麻豆社

Six people have been confirmed dead after a huge fire raged through the night at a west London tower block, and police expect that number to rise.

There have been reports that cladding - the building's outer layer designed for insulation, environmental protection and aesthetic purposes - caught fire "like a firelighter".

Matthew Needham-Laing is an architect and a construction lawyer at law firm Katten UK. He told Radio 4's World at One it looked like a cladding issue, in which the flames cross the fire stops - which are designed to contain the spread of the fire - and ignite other floors.

Asked how many buildings in the UK have this kind of cladding, he said: "Probably tens of thousands".

(Image: Exterior of Grenfell Tower. Credit: PA)