Housing: Accessibility

Lord Best Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilkins]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that future housing is accessible and able to meet the needs of the greatest number of people.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, and at her request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are taking a number of steps to support accessible housing, including introducing new accessibility requirements into the building regulations and funding programmes to improve housing choice for older and disabled people.

[Lord Best]

My Lords, I thank the Minister on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins. She had a terrible accident in the other place, has broken both her legs and will be in Stoke Mandeville Hospital for some months.

Can the Minister reassure the House and external bodies such as Leonard Cheshire Disability and the Habinteg Housing Association that, in the quest to increase the quantity of new homes, the Government will not sacrifice quality, particularly in terms of space standards and accessibility, as otherwise today’s rabbit hutches will be tomorrow’s slums? Will she encourage all councils to follow the good example of the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and his predecessor, Ken Livingstone, in insisting on the lifetime homes standards for accessibility that not only help all of us, particularly as we grow older, but are there to save money in terms of people’s admission to hospital and admission to residential care homes?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I do not think that it is presumptuous to say on behalf of the whole House just how sorry we are to hear about the tragic accident that the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, experienced. We all wish her a speedy recovery.

In response to the noble Lord’s question, it is important for me to say that this Government are going further than any previous Government in making new homes accessible because for the first time ever we are bringing two new access standards into building regulations. That has never happened before. Local authorities are best placed to decide the housing needs of older and disabled people in terms of applying those standards and having those national standards will now make it much simpler for developers to comply.