Government U-turn on Grenfell recommendation for disabled evacuation planning

Last November, the Government made a commitment to implement the Grenfell Tower Phases 1 Inquiry in full. However, the Government has now made a U-turn on this commitment, in relation to the evacuation of disabled people.

Almost a third of the people who died in the Grenfell tower fire were disabled and in his report, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, made the following recommendation:

“that the owner and manager of every high-rise residential building be required by law to prepare personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs) for all residents whose ability to self-evacuate may be compromised (such as persons with reduced mobility or cognition).”

There are over 13 million disabled people in the UK, many of whom live in flats. In July, the Government issued a Fire Safety: Call for Evidence. Section 2.7 states that the Government only intends to implement the above recommendation for the 5,328 disabled residents living in high-rise buildings, where there is a Waking Watch present. This proposal does not implement the recommendation, leaving all remaining disabled residents living in high-rise buildings in danger with no legal protection to ensure personal emergency evacuation plans are provided.

Please find the following attachments:

• Government U-turn briefing note
• Our analysis of their proposals. This also contains a second spreadsheet detailing the Equality and Human Rights Commission statements that they believe that the Government had breached Equality and non-discrimination duties by not having pre-planned evacuation plans for disabled people
• Additional background information
• Notes on the last fire safety consultation exercise where they breached the Government breached their own consultation principles

I hope that this is something that you feel warrants you holding the Government to account by publishing this information to the widest audience possible.