Housing and Planning Bill

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

It is a simple argument: if one council can do it, all can. All local authorities need to know the extent and diversity of the need in their local area and be able to plan how best to meet it. Some are better at planning and providing than others. The amendment we tabled is very simple: it seeks to raise the debate by seeking to impose a duty on all local authorities specifically to assess the level of need for accessible, adaptable and wheelchair-user dwellings, and make this explicit in local plans. This would establish a statutory footing for the future supply of what is so desperately needed. I beg to move.

[Baroness Greengross (CB)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, in this very important amendment. She described it and made her case so beautifully. I rise because I spent six years as a commissioner in the Equality and Human Rights Commission. I am very much aware that people with disabilities are, rightly, a protected group in our country. Therefore, not complying with the amendment might be seen even as discriminatory by many people. Even more importantly, it would not be the right thing to do. What is the point of being in a protected group if there is no possibility of you being able to live in a local housing project? It is just logic; we have to do something to fulfil our obligations and do so with a good will.

The number of people with disabilities is rising. Thankfully, they, like any other person in our society, have a much better chance of survival than previously. This means that an appropriate proportion of housing in any development should be fully accessible to wheelchair users, as the noble Baroness has proposed. Therefore, I support her very important amendment.

I turn now to the amendment standing in my name in this group. As Mark Twain so famously said:

“Buy land, they’re not making it anymore”.

During Committee, a host of ideas have been put forward as to what we should do about the severe housing shortage facing us as a nation. While a large number of the ideas that have been put forward are great in theory, unfortunately some of them do not always work in practice, as has been repeatedly demonstrated in some of the debates we have already had, while others have been proven after many years of successful practice.

One such is retirement housing for older people with supported care needs. This is often called “extra care retirement housing”, which might not be the best name for it. There are others, often called “close care”, or they may be part of a retirement village. They are provided by a whole range of providers in the public, voluntary and private sectors. Such developments are not merely housing schemes designed without stairs, with grab rails and so on for older people; they offer older people a whole lifestyle, providing independent living, where many of the day-to-day chores are taken care of, and where support services come into play if they are required. People there have the reassurance of knowing that trained help is on hand if they need it. There is a restaurant that provides not just food but company when they wish to go there. There is a lounge or lounges available with activities to take part in. There is a guest suite, so that if the family wants to come to stay, it can. There are also 24/7 alarm calls and monitoring by those who understand the needs of older people.

During the years, I have met hundreds—in fact, probably many thousands—of older people in this and other types of housing. Because of my experience, my husband and I were able to ensure that my mother spent the last five years of her life in extra care retirement housing. She lived there, and died happily in her own home, with friends and family around her. I want many more people to have that opportunity.

The case for providing extra care retirement housing goes much further. At the same time as providing all these services, it also offers direct benefits to both local and national government because it brings down the costs of both health and welfare provision. This has already been said in relation to people with disabilities. I declare an interest as I head up the think tank, the International Longevity Centre UK. A study by the ILC in 2011 showed—to take just two examples—that extra care residents are less likely to be admitted for overnight stay in hospital and that they experience fewer falls. The study also showed that around 19% of those aged 80 or more, living in the community and receiving domiciliary care, were likely to move into institutional or residential care, while only 10% of people in extra care housing were expected to do so. That cuts the numbers by more or less a half. So as well as enhancing well-being for many, it keeps older people at home for longer and gives them opportunities to have a full life and to contribute to their communities because they still live in them.

There was a lady I knew who was totally disabled and in her late 70s. Her MP used to speak to me about her often because she was in awe of her; sadly, she died recently. This lady was about the best telephone campaigner in her area and she often terrified her MP. She was able to be in her community and be a resource in that community.

This amendment does not try to spell out quotas or targets but it ensures that there is a legal duty on people who make decisions on planning applications to have special regard to the need for such provision in the community. As such, I hope that it will be acceptable to your Lordships’ House. For me, extra care retirement housing—or housing of that type—ticks all the boxes. It adds to the housing stock; it encourages downsizing where appropriate. At a time when everyone is rightly concerned about the availability of finance, it releases funds that would otherwise be spent on health, social care and other forms of welfare provision. It truly is a win-win situation.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I shall say a few words in support of the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, which I signed with some enthusiasm, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross.

Looking back over the past 40 years during which I have been involved in housing issues, it seems that the drive and impetus to provide adequate housing for disabled people across a range of level of disabilities, together with the drive to provide better housing for older people, has faltered. As part of the current wish of people across the political spectrum to have more houses built, simply building them has a higher priority than what kind and quality of houses are built. That is something which I read right through this Bill. I hope that I am wrong, but that is how I read it.