My Lords, I thank noble Lords from all sides of the House who are supporting this Bill—and who, very nobly, I may say, have stayed in Westminster rather than starting their weekend early. I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist, who will, I know, be responding at very short notice.
I will speak briefly about the contents of the Bill and rather more about why I believe noble Lords and the Government should support it. In short, it is about improving the lives, life chances and opportunities of our fellow citizens—particularly those who are most in need and have the fewest opportunities in life—and it is immensely practical.
There are four key elements to the Bill. The first is a duty on the Secretary of State to secure the health, safety, well-being and convenience of persons in or around buildings, which means in practical terms that all new homes have to promote health, safety and well-being, and help people to live well. The second part is to have 11 healthy homes principles. These are the principles of what makes a healthy home, and they address issues from fire safety to space, security, access to green spaces and managing climate risk. They would form the basis of any policy. The third point I want to draw out is the appointment of a healthy homes commissioner, to ensure promotion and implementation of the policy. Finally, the Secretary of State would provide an annual report to Parliament on progress with the policy.
The underlying issue behind the Bill is the intimate relationship between housing and health. Other noble Lords will describe many examples of how poor and inadequate housing damages health; from damp, cold and heat, poor air quality and overcrowding to dangerous stairs and electrical circuits—the list goes on. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, on his Bill and his powerful speech earlier.
The Bill is also by implication about the health of communities, wider society and the planet. They are all intimately connected. Poor housing blights communities and contributes to loneliness, isolation, depression and all the many aspects of social exclusion and the damage done by inequalities. Poor housing in neighbourhoods without facilities blights lives and contributes to global warming. Tackling these issues is central to any levelling-up agenda.
But this Bill is not just about the negatives or limiting the damage; it is also about the positives: improving lives and enhancing health and well-being across the whole arc of peoples’ lives. Housing is one of the key needs for all of us. For all of us, shelter and food are the foundation of our lives.
The Bill has been prepared by the TCPA, formerly the Town and Country Planning Association, and I particularly thank Hugh Ellis, Dan Slade and colleagues for their work on it. I also thank the officials in the Public Bill Office who helped streamline this final version. The TCPA is an organisation with a proud history, dating back to the 19th century and the promotion of garden cities. In many ways, this Bill is not a new and radical departure. We have known of the links between health and housing for years—think of Dickens and Disraeli, and the 19th-century rookeries and slum housing. This is in many ways a return to a much older British tradition of designing places to transform people’s lives, an endeavour at which this country used to excel. It is not just about the garden cities. At the end of the First World War, the Government published new and comprehensive design standards for public housing in order that they could build homes fit for heroes, and millions of new, decent homes resulted from this policy. Incidentally, the Minister of Health was then also the Minister of Housing.
My Lords, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, on his choice of subject for this Bill, furthering a campaign that he has promoted in this House for some time. It is a pleasure to support its Second Reading. The Bill was launched at a well-attended reception here on 7 June, sponsored by the Town and Country Planning Association, where we heard compelling arguments from a wide range of speakers.
Although I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Bloomfield is replying to this debate, let me say how sorry I am that my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh has stepped down. He won the respect and affection of the House, and I know that he personally moved policy forward on subjects such as leasehold reform and compensation for cladding. He also understood the intricacies of local government finance, which is a mystery to most noble Lords.
The title of this Bill—the Healthy Homes Bill—summarises both its ambition and its challenge. The ambition was explained by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. The challenge is because health and homes are in different departments, and successive attempts to bring the two together have so far stalled. The Bill crystallises our silo approach to issues that cross departmental boundaries, as seen in such other areas as policy on the under-fives and social care.
Paradoxically, as the noble Lord mentioned, 100 years ago the Ministry of Health was responsible for both health and housing; between the two World Wars, that led to a more integrated approach. Indeed, my great-uncle, Sir Hilton Young—he started off as a Liberal but then saw the light and became a Conservative MP—was Minister for Health in the 1930s. He introduced the Housing Act 1935, which set down standards of accommodation—something that this Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, seeks to build on, of which I am sure the old boy would have approved.
Winding forward 40 years, the importance of bringing health and housing together was central to the Black report, published in 1980, about inequalities in health outcomes. This is what it said:
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, on this initiative. I declare my interest as a poor vice-president of the TCPA; I say “poor” because of my lack of contribution over recent years, including being abroad for the reception referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham.
The noble Lord, Lord Young, and I have to stop meeting like this, because it is bad for his political career—well, he does not have a future career, but it is bad for his image within whatever emerges on 5 September. I am pleased to endorse his words about the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh; I also thank him and the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for covering some of the elements that I was going to cover and therefore sparing the House a lengthier speech by me.
It strikes me that, although we understand the responsibility of the individual for their lifestyle and the contribution that they make to their own health, it is the public health elements that are so important. Of course, income is a major driver here, as it is in terms of the kind of housing that all of us can enter into and enjoy. I spent my early years in a house that was built immediately after the war. The lino used to lift in the air when it was windy. It was like a sort of elevation; I could not do a party trick and make it rise up without being lifted, but it sometimes felt like that. The house also lacked double glazing—well, we had a form of glazing in the winter: the ice that formed on the inside of the windows—and the toilet was inside but in the porch opposite the coalhouse. I was lucky because other people were brought up in much worse conditions in the old back-to-back houses.
That is why I think this Bill is so important for our understanding of what we do to our fellow citizens and of how properly designed houses are healthy to live in throughout their lifespan and contribute both to people’s independence and to their contribution to their own well-being. If you live in a decent house that is healthy on a day-to-day basis, the chances of you having and holding down a job are obviously much greater because you will not be taking time off work. The drain on primary and secondary health services will be much less and young people’s chances of connecting to, and remaining connected to, education will increase dramatically.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord and to offer my support for this very important Bill. I cannot bring the same distinguished background and retrospective contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham, and Lord Blunkett, but I can claim to have worked for 13 years in the architects’ department of a new-town development corporation, and the principles which underline this Bill were very much in the minds of those of us who were designing and building that community.
Why do we need this Bill? It may seem odd to noble Lords that there is not already a statutory duty to secure the health, safety and well-being of people living and moving around in homes, but there is not. Consequently, there are thousands of families and millions of children and vulnerable elderly people who find themselves in unsafe, poorly heated, inadequately insulated homes, in neighbourhoods far from green spaces or public transport and all too close to life-threatening sources of pollution and toxic particulates.
We are still building those homes. As the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, pointed out, some recent changes to permitted development rules mean that too many homes are still being built which fail those basic principles. That will blight the occupants of those homes for generations. Housing is an investment made now which lasts for decades—for generations. The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, has pointed out that the decision to abandon the move to zero-carbon standards of building for homes in 2016 means that we have now deliberately built about a million substandard homes. They will have to be retrofitted—that is, changed and upgraded—before we get to 2050, at considerable expense either to the householder or the taxpayer in one form or another. It is that kind of short-sighted thinking, at national and sometimes local level, that I hope very much that the introduction of these principles as a statutory requirement will end completely.
My Lords, I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, persevered and succeeded in ensuring that his Private Member’s Bill is considered. His slogan:
“Health is made at home, hospitals are for repairs”
encapsulates his vision and his objectives admirably. I commend the Town and Country Planning Association, for its excellent work, for its tenacity, and for master-minding this campaign. I am also delighted that the Nationwide Foundation, an independent charity, supports the work of the TCPA. I declare my interest as a trustee of the Nationwide Foundation, whose main objective is to ensure that everyone has access to decent, healthy and affordable homes.
Lack of decent, healthy and affordable housing is one of the most pressing social problems that we face. It causes harm to individuals and families, as well as communities and society. There is, of course, a direct link between housing and poverty. There is compelling evidence about health problems caused by poor-quality housing, noise pollution, damp, cold, inefficient, poorly lit and cramped living conditions; you have only to read the White Paper of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Healthy Homes and Buildings, Building our Future, which was published in 2018. Covid highlighted very poignantly how those in poor and inappropriate accommodation suffered the most.
It is therefore an imperative that the homes in which people live positively contribute to physical and mental well-being, instead of diminishing it. The human cost and cost to the public purse of unhealthy homes is incalculable. The benefits, on the other hand, are enormous. The Bill’s provisions would help to ensure that we have healthy, happy individuals, a lower cost to the National Health Service, better educational attainment, better productivity, reduced emissions and a healthier environment, greater life chances and a reduced burden on social care.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in the Second Reading of this very important Bill. The lead Bishop on housing, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, is sadly unable to be with us. However, she has asked me also to pass on her gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for his work in bringing the Healthy Homes Bill forward.
In his book Reimagining Britain, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote that we need to reimagine housing. He said:
“Reimagined core values and practices in any housing development will be linked to health in many forms. Good communities build financial, physical, mental, spiritual and relational health.”
As the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said, this is about linking not just housing and health but education. In my time as Bishop of Ely, when we have built church schools on crowded new housing estates I have always insisted on having space in front of the schools so that, rather than doubling the cramp that people feel, we have pram plazas rather than pram wars.
One mistake that has been made over and again is to reduce our housing crisis simply to the idea of an excess of demand over supply. The consequence is that we assume that, by building more houses faster, we will somehow sort out the other problems around housing. This excessive focus on the volume of houses to be built has caused us to overlook their quality. In the headlong rush to deliver the numbers, we are compromising on the basic standards for healthy homes. We have lost sight of the purpose, for if we go back to the question of why we are building all these houses, it is to create healthy homes where individuals can thrive and healthy neighbourhoods where social bonds can form, where decent housing provides for productive citizens.
Our nation has a history of slum clearance going back to the 19th century and campaigns after both world wars in the 20th century to build decent new homes. In the 1920s, a young priest called Basil Jellicoe, upon discovering the dire state of his parishioners’ housing in Camden, founded the St Pancras House Improvement Society. His obituary in the Times—he died when he was only 36—said that he
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for this Private Member’s Bill. It is very important because it would improve public health. In defining the healthy homes principles that should underpin planning law and the built environment, it provides a missing link to ensure that the built environment is better regulated. It would establish a clearer link for housing with health and well-being, and give a public duty to the Secretary of State to secure the health, safety and well-being of people in buildings.
As the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and my noble friend Lord Stunell said, we have too many poorly constructed homes—too many homes that lack space and have poor access to green spaces and local services. The crucial point of the Bill and its great benefit is that the healthy homes principles would become legally binding. For example, new homes should not lead to unsafe levels of air pollution, yet poor indoor air quality can increase cardiovascular disease and asthma.
Like many, I have never been happy with the current permitted development rules that permit the conversion of commercial properties to housing with little regulation. They have resulted in some homes lacking access to natural light. Homes that cannot justify the name have been fitted out in premises in business parks and some in industrial estates. In the rush to build more homes to meet the Government’s commitment to 300,000 new homes a year, poor standards have been tolerated when they should not have been. This is the consequence of deregulation—an outcome that was forecast at the time.
As we have heard, the planning system has become fragmented. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, talked about the silo approach in planning and the poor-quality housing that derives from that. That tells me that the proposal for a healthy homes commissioner is key to the success of this Bill because it would provide the essential focus to ensure that standards of health and well-being improve. It is difficult when responsibilities for legislated-for standards are spread across Whitehall—we see it in many spheres. This is one, but we know that if we had a healthy homes commissioner, it would bring the disparity together to enable higher standards to be achieved. I therefore wish the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, every success with this Bill, which I think is an essential part of underpinning our planning system.
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, for his service. I shall miss him.
I congratulate my noble friend Lord Crisp on progressing this excellent Private Member’s Bill and I thank the Town and Country Planning Association, of which I am honoured to be a vice-president, for its great work in promoting this legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, has become justly famous for his advocacy of health creation. This approach is not about healthcare after the event, or even about measures to prevent ill health, but about interventions that positively create good health and well-being. In creating health, the role of the home and its environs is critical.
My contribution to this debate is to highlight three high-level sources of support for this core message embodied in the Healthy Homes Bill. First, earlier this week we saw the launch of a report from an Oxford University commission, which I have had the privilege of chairing, on creating healthy cities. The commission was established by Kellogg College’s Global Centre for Healthcare and Urbanism, in partnership with the Prince’s Foundation. The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, chaired our international advisory board, with added insights from experts across the world.
The commission’s central contention is that built environment interventions that create improved health and well-being, of which housing is the most prominent, should be prioritised in public policies and the allocation of resources. The commission’s point is that this linkage of health with housing and place is key to resolving many of the wicked issues—the most difficult problems of our time. Getting the home and its environment right addresses the stark inequalities in society, fuel poverty, the prosperity and productivity of our cities, our ageing population, the escalating costs of the health service and key components of the climate emergency. The commission recommends that affordable housing output should be stepped up to around one-third of the Government’s overall target of 300,000 new homes each year, but the commission is clear that quality is as important as quantity. New homes are so often criticised for poor design, inadequate space standards, and a lack of green spaces and a decent public realm, as well as for making slow progress towards net-zero emissions. The commission advocates improvements through building regulations, design codes and planning requirements. I commend this new report which endorses the need for the Healthy Homes Bill. It can be found online by searching for “commission on creating healthy cities”.
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People often talk about welfare provision as a safety net, stopping people falling to the ground, but if we want to talk about it in physical acrobatic terms, we should also think of it as a springboard, enabling people to reach higher. It is about not just the negatives of tackling problems but the possibilities and positives of enhancing and enabling lives, creating opportunity, and enabling people and the country to thrive.
Recent history has shown us how inadequate current planning and regulations are even as a safety net, as shown by the acute failures represented in the Grenfell Tower tragedy, where the most basic measures to secure individuals’ physical safety were not implemented. Moreover, look at some of the worst examples of the permitted development regime, where flats have been created from converted offices and commercial buildings with no windows or play space, or on industrial estates which expose residents to noise and pollution.
Even more recently, Covid has exposed the inequalities in our society and, as far as housing was concerned, revealed the problems many face: people were trapped during lockdown in inadequate housing, or overcrowded and ill-ventilated spaces ideal for spreading disease; there were schoolchildren with no space to study and no easy access to outdoor spaces; and some people were, very sadly, trapped with abusive partners. This is housing not acting as a springboard but stunting lives.
Let me deal briefly with two objections to the Bill. Will the proposals slow down development when we have a desperate need for more homes? The answer is that we must not offset quantity with quality: we will live to regret it. Standards matter, and the healthy homes principles matter, and we will pay for the consequences in the long run. Just reflect for a moment on the 1.5 million zero-carbon homes which would have been built to the 2016 zero-carbon standard if the standard had not been abolished. Those homes would now be cheaper to heat and would not require an expensive retrofit to deliver on a net-zero future.
Will the Bill add to the regulatory burden? It could, if implemented properly, reduce it. In the five years since Grenfell, there has been little practical action to change our regulatory approach or the wider culture of public policy on the built environment. Local authorities do their best in an environment where policy is heavily centralised. There have been incremental changes to building regulations and the application of some national housing standards to some aspects of planning. But this incremental tinkering with the system does not reflect the creative ambition we require if people are to be given the opportunity to thrive in healthy places. This Bill seeks to unify our regulatory approach around the single positive objective of securing the health, safety and well-being of individuals and communities. Implemented well, it will remove some of the current contradictions in the system, speed up development and reduce the regulatory burden.
On the positive side, there will be positive impacts on other areas, including the NHS and education. Improving health through improved housing will save costs and reduce impacts on the health and care system. Indeed, the only way we will see pressure taken off the NHS will be by action in other areas, such as housing, education and the environment—but that is a debate for another time.
This Bill is being debated at a time of great frustration over housing. We have waited too long for improvement. It is five years since Grenfell. This Bill provides a coherent vision for the future and a framework for practical action. It is practical and direct. It must be central to any levelling-up agenda. It offers a springboard as well as a safety net, and people in the country will understand what it is all about. Indeed, there is already widespread support among many organisations for it.
Of all the arguments that commend this Bill, it is the simplest that remains the most powerful. Healthy homes are the foundation of hopeful lives, and that sense of hope is vital to the many communities struggling with health inequality, the cost of living and the climate crisis. I beg to move.
“The consequences, and importance, of housing policies for other areas of social policy, including health policies, have received increasing recognition in recent years—as have the problems of co-ordination deriving in part from the location of responsibilities for housing and personal social services … and Health services.”
It went on to say:
“The adequate housing of families with children must be a priority if class inequalities in health are to be eliminated”—
as in the Bill before us today. Just after that report was published, I moved from being a Health Minister to being a Housing Minister. I vividly recall being visited in my new office by the then Chief Medical Officer, who asked whether he could switch some of his health budget to housing as he believed this would be the best use of resources.
The Black report was followed up nearly 20 years later by the Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health—the Acheson report—which came up with recommendations that could be seen as predecessors of the Bill before us. It said:
“We recommend policies which improve the availability of social housing for the less well off within a framework of environmental improvement, planning and design which takes into account social networks, and access to goods and services”—
the very principles captured in Clause 3 of this Bill. I hope that the Bill makes progress to the statute book but my experience of Private Members’ Bills is that this does not always happen. So, my question to the Minister is whether some of the objectives in Clause 3 —for example, that
“all … living areas and bedrooms … should have access to natural light”
and that new homes should provide “year-round thermal comfort”—can be implemented using existing powers.
If it is the case that some of the Bill’s objectives can be achieved by secondary legislation or by amending existing guidance, the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, may feel that this is progress he can build on for a fresh assault later.
We know from the conditions that exist at the moment, with pollution that is vastly impacting the climate around us, what a difference it makes when children do not have bronchial and asthmatic problems, which are often exacerbated severely by the conditions that they live in. We all pay attention to the issue of insulation. We now must match that with an understanding of ventilation and with overcoming the built-in tragedy of people living in houses that have water running down the walls and the choice of having the window open or having damp inflicted on them. When people live in good conditions, not just within the home but in the design of the house and the design of the community around them allowing them to enjoy amenities, their life chances are transformed.
We need to learn from the past, from the model villages in Scotland and West Yorkshire, the work of Rowntree’s and Cadbury, and the homes established by Wedgwood. It was one of the drivers, but nevertheless an important one, for Wedgwood, that if his employees lived in a decent house, the chance of them putting in a good shift was much greater and the chance of them dropping out of work was much less. The logic is one of economy as well as of public health. The logic is one of liberating people to be independent and self-reliant, as well as of communal duty and obligation to each other. You can see immediately that if you get it right from the beginning, you reduce public expenditure in the long term.
My final point is about ageing. The work described by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and which was referred to earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, about reports that have occurred over the generations, from the 1980 to the 2020 reports, is matched by work in relation to ageing, which was done by Professor Alan Walker at Sheffield University, whom I know very intimately. I am not directly associated with the voluntary body, ARCO, but I have dealings with it. If we get design of homes for different times in our lives right, we can liberate people in a way that, again, reduces the cost of social care. So often, people end up in residential care because the home that they live in is entirely unsuitable to maintaining their good health and well-being in the place that they loved and knew. That is true of mild dementia too, where people get even more confused when they are moved into unknown environments in which they are unfamiliar with their surroundings and with what is happening to them. The more that we can invest in homes fit for the future, not just fit for heroes, as they said after the First World War, we will turn our society around. I am really pleased to support this Bill.
The Bill applies only to new homes but I very much hope that the principles set out here will become a benchmark for existing homes. We have yet to hear the Minister’s response to this Bill, but I join others in saying that much as I will welcome her contribution, it is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, cannot deliver it in the ebullient style that we had become used to. I hope very much that the Government understand that this is an important and necessary step which ought to set the framework not just for new building but for how we think about upgrading—a better word than retrofitting—our existing homes so that they are suitable for the 21st century and its climate.
It is a framework Bill, not an answer-to-everything Bill. However, it establishes responsibilities and duties, nationally and locally; it sets out an overarching set of principles to apply, which I have just mentioned and which the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, enunciated in his introduction; and it sets out a reporting mechanism with an accountability to Parliament, meaning that it will not be possible for Governments or local authorities to slide away from their responsibility. To keep all that on track, it proposes a healthy homes commissioner, who will be independent of the Government and able to have oversight of this process. Crucially, it also empowers local planning authorities to plan for building safe and affordable homes for those on average and below-average incomes in their areas. There is a terrible shortage of such accommodation in practically every area of the country, and the press reports yesterday of record rental levels in London only underline the shortage of suitable accommodation, with many stories accompanying that news of people who are desperately seeking accommodation which is in any way suitable for habitation at all.
This Bill fills a surprising gap in our legislative armoury and can play a significant role in ending the damage and detriment caused to far too many children and citizens by the poverty of our current housing stock and the unhealthy surroundings that they have. I wish this Bill a speedy passage.
Unfortunately, changes in housing over the years have often been piecemeal, with very little thought given to their wider implications. I will give just one example. Some houses built through permitted development even lack access to natural light, and thousands more have been built in office parks and industrial estates. They have been described as “slums of the future”.
This has resulted in an unbalanced system that is not fit for purpose and does not meet people’s essential needs, particularly those who are vulnerable and disadvantaged. We know that the most vulnerable are more likely to live in unhealthy homes that are damp, energy inefficient, noisy and poorly ventilated. Given rising energy prices and the cost of living crisis, it is even more important that the Government act now to ensure that homes and buildings do not cause or exacerbate poor health and well-being.
This Bill is a real opportunity for government action. As the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said, it would create a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that all relevant policy secures healthy homes; provide a definition of a healthy home and legally binding principles that should underpin it, as developed by the TCPA; join up the housing and planning systems in pursuit of healthy homes and neighbourhoods; and simplify and strengthen the way that the built environment is regulated.
In short, the Bill would transform the regulation of the built environment to ensure that new homes and neighbourhoods support residents’ health and well-being. It would also provide significant scope for the Government to pursue those objectives, standards and policies that they deem to be most effective and would directly contribute to the levelling-up, climate change and affordable housing agendas. It is a real opportunity for a holistic and fundamental change at a time when there are opportunities through other legislation to adopt the Bill. I urge the Government to embrace the Bill, as the rationale for it is unassailable.
“resolved that he would not rest till his people had homes fit to live in, and the rehousing schemes started by his society have already provided many excellent flats with gardens, trees, ponds, swings for the children, and other amenities.”
It is concerning that, despite these works and many like them in the post-war developments, in many respects the quality of homes in this country has gone backwards in the last few decades. When I was a curate in Gateshead, high-quality social housing produced many fine athletes. It is terrible that the housing that is being provided now produces children who can barely breathe. That there are no legally enforceable standards across many aspects of our housing design and construction means that many have been forced to live in poor-quality, overcrowded housing. It is an ironic reflection on our current housing market that homes for sale with good-sized rooms and spacious gardens are not found on new developments but are often ex-council houses, such as the ones I knew back in the 1980s.
It is right and very welcome that the Bill seeks to introduce “healthy homes principles” to be committed to, implemented and monitored. I am sure noble Lords will agree that these principles are good and appropriate. They seek to reduce fire risk, provide liveable space, ensure access to natural light, accessibility, inclusivity and resilience to climate change in homes that are secure and reduce noise and light pollution.
Finally, in drawing my remarks to a close, I observe the affinity of the principles set out in the Healthy Homes Bill with those set out in the Church of England’s Coming Home report—those being the five “S” principles that good housing should be sustainable, safe, stable, sociable and satisfying. I and other Lords spiritual look forward to working with the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, to support this Bill’s passage.
My second source of backing for the intentions of the Bill comes from the report of your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Built Environment, Meeting Housing Demand. I am proud to be a member of that committee. This report points to the problems of quality standards in new-build homes from volume housebuilders. It makes the point that poor-quality housing has a significant impact on public health. The Built Environment Committee’s report gave special emphasis to the need for well-designed, manageable, accessible and companionable housing for older people, a desperate need illustrated today by the news of record delays in hospital admissions from ambulances, so often because beds are full of people who cannot return to unsuitable homes. In that context, I ask the Minister for advice on progress with the establishment of the Government’s housing for older people task force, which was announced last year.
My third reference for support for action on healthy homes is the Government’s own levelling up White Paper. This states
“Having a decent home is fundamental to our well-being”.
Despite all the hazards around us—Covid, war, inflation and political turmoil—the levelling-up agenda could and should mean substantial investment in place-based initiatives that promote healthy homes within a decent environment. Can the Minister confirm that the Government’s commitment to this levelling-up agenda remains unwavering in these volatile times?
The Healthy Homes Bill’s aim of ensuring that the nation’s housing contributes positively to health and well-being in every respect is reflected in growing recognition and support from many quarters. This important Bill definitely deserves to move to the next stage, and I wish it a safe passage.