Five years on from Grenfell and the government still doesn’t care about disabled people

The Grenfell tower fire was so horrific, so visceral, that it hardly seems possible that it happened five long years ago. Less surprising, but still appalling given the scale of the tragedy, is how little has changed.

Half a decade on, we are still, incredibly, debating how much a life is worth. A morally bankrupt government, which wasted billions on fraudsters during the pandemic, is quibbling over the costs of protecting people living in highrise buildings. It is making it clear that the disabled among them don’t matter.

It is saying: You cripples? You can burn. Oh yes it is.

This morning sees the publication of an open letter to Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Priti Patel and Lord Greenhalgh on the subject of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry and their failure to implement its recommendations vis disabled people (the government had promised to do that in full).

If you’re wondering who the last of those is, his lordship is officially the minister for building safety & fire in Gove’s awkwardly named Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. However, his title is a misnomer. Minister for building (lack of) safety & fire would be more appropriate. Or just the minister for blatant ableism (see below).

The letter, from Disability Rights UK, Grenfell United and Claddag, which campaigns for disabled leaseholders in flats with cladding and/or safety issues, seeks to draw attention to the subject of PEEPs – personal emergency evacuation plans – for disabled people in highrise accommodation.

These were recommended by the inquiry because they would help to ensure that disabled residents could escape in the event, God forbid, of a Grenfell 2.0 as opposed to, say, suffocating from smoke inhalation while awaiting rescue.

Good idea, right?

Not according to the government. Here’s what Lord Greenhalgh has said in parliament on the subject: “On practicality, how can you evacuate a mobility-impaired person from a tall building before the professionals from the fire and rescue service arrive?

“On proportionality, how much is it reasonable to spend to do this at the same time as we seek to protect residents and taxpayers from excessive costs?

“On safety, how can you ensure that an evacuation of mobility-impaired people is carried out in a way that does not hinder others in evacuating or the fire service in fighting the fire?”

Translation: Pipe down, sit tight and stay out of the way while the building’s burning. If you end up joining the 40 per cent of Grenfell casualties who were disabled, well that’s what you get for being a problem.

Here’s the thing: as is so often the case, this lamentable minister wasn’t talking out of his mouth. He was using another orifice when he made that statement, because PEEPs needn’t be at all difficult. They just require a little imagination, perhaps seasoned with some neighbourliness. I guess the latter is somewhat hard for government ministers to understand, given the moral sewer in which they live, and the moral degeneracy of their leadership. But elsewhere in Britain it still exists.

Claddag co-founder Sarah Rennie managed to sort herself out with a PEEP within 48 hours of it emerging that the lift in her building could not be used in an evacuation as it was not constructed to firefighting standards.

Her “Right to Manage” board  – of fellow neighbours – supported her to create the plan. I’m assuming they would wonder how on earth someone could have suggested that saving her life was not “proportionate”. Hey Lord Ableism – that’s what I meant by neighbourliness.

The plan calls for Rennie to transfer into an evacuation chair from her regular wheelchair, which is left inside the flat. She is then helped out of the building, which has been practised with the aid of neighbours. In other words? It’s. Not. That. Hard. These plans needn’t be complicated, awkward or expensive. They just require a little imagination.

This bring us to point two – costs. The government seems to have got it into its head that every building would need a 24-hour fire safety martial if PEEPs were brought in. This is tommyrot. Rennie’s plan didn’t cost much more than a few hundred quid for an ex-demo chair (fixing her building’s cladding so it doesn’t burn, for all its leaseholders, is a different matter).

The final point the minister cynically and sententiously raises “on safety” is arguably the worst of the lot. Lord Ableism is here deploying a very ugly, but in many ways a very Tory, argument. He’s saying, “Hey, you able bodied people: if we let the disabled out we’re putting YOU at risk.”

To keep up to speed with all the latest opinions and comment, sign up to our free weekly Voices Dispatches newsletter by clicking here

Rennie’s case proves that this is just so much trash. First off, it is perfectly possible to pass someone using an evacuation chair on a typical flight of stairs. In single file, sure. But it is possible. The delay to able bodied residents would be minimal.

Consider, too, that the evacuation of a chair user will inevitably be somewhat slower than that of their able-bodied peers. Most of the non-disabled will likely be out by the time the disabled person and their helper reach the stairs, making the “single file” issue even less of a problem than the ableism minister’s ugly and erroneous claim.

Needless to say, PEEPs for the visually and/or hearing impaired could be constructed with similar ease, using the sort of imagination this government lacks. Ditto other disabilities.

But rather than work on that basis, the government apparently prefers to leave disabled Britons living in buildings with dangerous cladding with the knowledge that they cannot access a safe means of escape should the worst happen.

It is staggering that the advice to these people – five long years on from Grenfell – remains “Stay put”. That advice contributed to many deaths in an avoidable tragedy, a tragedy this wretched, wretched government seems bent upon seeing repeated.