Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 84
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)
There was a debate among witnesses about older people under-occupying larger, family homes. On the one hand, we heard that a “lack of retirement housing” is “one of the key factors contributing towards older people staying in large, unsuitable houses for longer instead of downsizing.” 153 This can cause “stagnation in the housing market, as it prevents younger buyers from trading up to larger houses, which in turn prevents first-time buyers from entering the housing market at all” and can “result in older people needing to spend more time in hospitals and care homes as their homes do not meet their needs”. 154 McCarthy Stone said that it is “becoming increasingly clear that there is a large bottleneck at the top of the housing market, particularly with the abundance of older people who want to downsize and are not able to.” 155
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".