Building Safety Bill

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the Bill. I am not a housing expert, but I have been motivated to speak in this debate due to the significant number of disabled people who have been in touch to express their serious concerns. I declare my interests. I am president of the LGA and, when in London, I stay in a block of flats. This debate has made me strongly consider my personal safety.

Like others in your Lordships’ Chamber, I have received many emails about the costs of remedial work and the impact on people’s lives. It has become apparent that many disabled people have become marooned in their flats, which they, like others, bought in good faith. Disabled people spend an enormous amount of time thinking about accessing and egressing accommodation. They have to take account whether there is a fire lift or whether the lift gets turned off in an emergency. They have to think about evacuation procedures, such as whether it is safer to remain in their flat or to leave; whether there is a refuge or place of safety—they are quite different things—and whether to choose to use an evac chair or an evacuation sledge. That is a difficult choice, as the latter means, for me, giving up my only means of mobility. It is not stepping out of a pair of shoes.

I know from personal experience that finding accessible accommodation that is also affordable and vaguely near where you want to live is incredibly difficult, and you can then become tied into it. Any disabled resident living in a flat under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 has been entitled to have a “suitable and sufficient” fire risk assessment, but one disabled resident who got in touch with me told me that the initial advice in case of emergency was to stay in their flat, but when they sought independent advice they were told to leave because, for the particular block of flats they lived in, if they were there for more than 20 minutes, their chance of survival was severely reduced.

A recent article in the Disability News Service stated that the Government had awarded to CS Todd Associates the contract to produce new fire safety guidance. The same consultants stated in 2011 that it was “usually unrealistic” to expect landlords to put in place arrangements for disabled people to evacuate blocks of flats in the case of an emergency. It also wrote the LGA guidance, which had to be withdrawn, and the British standard, which also had to be withdrawn.

I am also very concerned by comments that have been sent to me by a member of the Fire Safety Forum. I apologise if the comments have been taken slightly out of context, but they do need interrogating. A member of that forum wrote about “what fun” they would have

“watching Rudetube videos of the poor disabled people crawling on their hands and knees down smoke filled corridors when the common parts of the fire alarm system operates to tell them to get out in to the corridors because there is smoke in there. It all promotes equality, because the able bodied people will have to go on their hands and knees too when the smoke layer gets too low, rather than staying in the safety of their flats.”

I am happy to share the links with the Minister and his team. The name alongside those comments is Colin Todd. Even if the word “unrealistic” has been misunderstood or poorly defined—because I recognise the complication of providing a plan in what can be difficult and changing circumstances—it feels as if disabled people are being told that they should not get in anyone else’s way and do not have a chance of evacuating the building.

I understand that the Minister has responded to the request to look into this and said that the contract was awarded according to the correct procedure. I learned this afternoon that a letter has been sent on behalf of some disabled residents to the Home Office asking that the award of this contract be rescinded.

On researching for this debate, I was reminded that, many years ago, I was on a plane and—please bear with me—I was going to an athletics competition. Without anyone ever telling me, I always knew that the chance of me getting off a plane in an emergency was virtually zero. That is why I taught my daughter, from the point she could understand—probably about 18 months old—that if we were ever in that situation, she had to get herself off the plane. On this particular trip I had given up my day chair, was in my seat right at the back with other athletes, and a member of the cabin crew came to tell me that if the plane went down, not only was I not going to get off, but I should not get in other people’s way. Furthermore, no one from the crew, whatever the circumstances, was going to come back and help me off. This is how disabled people feel in these circumstances.

I cannot begin to imagine what anyone went through on 14 June 2017, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson of Welton, for her incredibly moving speech. As reported by Disability Rights UK on 31 March 2021 on the evidence sessions:

“Fifteen of the 37 disabled residents”—


of Grenfell Tower—

“died in the fire that killed 72 people”.

That means that 40% of the disabled people who lived in the tower died.

So I ask the Minister: can he understand why disabled people are so angry, and is it not reasonable that a disabled person should have a plan and have at least a chance of getting out of a building in an emergency? When will Her Majesty’s Government be releasing the outcome of the consultation on personal emergency evacuation plans, which closed on the 19 July last year? Finally, will the Minister offer his reassurance that he will do everything possible to protect disabled people through this Bill as, at the moment, there is little reference to them?