Affordable Housing

Baroness Thomas of Winchester Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester (LD)]

My Lords, I shall add to what my noble friend Lady Brinton said about housing that is accessible to disabled people. In Britain, 13.3 million people are disabled, with the figure set to rise rapidly as the population ages—and yet in England only 7% of homes have minimum accessibility features. As we have heard, Part M4 of the building regulations provides three accessibility standards: category 1, the default minimum; category 2, the much better lifetime homes standard: and category 3, the better-still wheelchair housing design standard.

This year, Habinteg, a housing association specialising in accessible homes, analysed the accessible housing policies detailed in 263 of the 365 local plans across England. It found that, although 65% of the local planning authorities that it reviewed made reference to the lifetime homes standard or category 2, only 32% made a firm commitment to deliver a specific proportion of new homes to that standard. Just 18% committed to a specific proportion of new homes using category 3.

Surely we should future-proof our investment in new homes by making the category 2 standard our minimum requirement. This is already specified in the London plan, but not everywhere. Should not requirements to meet access standards set out in building regulations be extended to change-of-use developments, which account for a significant number of new homes, particularly in our cities?

It is important to note that disabled people whose housing needs are met are four times more likely to be in employment than those with unmet needs, and having more accessible and easily adaptable homes can alleviate pressure on health and social care services and budgets, as we have already heard, for example by speeding up hospital discharge and enabling greater independence at home.

As for adapting existing housing, local authorities should be urged to make use of the new toolkits produced by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in partnership with Habinteg which cover, among other things, providing and managing housing adaptations and the allocation of housing. I also make a plea for an increase in the disabled facilities grant, because a lot of families face serious financial hardship when they try to fund vital adaptations to their homes themselves. This is a particular problem for families with wheelchair-using children as they get bigger and cannot be carried up and down stairs. The need for more accessible and adaptable homes is very pressing, and I urge the Government to see what action they can take to tackle this problem as soon as possible.