Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 82
1st Report - Meeting housing demand
Published 10 Jan 2022
Built Environment Committee Meeting the UK’s housing demand All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Around 7,500 new retirement properties were built in 2019. The current housing composition of the later living sector is: Retirement housing: 67.5% social rent (505,783 units) 21.3% private sale (159,687) 0.4% private rent (2,836) Extra care/housing-with-care: 7.7% social rent (57,690) 2.8% private sale (21,284) 0.2% private rent (1,722) 150 Box 3: International housing-with-care best practice Housing-with-care combines independent living with 24/7 onsite staffing, social care and communal facilities and services. In New Zealand, Australia and the USA at least 5–6% of the over-65 population has the option to live in housing-with-care. In the UK, this is just 0.6%. Following the introduction of sector-specific regulation and legislation, the housing-with-care sector in New Zealand has flourished. Five out of the top 15 residential housebuilders in the country are retirement community operators, including the top housebuilder, Ryman Healthcare. Source: Written evidence from the Associated Retirement Community Operators ( UKH0011 )
From: Built Environment Committee, 1st Report - Meeting housing demand, 10 January 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 28 March 2022 (deadline 10 March 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the Committee's report and says it is "taking action on a number of the issues identified", agreeing with some recommendations while disagreeing with others, including on home ownership schemes and the Apprenticeship Levy.
- It "disagrees with the report's assessment that homeownership schemes do not provide good value for money", citing independent evaluations and its own evaluation of Help to Buy.
- On older people's housing, it is launching a new taskforce "this year", chaired by the Minister for Housing, to look at better choice, quality and security of housing.
- It does "not intend to set out a proportion" of Affordable Homes Programme funding for social housing, though "around half" of the affordable homes are to be for social and affordable rent.
- On the Apprenticeship Levy it says it has "no plans to review" it. On planning fees it is "exploring options" to increase them, and on local plans it will make an announcement "in due course".