CULTURE Secretary Fiona Hyslop has said fire service investigations into the cause of the Glasgow School of Art blaze should be allowed to progress before any decision about holding a public inquiry is taken.
She told the BBC’s Sunday Politics Scotland programme that no-one had yet been able to enter the building and that once it had been declared safe, building control and Historic Environment Scotland (HES) officials would assess the situation.
On calls for a public inquiry, she said: “I can understand people want lots of their questions answered but clearly we’ve got to have the process in place first.
“We have to have the fire investigation first and I think we should give people the time to carry out those very responsible duties to best effect, and that will give us clarity of what is possible going forward.
“The sensible thing to do is to find out what the source of the fire was and how that spread in the initial stages.
“All these questions will be addressed by the fire investigation. We need them to do their job initially and that is very, very important.”
She confirmed that HES had taken a digital record of the building and its contents after the previous 2014 fire, but added: “The situation now is very severe so I’m not giving any commitments at this stage.”
Speaking on the same programme, Scottish Secretary David Mundell said: “I don’t at this stage think there’s a case for a public inquiry unless someone can bring forward some exceptional reason.
“I think the initial inquiries should take place as would normally follow a fire, into what was the cause and what were the related circumstances.”
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