Backing Personal Evacuation Plans for disabled tower block leaseholders
Status: Lost
Clients: Sarah Rennie, Georgie Hulme, CLADDAG
“This case has sparked a national conversation. Our supporters within the housing sector and fire safety industry have noted a significant shift in thinking on this issue over the last 12 months and the inhumane ‘stay put’ mantra has, at long last, lost its dangerous grip.
We thank our legal team for their unwavering dedication together with Law for Change and everyone who has supported us to pursue this judicial review. Our small part in the pursuit of justice will continue.”
CLADDAG
The issue
Working with Bhatt Murphy, we supported a judicial review against the Secretary of State for the Home Department on behalf of CLADDAG, an organisation who campaign for disabled leaseholders and tenants in residential buildings impacted by the building safety crisis.
The challenge was against government failure to implement urgent Grenfell Inquiry recommendations on personal emergency evacuation plans (‘PEEPs’) for disabled people.
Legal route for challenge
At a two-day hearing in the High Court in December 2022, the Claimants argued that the decision to reject the PEEPs recommendations was unlawful for a number of reasons, including:
The government had failed to understand the rationale behind the PEEPs recommendations;
The public consultation process was so unfair as to be unlawful, including because repeated assurances from government Ministers that the PEEPs recommendations would be implemented in full created a legitimate expectation of consultation on any proposed rejection of the PEEPs recommendations prior to any decision to reject them being taken;
A failure to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty, under which the Home Secretary must have regard to the need to among other things advance the equality of opportunity of disabled people; and
Failure to meaningfully act on the Chair’s PEEPs recommendations constituted a breach of disabled residents’ right to life and to freedom from discrimination under Articles 2 and Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights
The Outcome
The High Court Judge found that the Government “was cognisant of the urgent public safety imperative of evacuation plans in every high rise residential building as identified in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 report recommendations” but made an “essentially political decision” that the safety imperative was outweighed by practical and cost considerations.
The government’s primary argument in defence of the claim was that no decision had been made to reject the PEEPs recommendations, and that the government was still considering how to implement the Inquiry Chair’s recommendations. This was emphatically rejected by the Judge, who found that by late March 2022, a decision had been “conclusively made not to implement the PEEPs recommendations”.
The judgment outlines internal records (only obtained following a disclosure application by the Claimants) documenting Ministerial concern about making public the decision to reject the PEEPs recommendations because it would be “politically difficult to justify” and that the approach adopted by the Minister reflected a “fear of political fallout”.
The government continues to publicly state that the recommendations will be implemented; as recently as 6 July 2023 Michael Gove MP stated in a letter to the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan that “The recommendations relating to PEEPs and broader evacuation plans remain a key priority, and the Home Office is currently considering how best to deliver these recommendations, following recent public consultations”.
What comes next
From our clients’ perspective the claim has helped to contribute towards a reframing of the public conversation on fire safety and people with disabilities. It has dispelled some of the misunderstandings around ‘stay put’ and the need for all residents to be able to evacuate when necessary without waiting for the arrival of Fire and Rescue Services.
It is difficult to say at this stage where the opportunities may be for future litigation on PEEPs but further challenges could potentially arise:
when further policy/guidance is issued by the Home office in response to the Emergency Evacuation Information Sharing (EEIS+) consultation which closed in August 2022
after publication of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 report, if further relevant recommendations are made.
