House of Lords debate details the forthcoming government Taskforce on Housing for Older People

Yesterday’s House of Lords debate on housing for older people, sponsored by Baroness Sally Greengross, heard from Baroness Bloomfield detailing the forthcoming government Taskforce on Housing for Older People.

As announced in the recent levelling-up White Paper and reported by the Housing LIN, the Government will soon launch a new taskforce on the issue of older people’s housing. It will look at ways to provide better choice, quality and security of housing for older people. This work will be taken forward in partnership with the Department of Health and Social Care and sector experts.

Answering questions in the House of Lords, the government’s response by Baroness Bloomfield on whether integrated retirement community models need to be expanded, included:

“Boosting the supply of a range of specialist housing for older people, including housing with care, will be key to achieving this aim.”

And

“On using Section 106 agreements to require developers to build appropriate housing for last-time buyers, I am sure this is something the task force may well consider.”

Later on, Lord Kennedy acknowledges the almshouse movement and the fantastic work it does on accommodation for older people to which Baroness Bloomfield responded to which Baroness Bloomfield said:

“I am sure the almshouse movement should also be feeding its ideas into the task force.”

The Housing LIN recently published a report on the financial benefits of almshouses written by the Housing LIN wrote for the Almshouse Association.

Further contributions by Lord Best (chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Housing and Care for Older People) welcomed the news of the taskforce and also referred to their current APPG Inquiry on shared ownership housing for an ageing population (SO HAPPI).

Lord Best asked whether or not the Minister will consider shared ownership housing for older people as the answer for those in the squeezed middle who cannot afford to buy somewhere more suitable but for whom there is no social rented housing available.

Baroness Bloomfield responded with reference to the Government’s new model of shared ownership, launched last April, specifically targeting old people, saying:

“The parameters it set reduced the minimum share required for ownership from 25% to 10% of a home’s market value, so lowering the cost of the deposit required. It introduced new staircasing arrangements to make it easier for a homeowner to purchase more of their home, and implemented a new tenure initial repair period, during which the housing provider is required to support homeowners in new-build homes with the cost of maintenance and repairs. We also extended the minimum lease term from 99 years to 990 years, which will prevent homeowners having to pay to extend their lease”.

For more information including how the government plans to ensure that housing associations have a voice in the new task force, urban areas are considered and incentives for older people to downsize are included in the taskforce’s objectives, please visit Housing for Older People or you can watch House of Lords Oral Questions from 14:42:05.