By making it harder for family members to attend the inquiry, the government is failing Grenfell victims yet again

As the first phase of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry opens, there will be many harrowing accounts of what happened the night, almost a year ago, when 71 died in the fire.

It is right, of course, that the inquiry should find out everything that happened and why; and deliver justice. It is right too that the inquiry panel has been expanded in response to pressure from the families.

Yet some families are still the objects of bureaucratic failure, being left unable to attend the Inquiry or uncertain that will be allowed to stay in the country to do so.

During her last days in office, and again in his first days on office, both Amber Rudd and Sajid Javid apologised for the department’s mistakes and promised action to end the “hostile environment” attitude towards anything to do with migration (in theory illegal migration; in practice, all migration and more here, even visits to an official inquiry).

The Independent has learned that many relatives of the victims of the Grenfell disaster are being subjected to quite unnecessary stress by civil servants. Specifically, the availability of visas to attend or give evidence at the inquiry is being tightened up. This might be serious enough were it some muddle about the rules. In fact, it appears to be a direct result of a change in policy by the department, and a reversal of a previous pledge, made when feelings were running especially high, that such visas would be granted without quibble or delay. Now, it would seem, the Home Office has changed its mind, and specified that those who are, in fact, entitled to attend the inquiry to seek justice and to give evidence may not be able to do so, or they are being left in a position where they do not know whether they can or not because they await leave to enter or remain in the UK.

As Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, is right to say: the Home Office is “failing” the victims' families, and it is difficult to believe that is happening. Somehow those responsible have managed to combine some of the worst aspects of the Grenfell disaster and the Windrush scandal into one toxic policy: remarkable ingenuity.

As we approach the first anniversary of this harrowing fire – and who can ever forget the image of people dying so horrifically in their own homes – there is much that remains undone and deeply unsatisfactory. Even with the personal attention of the prime minister, there are too many families who have not been found suitable accommodation, too few whose children are being properly educated, too little compensation, and justice remains too far away as the inquiry grinds on.

It is simply intolerable that those granted “core participant” status in the inquiry, flawed as it is, should be unable to take part because some other arm of government cannot honour its promises to allow them to come to and to stay in Britain when they are needed.

Why should the relatives of Grenfell Tower victims be stopped from attending the public inquiry into the blaze just because the Home Office has not processed visa applications that were submitted months ago?

The inquiry itself, which recently has had to have its oversight panel revised to command the support of victims and their families, is days away from starting its work, and yet some from outside the UK who have been given core participant status in the inquiry are still waiting for their documentation, so that they can come and participate in the judicial process.

Even now the most obvious and immediate step that should have been taken swiftly after the fire remains out for “consultation” – the ban on flammable materials being used for cladding.

Many blocks of flats and other public and private buildings across the country are still at risk because the deadly cladding materials haven’t been removed. The government, for all its sincerity about fining redress and justice, has failed to deliver. The patience of many is starting to wear very thin. Mr Javid, whose previous department, of Communities and Local Government, also shared responsibility for the Grenfell aftermath, needs to assert himself before he has some more awkward question to answer about his new department of state.