Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans in High-rise Residential Buildings Consultation

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Written Statements

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

My noble Friend the Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh), has today made the following written ministerial statement:

Today, the Government publish a new consultation on Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans in High-rise Residential Buildings which will be open from 8 June to 19 July 2021.

This new consultation contains proposals to implement the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 Report recommendations on Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans in high-rise residential buildings. These recommendations require a change in law to place new requirements on owners or managers of multi-occupied high-rise residential buildings.

This consultation supports delivery of two of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 recommendations and is part of the Government’s package of reforms to improve building and fire safety in all regulated premises where people live, stay or work.

We are consulting on the following proposals:

Proposal 1: We propose to require the responsible person to prepare a personal emergency evacuation plan for every resident who self-identifies to them as unable to self-evacuate—subject to the resident’s voluntary self-identification—and to do so in consultation with them.

Proposal 2: We propose to provide a template to assist the responsible person and the residents in completing the plan, and to support consistency at a national level.

Proposal 3: We propose to require the responsible person to complete and keep up-to-date information about residents in their building who would have difficulty self-evacuating in the event of a fire—and who have voluntarily self-identified as such—and to place it in an information box on the premises to assist effective evacuation during a rescue by the fire service.

Proposal 4: We propose, in order to assist the responsible person and support consistency at a national level, to provide a template, most likely in a one-page format, to capture the key information to be provided in the information box.

Further details can be found in the consultation and its supportive documents available at: www.gov.uk/government/consultations/personal-emergency-evacuation-plans. A copy of the consultation will also be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

[HCWS73]