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| Grenfell Tower inquiry member Benita Mehra resigns | |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| A newly-appointed Grenfell Tower fire inquiry panel member has resigned after she was linked to the charitable arm of a firm which supplied the block's deadly cladding. | |
| Benita Mehra said she recognised and respected the "depth of feeling" among some about her appointment. | |
| Downing Street said it had accepted her resignation but maintained there was no conflict of interest. | |
| It comes ahead of the second phase of the inquiry beginning on Monday. | |
| Prime Minister Boris Johnson thanked Ms Mehra for her commitment and said he was "grateful for her sensitivity to the work of the inquiry". | |
| It was announced shortly before Christmas that the engineer would replace academic Prof Nabeel Hamdi as an expert panellist for the second phase of the inquiry. | |
| After considering the night of the fire - during the first phase - the focus will switch to the refurbishment of the building and its role in the fire, as well as issues surrounding building regulations. | |
| It was first reported by the Guardian that Ms Mehra is a past president of the Women's Engineering Society which, according to the society's website, last year received funding from the Arconic Foundation for an apprentice conference. | |
| Arconic supplied the cladding on the outside of the west London tower block, which caught fire on 14 June 2017, claiming 72 lives. | |
| A report - following the first phase of the public inquiry into the fire - found in October last year that the tower block's cladding did not comply with building regulations and was the "principal" reason for the fire's rapid and "profoundly shocking" spread. | |
| Arconic said a "confluence of unfortunate circumstances" rather than the "mere presence" of the panels had caused the spread of the fire. | |
| It added that the grant was made by its charitable arm, the Arconic Foundation, which is "an independently endowed and managed foundation". |