Prime Minister Theresa May appoints two new panel members for Phase 2 of the Grenfell Tower public Inquiry.

Prime Minister Theresa May appoints two new panel members for Phase 2 of the Grenfell Tower public Inquiry.

The Prime Minister has today (30 May) confirmed the appointment of Professor Nabeel Hamdi and Thouria Istephan to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry panel for Phase 2 of its work.

Professor Hamdi, an accomplished academic with an international reputation in housing and participatory design and planning, and Ms Istephan, a widely respected partner at Foster + Partners architectural practice, will join the Inquiry panel for Phase 2.

On the appointments, the Prime Minister said:

I am confident these new appointments will ensure the Inquiry panel has the diversity of skills and experience necessary for the scope and complexity of issues to be investigated by Phase 2 of the Inquiry’s work.

This will help get to the truth of what happened, deliver justice and ensure that a tragedy like the fire in Grenfell Tower can never happen again.

The exchange of letters between the Prime Minister and the Inquiry Chair about the appointments can be found here.

Notes to editors:

1. Nabeel Hamdi is currently Professor Emeritus of Housing and Urban Development at the School of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University. Nabeel qualified at the Architectural Association in London in 1968. He worked for the Greater London Council between 1969 and 1978, where his award-winning housing projects established his reputation in participatory design and planning. From 1981 to 1990 he was Associate Professor of Housing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 1997 Nabeel won the UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour for his work on Community Action Planning. He founded the Masters Course in Development Practice at Oxford Brookes University in 1992, which was awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in 2001. Nabeel has consulted on housing, participatory action planning and upgrading of slums in cities to all major international development agencies, and to charities and NGOs worldwide.

2. Thouria Istephan is partner and Construction Design Management (CDM) Manager at Foster + Partners, with responsibility for the application of Construction (Design and Management) Regulations – strategically and operationally – as well as global health and safety compliance. She is also the Technical Design Deputy of the practice’s Construction Review Group, advising on buildability. Thouria worked for several UK architectural practices before joining the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) as an HM Inspector of Health and Safety, then acting as advisor on Construction (Design and Management) Regulations. Thouria joined Foster + Partners in June 1997. She was made a partner in 2007 and Technical Design Deputy in 2015. Her knowledge and experience of safety standards and the regulatory environment has direct relevance to the issues to be considered by Phase 2 of the Inquiry’s work.

3. Further information about the work of the Inquiry can be found here.

Statement from Chris Skidmore

The following statement applies to EU nationals who currently receive student loans and/or grants from Student Finance England (SFE), and to EU nationals applying to start courses in England in the 2020/21 Academic Year.

Under current student finance rules in England, EU nationals (including relevant family members) must meet the following requirements.

For tuition fee loans, EU nationals must be ordinarily resident in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland for the three years prior to the start of their course. The purpose of that three year residency should not have been mainly for the purpose of receiving full time education. For maintenance support, EU nationals must be ordinarily resident in the UK and Islands for the five years prior to the start of their course. Where the period of ordinary five year residency was mainly for the purpose of receiving full time education, the student must have previously been ordinarily resident in the EEA/Switzerland. EU nationals are also currently eligible for home fee status, meaning they must be charged the same tuition fees at publicly funded institutions as domestic students in England.

Current students including those that will start courses in the 2019/20 academic year or before

EU nationals (or their family members) currently in higher or further education or starting in the 2019/20 academic year, and who are eligible to receive loans and/or grants from Student Finance England will continue to remain eligible for these loans and grants until they finish their course (even if the course ends after the UK has left the EU).

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EEA/EFTA and Swiss nationals (and their family members) who are migrant or frontier workers or self-employed in the UK can access tuition fee loans, maintenance support and home-fee status on the basis of three years residence in the EEA/Switzerland immediately prior to the start of their course. Children of Swiss nationals will remain eligible for support on the same basis as now.