our days after my election as MP for Kensington in 2017, Grenfell Tower, which stands at the end of my road, blazed for 18 hours, burning 72 of my neighbours to death in an entirely preventable atrocity. I will never forget the horror of that day; I still cannot share what I witnessed with anyone, and suffer from PTSD, like many in the North Kensington community. The tragedy set a stamp on my time in parliament – and for me, as for so many of those affected, it has created a lifelong commitment to ensuring our buildings are safe. People in unsafe accommodation around the country still contact me with their concerns, and I am very afraid for them all. The anxiety about living in unsafe homes – some social housing, some bought new and now worth nothing – has destroyed countless lives. The long-awaited building safety bill now going through parliament should be tackling these concerns head on and uncompromisingly. In my 30 months as Kensington MP I had face-to-face meetings with Sajid Javid, Theresa May, Alok Sharma, James Brokenshire, Kit Malthouse, Robert Jenrick, Esther McVey and Nick Hurd. They all listened, heads tilted, furrowed brows. Every one of them committed to support the recommendations emerging from the Grenfell public inquiry. They all repeated “never again”. On publication of phase one of the inquiry’s recommendations last October, Brokenshire, the housing secretary at the time, committed to implement them without delay. Yet on Monday every one of these people showed their contempt for Grenfell’s survivors and campaigners by refusing to support the Labour amendment to the building safety bill. Shame on them all. And shame on Felicity Buchan, the current MP for Kensington, for voting with them. So much for representing “the north, south, east and west of the constituency” as she promised in last year’s election campaign. The Labour amendment aimed to adopt the recommendations of the first phase of the Grenfell inquiry. You would think that 11 months would be enough time to consider and accept what are actually very basic and sensible recommendations. They aimed to keep people safe in their beds through a national high-rise evacuation plan and better inspections; to hold building owners to account; and to ensure the emergency services have the information they need when they attend a fire. The government has claimed that adopting the amendment would “delay the bill”. This just isn’t true. What was a rather amorphous and inadequate bill lacked the detail to make it work. The Labour-proposed regulations, which are hardly revolutionary, would have saved lives had they been in place when Grenfell Tower blazed for 18 hours. There are many in the Grenfell community who may distrust the government but, in good faith, thought it was only right to work from the inside. People I know have spent hours and days meeting with, persuading and negotiating with government ministers in the belief that they were being listened to, and that when the time came ministers would support them. Many turned their horror and grief into action, taking part in local support groups and campaigning to try to ensure no one else will suffer what they have suffered. Never again. They now feel utterly betrayed, and have shut down any further communication with those they now see as time-wasters working against them. Those I have spoken to in North Kensington since the vote are feeling angry – fed up with being patronised and pitied by those in authority. What they want are their lives back, and their rights – not the charity on offer, for which they are expected to be grateful. Now that hope has been snatched away from them. Some will be defeated by this setback, and others may be spurred on to action. Some, sadly, may have serious mental health issues, as they do around the times of anniversaries, or whenever something particularly shocking emerges from the inquiry. My first contact yesterday was someone who rang me in tears, saying “We’ve wasted three years”. This government has made fools of us all. Emma Dent Coad was Labour MP for Kensington from 2017 until 2019