Building Safety

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That is exactly what today’s announcement is intended to achieve.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the overdue progress on developer responsibility; that gives some hope to my constituents. I want to draw the Secretary of State’s attention to an area that is often forgotten: safety for disabled residents. We know that the death rate for disabled residents in high-rise buildings is quite high. This delay has had a catastrophic effect. In December, a constituent emailed me to say that his young relative, who was in a wheelchair, had died when a fire broke out in her flat because she had no way to escape. Avoidable tragedies such as that will keep happening until we make the change. How can this be acceptable?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady is completely correct. There are some inherited structural problems with high-rise buildings in this country, which make life more difficult for residents living with disabilities. For example, we tend to have one staircase only, whereas other countries tend to have two. Critically, one recommendation from the inquiry—the need for personal emergency evacuation plans—is one that the Government have not yet met. I have been working with my colleagues in the Home Office to make sure that we do, but I understand her exasperation. We need to move more quickly to give disabled people the certainty that they will be safe.