Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Lords, I, too, appreciate my noble friend’s willingness to table this amendment in response to the excellent earlier amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and supported so extensively across the House. After her early reservations in Committee, which were understandable enough, my noble friend has taken to embroidering Clause 2 with enthusiasm. I think that all of us who have been engaged in these debates greatly appreciated the latest of her letters, sent on 15 July. She is without a doubt my favourite correspondent. She brought us much good news about how the Government intend to ensure that good design genuinely is promoted by the Homes and Communities Agency and by the Government themselves in their broader strategy. She responded very constructively and helpfully to that tiresome but, I hope, pertinent list of questions that I put to her when welcoming the amendment to Clause 2(1)(d). In her letter she said that that amendment had strengthened the legislative framework, and this new amendment would strengthen it further. She also said: "““Having put the framework in place, we must now ensure that the policy is effectively implemented””." She went on to say that she would be looking to local planning authorities to assist the Government and the HCA in this strategy, which brings us again to the question of skills. I am pleased to be informed by her about CABE’s programme to train officers of local planning authorities in the Building for Life methodology. It is also important that the Government, along with CABE, should pursue energetically making design review available in all the regions of the country—I understand that there are two regions where it is not yet available—and ensuring that it is of a high standard and works well. This amendment, which addresses the needs of the elderly so usefully, encourages us to think that the Government will indeed achieve their targets of ensuring that publicly funded housing matches lifetime home standards by 2011, and that they are serious about the target to ensure that those standards are attained with new developments in the private housing market by 2013. However, that will undoubtedly be much more difficult. I was pleased that the Minister insisted, in her letter, that she would expect the HCA to use its leverage on the private and public sectors. How will the issue of minimum space standards, which some of the relevant agencies and professional bodies are examining, intertwine with the question of achieving lifetime home standards? Will the Minister also comment on building regulations? In her letter, she mentioned that the current review of those is focused on reducing burdens and costs on businesses. That is, indeed, a good thing: we do not want businesses to be faced with any unnecessary burdens and costs, but in building homes we also need to be focused on the needs of those who will dwell in them. Will she confirm that that review is intended to ensure that building regulations themselves support good design? Where the needs of disabled people are concerned, ensuring that new build matches the best design standards is one thing; ensuring that we are able to refurbish or adapt existing homes to make their design appropriate for disabled people is much more difficult. The Minister has told us how the requirement on local authorities to provide match funding of 40 per cent for disabled facilities grants has been relaxed, and expressed optimism that local authorities would none the less continue to prioritise adaptation of homes in their communities. She argued that they would, rationally, realise that they would be saving costs on social services budgets and other budgets. Yet we cannot always be entirely confident either that local authorities will act rationally and far-sightedly or that they will, by any means, have the resources to do all that a rational and far-sighted authority would want. Will she assure us again that she will be invigilating the attitude and progress made by local authorities on adapting homes for disabled people? Disabled facilities grants are, of course, only part of the story, as the Minister’s letter reminded us. Will she ensure that an adequate share of the £1 billion in the regional housing pot is indeed made available for adaptations, and move to clarify the respective responsibilities for disabled facilities grants of housing associations and local authorities? I ask my litany of questions again only because it is extremely important—and I know that the Minister agrees with me here—that we push these good intentions through into a really worthwhile, practical reality. I have no doubt whatsoever that my noble friend is determined that we should.