My Lords, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Fire Safety and Rescue and as a disabled person. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, is
unable to be in her place this morning as she is attending the memorial service for the Duke of Edinburgh in her role as chair of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme.
In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and I both spoke of our experience of the use of personal emergency evacuation plans, or PEEPs—good practice, and less good practice. I will not repeat that today but one thing is clear: the responsibility for getting safely out of a building should not be on the shoulders of a disabled resident alone. That is why I have laid Amendments 13, 20 and 35, and I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Hayman of Ullock, for signing them. The amendments set out a clear link between the duties under the Equality Act 2010 for those providing services for disabled people—in this case, housing and safety in buildings.
Amendment 13 would put into law that a statement must have been laid by the regulator that they have engaged with their residents in relation to the accountable person’s duty to avoid disability discrimination. Amendment 20 would amend Section 31 of the Equality Act by adding a specific reference to a person exercising functions in relation to public housing. Amendment 35 would create a duty on the accountable person to include developing PEEPs for people with a disability in order to avoid disability discrimination.
I believe that the amendments are necessary because I want to see clarification that Part 3 of the Equality Act 2010 applies to social landlords and that, as a result of Part 3, there is an anticipatory duty on social landlords to prepare PEEPs for disabled residents. There is a limited time for the relevant government body to prepare statutory guidance and a code of practice in relation to this.
I thank the Minister for his amendments, starting with Amendment 3, which talks about the “assistance and encouragement” that must be provided. Unfortunately, that is a long way from the current requirement for the responsible people in offices and other public buildings, including hotels, to make formal arrangements that ensure that a disabled person can leave a building that is dangerous whether due to suspected fire, chemical escape—such as at the Olympic Park swimming pool last week—or anything else that puts people at risk. The other amendments tabled by the Minister, and indeed his letter to signatories of my amendments that arrived at 10 am this morning, for which I thank him, talk about the government consultation, but the Government have been consulting on this specific matter since the early days of the Grenfell inquiry.
Why do we believe that there needs to be stronger reference to the Equality Act and to PEEPs? Week 68 of the Grenfell Tower inquiry took substantial evidence from witnesses in relation to the provision of communication and engagement with disabled residents and how they were—or were not—able to leave Grenfell Tower safely. They were not. Over 40% of disabled residents died in the fire, a far higher percentage than any other category of resident. There were no PEEPs. Not only was there no guidance but, as I will refer to,
any arrangements for disabled people were actively discouraged by the government adviser and government officials.
Inside Housing has reported on week 68 of the Grenfell Tower inquiry last week, saying:
“Government-endorsed guidance in use at the time said the provision of such plans was ‘usually unrealistic’, and staff at the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation … which managed the tower, previously cited this guidance in explaining why they did not provide any.”
As I said in Committee, Colin Todd of CS Todd & Associates, the consultants who wrote the guidance document for the Government, said:
“The consensus opinion of the project group was that it should be acknowledged in the guide that PEEPs were impracticable.”
However, the inquiry heard that Louise Upton, the former head of the fire safety policy team at DCLG, thought it was not a
“deliberate decision to exclude representatives”
of the disabled community.
The inquiry notes that the failure to provide escape plans resulted from that guidance being used by the KCTMO, but the Chief Fire Officers Association had raised concerns and warned that to
“ignore and eliminate advice on disabled access and evacuation is a fundamental error of the document”
and it
“is recommended that it must be included”.
Elspeth Grant, a fire safety consultant with TripleAconsult, wrote to Sir Merrick Cockell, then chair of the LGA and leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council, when the guidance was published to say that it was unlawful and discriminated against disabled people, calling for it to be withdrawn
“before this guidance leads to an unnecessary tragedy because plans were not in force”.
Just yesterday at the inquiry, Brian Martin, another official, said that the Government ignored the warnings about PEEPs for disabled people as they were “too expensive” to put into practice. The first phase of the inquiry recommended the provision of PEEPs for residents of high-rise blocks, but that is not what we are seeing now. Instead, the Government are still consulting.
12.30 pm
In an email enclosing a letter that arrived this morning, the Minister said that the mandating of PEEPs via the Building Safety Bill “is not the answer” and that his approach using the EEIS has now been shared with the National Fire Chiefs Council, which is
“supportive of this way forward”.
However, the letter from the National Fire Chiefs Council that he attached reads somewhat differently. Yes, the fire chiefs are happy to be part of any consultation, as they should be, but their letter goes on to say:
“We would like to take this opportunity to highlight the benefits, within the independent research and any further consultation, of engaging with relevant stakeholders in informing any further work on PEEPs. Such stakeholders are far reaching, and we suggest they should include the EHRC, disability representative groups, leaseholder representative groups and representatives from the Grenfell community groups.”
They do not say that mandating PEEPs is not the answer. They say that the Government need to listen to key stakeholders, who must be involved in the discussions.
Attached to the letter that the Minister circulated is an unidentified PDF; I think that it comes from the department but I cannot see that. It highlights the “substantial difficulties” of mandating PEEPs in high-rise buildings—those of practicality, proportionality and safety. The very fact that government guidance believes that providing safe egress for disabled people is too difficult and too expensive is what led to the appalling 2011 guidance. Not mandating responsibility for the safety of disabled people to the accountable or responsible officers for the building will continue to put disabled people in high-rise blocks at risk.
It is only when a fire alarm goes off that a disabled person, stuck in a building and waiting for help to leave safely, begins to understand how vital PEEPs are. Let me say this again: 40% of the disabled residents in Grenfell Tower died because there were no systems in place via PEEPs to get them out safely. If the Government will not support disabled people living in high-rise buildings by ensuring that those responsible for the building must have plans to help them leave, the only alternative is for the Government to provide housing for them that is safe.
I am grateful to the Minister because, in the last hour, his office has proposed a meeting for tomorrow. I thank him for that but, if progress is not made at that meeting, I plan to bring back amendments at Third Reading. This is truly a matter of life and death.