A newly-appointed member of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry panel has resigned after she was linked to a charitable arm of the firm which supplied the tower block’s deadly cladding.

Benita Mehra tendered her resignation to the Prime Minister Boris Johnson, saying she recognised and respected the “depth of feeling” among some about her appointment.

Mr Johnson thanked Ms Mehra for her commitment and said he was “grateful for her sensitivity to the work of the inquiry”.

Her resignation was welcomed by the bereaved families and survivors group Grenfell United – which had raised concerns about the link with the Arconic Foundation.

They said Ms Mehra had “done the dignified thing by resigning”, but said the Government “should never have put families in this situation”.

Her appointment was announced shortly before Christmas, replacing academic Professor Nabeel Hamdi on the panel for the second phase of the inquiry, which is due to begin this year.

It was later disclosed that Ms Mehra is an immediate past president of the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) which, according to the society’s website, last year received funding from Arconic for an apprentice conference.

Arconic supplied the cladding on the outside of the west London tower block, which went up in flames on June 14 2017, claiming 72 lives.

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