A FORMER housing minister has said that the government had a “completely false picture of the level of fire safety” in England at the time of the Grenfell Tower disaster, an inquiry has heard. 

Lord Barwell, who served as housing minister between 2016 and 2017, is accused of ignoring several written warnings from MPs which urged him to act on fire safety issues in high rises. 

However, appearing at the Grenfell inquiry on Tuesday, the peer said that he had the impression that a review of safety guidelines was “not life critical” and that the number of fires in the country was falling.