Housing: Accessibility Standards

Lord Best Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Best]

To ask His Majesty’s Government when they will implement their decision, announced in July 2022, to require all new homes to meet higher standards of accessibility.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Penn) (Con)]

My Lords, we have proposed to mandate the M4(2) requirement in building regulations as a minimum standard, leaving the current M4(1) standard to apply by exception only when M4(2) is impractical and unachievable. There will need to be a further technical consultation that the building safety regulator will need to take forward as part of its future work plan.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her reply, and to the Government for announcing that these higher standards for lifetime homes will be implemented and mandated through the building regulations. I say that on behalf of the many charities that have been campaigning for years to have these higher standards brought into practice. But that announcement was 18 months ago, and we have seen very little progress in getting on with the consultation that should have followed. Since that time, 220,000 properties have been built that do not accord with the new standards, and every further month we leave the consultation, another 13,000 homes are built that do not accord with the standards. When will we see some results from the Government on this?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I am afraid I will have to disappoint the noble Lord, as I cannot give a specific timeframe for that further work. The building safety regulator is responsible for introducing updates to the building regulations and it is a new organisation with a busy programme of work. However, his points are well made. To reassure him, we are taking these considerations into account in a number of ways. For example, last December we published an updated NPPF which included a specific expectation that, when planning housing for older people, particular regard is given to retirement housing, housing with care and care homes. This reflects the Government’s understanding that we need to take into account accessibility and the changing needs of our population as we build new homes.