CORRECTED-UK's Rees-Mogg says Grenfell victims could have used common sense to escape

Prominent Conservative lawmaker Jacob Rees-Mogg said on Monday that victims of the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 could have used common sense to ignore the instructions of the fire service and leave the burning building.

An official inquiry into the catastrophic chain of events in June 2017 that turned an ordinary kitchen fire into an inferno that killed 71 people last week found that combustible cladding contributed to the tragedy, and also questioned fire brigade advice that residents should stay put. "If you just ignore what you're told and leave, you are so much safer," Rees-Mogg, leader of the UK House of Commons, told LBC radio in an interview.

"And I think if either of us were in a fire, whatever the fire brigade said, we would leave the burning building. It just seems the common sense thing to do."