News / Politics
Williams accuses Greens of ‘resorting to desperate smear attack’
The Green Party’s one MP, Caroline Lucas, is due to visit Bristol on Thursday to support Patrick McAllister in the Hotwells & Harbourside by-election.
It comes as the Lib Dem candidate for the ward, Stephen Williams, has accused the Greens of a smear campaign and employing “desperate tactics” as the closely fought race enters its final week.
Ahead of the election on February 2, McAllister has claimed that Williams failed to act on fire regulations while he was a junior minister, leading to the Greenfell tragedy.
Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion, will be highlighting the issue of cladding during her visit to the ward, with the Harbourside area having several blocks of flats that have flammable cladding, including the home of Labour candidate, Eileen Means.
McAllister said: “Stephen Williams was warned by the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety to update fire regulations five years before the Grenfell House tragedy.
“Now he’s trying to claim he’s a voice for residents on the cladding scandal. It smacks of hypocrisy. If he’d acted when he had the chance nearly nine years ago, we might not be in this mess.”
Cladding in many buildings within the Harbourside development needs to be replaced – photo: Martin Booth
In response, Williams said that the Green Party “know that their campaign is failing so are resorting to a desperate smear attack on me”.
The former MP for Bristol West said: “I gave evidence to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry in April last year, along with every Labour and Conservative former housing minister from 1997 to 2017.
“As my evidence showed, there was no failure to act on my part. In the summer of 2014, three years before Grenfell, I commissioned evidence to inform a review of the buildings regulations, in order to improve fire safety. This evidence gathering phase finished in March 2015, in my last few weeks as the minister.
“The evidence was presented to my Conservative successors Greg Clark and James Wharton. The timetable for the review was for completion during 2016. New regulations would be in place at the start of 2017.
“As we now know from the inquiry, my successors did not make any progress, despite having the evidence they needed. The inquiry will rule on why the review was stalled after May 2015 but I assume the upheaval of the Brexit referendum result and the turnover of ministers was a major factor.
“It is despicable for the Green Party to play politics with a dreadful tragedy in which 72 people died.
“Smearing me might give them some personal satisfaction but I think most fair-minded people will be appalled by their desperate tactics.”
Stephen Williams, Eileen Means and Patrick McAllister – photo: Alex Seabrook
Main photo: Stephen Williams
Read next:
- By-election candidates clash at hustings
- Stephen Williams: ‘Hotwells & Harbourside needs a councillor with experience, dedication and respect’
- Patrick McAllister: ‘Hotwells & Harbourside’s next councillor needs to focus on the job, not grandstanding
- Eileen Means: ‘Your neighbourhood is my neighbourhood’
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