believe to be a largely ignored contributor to the Grenfell Tower fire (for possibly obvious reasons). Specifically, in 2014 the Department for Business (responsible for the FFRs) went out to consultation on a new 'match test' that would have hugely reduced flame retardants in cover fabrics. At the same time, its research and testing had discovered that the current ignition test fails in practice up to around 90%, i.e. UK sofas and mattresses are flammable when believed not to be so. The changes were and are being blocked by the chemical and furniture industry. Under media pressure the Department went out to consultation again in 2016 with the same proposals. However, it is refusing to comment on the consultation returns or say when or if it's going to make safety changes. In the meantime - as demonstrated by the Hull/Stec paper in Chemosphere in December 2017 - a typical UK chemically treated sofa is more dangerous than a non-treated EU sofa, because it gives off vastly more toxic fumes such as hydrogen cyanide almost as soon as it catches fire. All of which means, logic suggests, that the Grenfell Tower fire was a) more toxic than it needed to be, if the Department had made changes in April 2015 as originally proposed, and b) mostly made toxic by burning flame retardants in furniture, not cladding. While cladding was obviously toxic, most of the fumes/smoke would have stayed outside the tower. Once furniture inside it caught fire, the result was huge amounts of toxic fumes/smoke - and it's this that mostly killed people, not cladding effects.

I'm not a technical expert but have a lot of experience of the UK's Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations; and would appreciate your views on what I believe to be a largely ignored contributor to the Grenfell Tower fire (for possibly obvious reasons). Specifically, in 2014 the Department for Business (responsible for the FFRs) went out to consultation on a new 'match test' that would have hugely reduced flame retardants in cover fabrics. At the same time, its research and testing had discovered that the current ignition test fails in practice up to around 90%, i.e. UK sofas and mattresses are flammable when believed not to be so. The changes were and are being blocked by the chemical and furniture industry. Under media pressure the Department went out to consultation again in 2016 with the same proposals. However, it is refusing to comment on the consultation returns or say when or if it's going to make safety changes. In the meantime - as demonstrated by the Hull/Stec paper in Chemosphere in December 2017 - a typical UK chemically treated sofa is more dangerous than a non-treated EU sofa, because it gives off vastly more toxic fumes such as hydrogen cyanide almost as soon as it catches fire. All of which means, logic suggests, that the Grenfell Tower fire was a) more toxic than it needed to be, if the Department had made changes in April 2015 as originally proposed, and b) mostly made toxic by burning flame retardants in furniture, not cladding. While cladding was obviously toxic, most of the fumes/smoke would have stayed outside the tower. Once furniture inside it caught fire, the result was huge amounts of toxic fumes/smoke - and it's this that mostly killed people, not cladding effects.