Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that all households with at least one disabled resident have adequate access to (a) adapted housing, (b) support services and (c) local authority assistance in South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency.

We recognise how important the right housing arrangements are in supporting people to live independently, and the need to support people to live behind their own front door wherever possible.

In England, we fund the locally administered Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) which helps eligible older and disabled people on low incomes to adapt their homes, through practical changes like installing stair lifts or level access showers - to make them safe and suitable for their needs. We have provided an additional £172 million across this and the last financial year to uplift the DFG, which could provide around 15,600 home adaptations to give older and disabled people more independence in their homes. The total allocations for Basildon and Thurrock in 2025/26 are £1,785,144 and £1,636,074 respectively.

Funding for local authorities in England for housing-related local support services is through the wider Local Government Finance Settlement and it is for local authorities to determine which services they wish to fund, as they best understand local priorities and circumstances.

More widely, to enable local authorities to deliver key services such as adult social care, the Government is making available up to £3.7 billion of additional funding for social care authorities in 2025/26, which includes an £880 million increase in the Social Care Grant. The additional funding available to Thurrock Council in 2025/26 means that they will see an increase to their core spending power of up to 6.9% in cash terms.