Rayner to push ahead with evacuation plans that are ‘insult’ to disabled people who died at Grenfell

The government has confirmed that it will push ahead with “watered down” proposals for the emergency evacuation of disabled people who live in high-rise residential buildings, in response to the Grenfell fire inquiry.

In its “full response” to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s final report, the government yesterday (Wednesday) set out plans to act on the inquiry’s 58 recommendations.

One of the recommendations was for the government to further consider the inquiry’s call for a legal right to a personal emergency evacuation plan (PEEP) for all residents who might find it difficult to “self-evacuate” from a high-rise residential building.

That recommendation was made by the inquiry in October 2019.

But both the last Conservative government and the new Labour government refused to accept this recommendation in full and instead came forward with their own weakened versions of PEEPs.

Labour yesterday confirmed that it will go ahead with implementing its watered-down plans, which it calls Residential PEEPs, and which will apply to all high-rise residential buildings, and some medium-rise residential buildings.

This will impose a duty on the building owner or manager to engage with their “vulnerable and disabled residents”, consider how to improve their fire safety and evacuation, “enable” all residents to be clear on what they should do in the event of a fire, and give fire and rescue services information “in case they need to support their evacuation”.

It would be up to the building owner or manager to decide what measures are implemented, while the disabled resident may have to pay to ensure some measures “within their flat” are carried out.

The government will introduce these measures through secondary legislation later this year, and it said it would “engage widely” on producing the statutory guidance that will underpin the new requirements.

When the plans were announced in December, Adam Gabsi, co-chair of Inclusion London, who himself is a wheelchair-user who lives on the sixth floor of a high-rise building, said the government had “gone back on its word”.

He described the plans then as “a misrepresentation of the original recommendations but also an insult to those who lost their lives at Grenfell and to all disabled people still waiting for meaningful action”.

And he said PEEPs, as recommended by the inquiry, were “an essential safeguard for disabled people, particularly those living in high-rise buildings” and would ensure that those who face barriers to evacuation are not left behind in emergencies.

The Grenfell Tower fire, which began in the early hours of 14 June 2017, led to the deaths of 72 residents, and analysis of the inquiry’s final report by Disability News Service suggested about 20 of them were disabled people.

The English Housing Survey estimates that up to three-fifths (59 per cent) of social rented households in England “contain someone with a long-term illness or disability”, the government report says.

Despite the report confirming that Labour will water down the inquiry’s PEEPs recommendation – against the wishes of disabled people – deputy prime minister Angela Rayner told MPs yesterday: “In September, the prime minister rightly said that this tragedy poses questions about what social justice means in Britain today, and whether the voices of working-class people, those with disabilities and those of colour are ignored and dismissed.

“I am here to say that we will not be that country.

“We will be a country where decent housing, security, safety and peace of mind are shared by all and are not just the privilege of a few.”

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