Asked by: Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the proposal for the creation of a new task force on meeting the current and future housing and care needs of people as they age in communities, as recommended by the Associated Retirement Community Operators in its report Planning for retirement: How retirement communities can help meet the needs of our ageing population, published in June; and what plans they have, if any, to establish such a task force.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Government welcomes the work of specialist older people’s housing providers in building homes and meeting the needs of our aging population. We are already engaging with specialist providers as we take forwards our plan to build the homes our country needs including through our reform and modernisation of the planning system. Ministers and officials will continue to engage with this sector going forward.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he is taking support proposals for a UN Convention on the Rights of Older People.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The UK is committed to protecting the human rights of all persons, including older persons. We recognise the serious human rights issues that older persons often face in many parts of the world. The UK engages in the annual sessions of the UN Open Ended Working Group on Ageing (OEGWA), supports resolutions on the rights of older persons at the UN Human Rights Council and at the UN General Assembly, and engages constructively in the debate in other fora. We are supportive, in principle, of a multilateral instrument dedicated to the rights of older persons and welcome OEGWA's work to help deepen our understanding of these important issues, before we consider what might be the most appropriate solution. We will continue to work closely with academia, civil society and national human rights institutions to draw on their expertise and ensure that our approach takes account of their views.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to increase the range of (a) extra care housing and (b) housing with care to alleviate pressure on the care home sector.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Housing-with-care (or extra care housing) has a vital role in enabling older people to live independently, with the necessary care and support available if required. The Department of Health and Social Care together with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government provides capital funding to incentivise the supply of supported housing for older people, including housing-with-care. In the context of an ageing population, we will continue to work with the sector to improve the diversity of housing options available to older people.
Asked by: Baroness Jolly (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to protect people over the age of 60 who may be made redundant as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; and what steps they are taking to assist those who have been made redundant to return to work.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
We are providing £1.2bn to enhance work search support service in Great Britain and doubling the number of frontline Work Coaches in Jobcentre Plus before the end of the financial year.
In addition, support for older workers also includes:
The online service Find a Job (www.gov.uk/find-a-job) has many of these jobs and can be used to search and apply.
Asked by: Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that ageing continues to be identified as a ministerial responsibility within an inclusive societies portfolio when the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is established.
Answered by Baroness Sugg
The new FCDO’s guiding purpose will be to promote the UK’s national interest around the world. The new organization will take a broad view of national interest, which will be based on values, as well as our core interests of security and prosperity. The UK stands for open societies and democratic values, alongside poverty reduction and supporting the vulnerable, because they are right in themselves and also the best route to lasting stability and growth.
As the current minister for Inclusive Societies, I recognize that empowering older people is key to achieving poverty reduction. COVID-19 has thrown into sharp relief the vulnerability of older people to shocks and brought to the forefront the important roles they play in society.
The UK is committed to ensuring that, through all channels of support, our assistance reaches the most marginalized, which will include older people. The new department will continue to prioritise those furthest left behind and champion inclusion of vulnerable groups in our responses.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the disaggregation of data by age is (a) improved and (b) prioritised in the work of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; and what progress the Government has made on the implementation of the Inclusive Data Charter Action Plan.
Answered by Wendy Morton
Responding to the needs of older people is essential in our efforts to tackle extreme poverty. This is being highlighted right now as we see the vulnerability of older people to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are paying attention to their needs in our response our COVID-19 and are engaging internationally to push for others to do the same.
DFID published our Inclusive Data Charter Action Plan in 2019, setting out our ambitions to increase the collection and use of disaggregated data, and to improve disaggregation at a global level. This includes our £45 million investment in the World Bank Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building fund, which strengthens the capacity of statistical systems in developing countries, including on age disaggregated data.
We are a key stakeholder in the Titchfield City Group on Ageing, an international group set up to improve data on ageing and age disaggregation.
Asked by: Giles Watling (Conservative - Clacton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with representatives from the care sector on increasing the level of private sector investment in the housing with care sector.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Housing-with-care has a vital role in enabling older people to live independently, with the necessary care and support available if required. In the context of an ageing population, we will continue to work with the sector to improve the diversity of housing options available to older people.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Cass Business School, the Association of Retirement Community Operators, and the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation Too Little, Too Late? Housing for an ageing population, published on 3 June.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
This Government is committed to ensuring that more people than ever before can access a safe, secure, affordable place to call home. That is why, in the revised National Planning Policy Framework, we strengthened policy to create a clear expectation that all councils have policies in place for addressing the housing needs of older people. We also widened the definition of older people in the Framework to include those approaching retirement and have published further planning guidance to assist councils to get the right policies in place. Many older people are already benefiting from the more than 460,000 affordable homes we have delivered since 2010.
Building on the current £9bn Affordable Homes Programme, the Chancellor announced in the last budget that we are investing £12bn to build affordable homes between 2021/22 and 2025/26. This will be the biggest cash investment in affordable housing for a decade. Since 2012-13 we have also provided over £2.7bn, delivering around 280,000 adaptations by the end of 2018-2019 to ensure older and disabled people can live independently and safely in their own home.
The cross-government initiative 'Home of 2030' aims to inspire and reward the ambition of housing providers, designers, the supply chain and others through a design and delivery competition which addresses the major challenges of future housing needs: an ageing society and climate change. The competition's aim is to normalise new homes which are low-carbon, deliver low energy bills and are age-friendly, enabling all generations to live independently in housing which adapts to their needs as they age.
The Government is working hard to ensure our economy is protected in the long term and is committed to building more homes. We will continue our progress towards our target of 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s. This will see us build at least a million more homes, of all tenures, over the next Parliament – in the areas that really need them. This includes reform of the planning system, including ensuring that planning permissions are built out more quickly, and more than £44bn of financial support over five years to 2022/2023.
We are continuing to work with providers and others to ensure we can provide a range of housing options to meet the needs of everyone including older people and welcome this report as a contribution to the debate about how we can encourage the provision of a range of high-quality housing options for older people.
Asked by: Lord Addington (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to make a range of physical activities, including dance and sport, available for all age groups in society.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Physical activity is crucial to the health and wellbeing of the nation and, as we set out in Government’s sports strategy Sporting Future, it is important for people of all ages to be active. The national sports council Sport England is responsible for supporting sport and physical activity organisations to promote health and fitness, including dance.
The latest example of this has been the Join the Movement campaign, which has provided tips, advice and guidance on how people can get or stay active in and around the home during lockdown. Sport England have also worked with Public Health England to develop the Active At Home booklet to help older adults without access to the internet keep up their activity levels while isolating.
Sport England have previously developed the We Are Undefeatable campaign, which encourages people with a range of long term health conditions to get active, and the This Girl Can campaign which encourages women to get active regardless of their shape, size and ability.
Sport England’s funding programmes such as their Active Ageing Fund and their Families Fund are helping more people to play sport and take part in physical activity.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether she plans to reassign ageing to a specific Ministerial portfolio within her Department in response to the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Wendy Morton
Ageing is an important element in the Department for International Development (DFID’s) efforts to tackle extreme poverty and our collective commitment to ‘leave no-one behind’. Baroness Sugg has direct responsibility for ageing as part of her portfolio on Inclusive Societies, and we will make this more explicit in her online portfolio. We recognise that, in addition to their other vulnerabilities, older people, people with pre-existing conditions, and those with complex needs are disproportionately impacted and at more serious risk of severe complications and fatality due to COVID-19.
The UK is at the forefront of the global response to COVID-19 and has, to date, committed up to £241 million of funding to support the global efforts to combat the outbreak of COVID-19. We will work with all of our humanitarian partners to ensure that the most vulnerable, including older people and people with disabilities are reached and supported. We are therefore continuing to take action to support countries to care for their populations.